Autumn harvest

[shewhomust]

Autumn's moving on fast, so when durham_rambler asked me if I had any ideas about where to walk today, I said "woodland" and then, because we haven't been walking much lately, I'm rather out of practice and - although today was a lovely bright autumn day - it has been wet, "but on easy paths, not slithering down muddy slopes".

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That'd be a partial success, then. There were definitely woods. There was also a certain amount of muddy slithering. There were, for a walk designed to catch the autumn colours while they last, a surprising number of steam trains. And there were two bushes' worth of sloes, which should make a bottle of gin (so we'll have to go and get a bottle of gin).

We set off from Eden Place picnic area, near Beamish, walked through woods and then over the ridge of a hill along a field edge path (this is where we found the sloes) to the Tanfield Railway, which we followed back to Causey Arch. We lunched in the picnic area there (fine view of passing trains) then carried on the headquarters of the railway at Andrews House (train steaming out of the station as we arrived). We followed the railway walk until it crossed the Tyne Wear Trail, and followed that until we reached Hedley Hall woods, through which a path ran back to Pockerley, and so by the back way into Beamish Museum.

We were in green fields and forests all day, with very little road work, yet we were never free of traffic noise. Sometimes this was mixed with the puffing and whistling of the trains, but it was always audible until, at the very end, the sound of modern traffic was replaced by the deeper noise of 1910 - and we took advantage of the Beamish transport system to take a vintage bus back to the museum entrance, close to our starting point.

A Google map establishes that the walk was just short of 8 miles, of which 1/4 mile on the vintage bus.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Wow, do I envy you these walks!

Here, it's "which street has the lesser amount of traffic clogging it, so I don't have to breathe as much exhaust with my smog?"

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear.

I'm sure big city life has its upside, but I am so glad to live in a very small city.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

That sounds lovely.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

Thank you: I'm very conscious that the posts about our walks are here primarily as an aide-memoire for myself - so it's more than ever a pleasure if other people enjoy them too.