Category Archives: Walks

Grange to Cark

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A very still, sunny, cold day, so I headed for the hills. The poetry post at Grange was totally out of synch with today’s weather. It was lovely to feel sunshine again – it’s been two and a half weeks since the last bright day – but there were still some icy parts.

I’ve done part of this walk over Hampsfell and down to Cark station before; I remembered certain bits but wondered where other bits were – then realised that I was cutting it short by going via Cartmel rather than Beck Side. A couple of fords and some cattle; snowdrops, sounds of woodpeckers, a barn owl (perhaps) and skylarks on Hampsfell. I could have done without seeing massed segway riders at Cartmel, but that’s just me being cantankerous.

Bird walk

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It’s been too cold recently to want to go for a walk but too sunny not to feel around 2.30 p.m. that I’ve wasted the day. So I caught the bus and walked back along the estuary, grumbling to myself about the cold wind. The tide was high. Lots of widgeon, herons and egrets, curlews in a field and – on the wonderfully etched mudflats – lapwings and (I think) dunlin. The dunlin made the lapwings look enormous, and the lapwings made the curlews look gigantic. As for the herons . . .

Staveley to Kendal II

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This time I set off north from Staveley rather than south, via Potter Tarn and the River Kent. It was a cold, grey, windless day; mercifully it has been dry for over a week, so there was no slippery mud to contend with on the up/downhill sections.

Truth be told, it was quite a dull walk. It sounds great to have views of the Lakeland hills, but – not wishing to sound ungrateful – a grey day highlights the monogreen bareness of the land. Thank goodness for serendipity: hens, another Thirlmere gate (built to enable engineers to maintain the Thirlmere aqueduct) and my first sighting of massed St George’s flags on an estate in Kendal. I’m still thinking about the latter.

Staveley to Kendal

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It was a sunny day so I went for a walk. There’s been a lot of rain so I used byways as much as possible – muddy, but less muddy and more easily navigable than the footpath I took south of Staveley. I’ve never splashed mud up to my knees before.

The strong shadows turned the landscape into an abstract work of art. I was rather flummoxed at the ford – until I noticed the little bridge. On Gamblesmire Lane I looked for the bee nest in the hollow tree, but the sun had disappeared by then and there was no sign of bees.

Hadrian’s Wall

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Last night I saw the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn for the first time. Also a close-up of the full moon, so large that it barely fitted in the eyepiece. We were very fortunate: it had been so murky a day that I had no expectation of clear skies – and, indeed, everything clouded over again just as we were finishing.

I started today by misreading the bus timetable. A mild, misty day with the promise of sunshine. I definitely didn’t want to wait two hours for another bus so set off on foot for a path that included a “Ford” marked on the map! The route I chose was cautious rather than direct (and, yippee, the dreaded “Ford” was furnished with a footbridge), and I reached Hadrian’s Wall at the Temple of Mithras. I had the impression from the map that this wasn’t a great stretch to walk – close to the road and the sound of traffic – but it was wonderful. I had the path to myself and I wasn’t expecting to come across the short section of wall still standing.

At Chollerford – far too early for the bus to Wark – I decided to catch a bus into Hexham for a coffee and a newspaper and return from there. A quite wonderful 24 hours.

Bellingham

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It rained all morning. And was still raining when I caught the noon bus to Bellingham to walk back. I’ve decided against unknown footpaths – and definitely not those marked with “Ford” on the OS map – so, after going inside St Cuthbert’s Church (thick slate roof which must weigh a ton), I walked back to Wark on minor roads.

It didn’t rain, it was mild, there was little wind, and even in the gloom there was an autumnal glow. What’s not to like? Just after my lunch stop I saw something marked as a “Cross” in Gothic letters on the map. Streams were fast-flowing and traffic was very light. I was glad to have been active and interested in my surroundings on so unpromising a day; as I walked along I listed to myself all the reasons that I actually enjoy this.