The Sea of Purple

[shewhomust]

I continue to be taken by surprise at how abruptly the landscape through which I am moving can change: even when I am walking, and so not moving very fast.

On Monday we walked up a side valley from Wolsingham, between farms and patches of woodland and an abandoned quarry, and came out onto tawny grass uplands - cattle country that seemed to stretch on for miles. But a ladder stile over a dry stone wall took us out into the heather, and suddenly we were in an ocean of purple, great waves of it, billowing in the wind. It hid the ground beneath it so that you were never sure whether the next step would take you ankle deep or above the knees, and it flowed together to cover any trace of a path. And the honey scent of it was rich enough to make my head spin.

Comments

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

This tract of heather was access land, ie because it is moorland we have now the right to roam all over it, rather than sticking to the public footpaths. Which was just as well because about ten metres in, the route of the footpath we would previously had to have kept to became distinctly unclear.