View from Oban Bothy

View from Oban Bothy
Showing posts with label Brain-straightening. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brain-straightening. Show all posts

Wednesday 17 September 2014

Wednesday 17th Sept, off to Spain on an aeroplane

Via de la Plata – a bit of a walk

Arco de Caparra on the Via de la Plata

Later today I’ll be flitting off to Spain, on my ownsome, for some serious brain-straightening and a goodly amount of walking.

The Plan (Ho-ho!) is to fly to Madrid then travel by bus to Salamanca where I’ve booked myself into the flashy Revolutum Hostel for the night. I’ll set off north-ish the next morning.

I’m only over there for a couple of weeks so I won’t get to the end of the route at Santiago de Compostela but I’m not particularly mithered about that – I want to spend some time doing the culture-thing as well as the walking.

I’ll try to blog en-route although it depends whether I can get WiFi connections – mobile internet is an expensive do over there.

The Via de la Plata is one of the Camino pilgrimage routes and whilst it’s not terribly popular it’s an interesting route, there’s all manner of Roman remains to gawp at. I must buy extra film for the camera.

Watch this space.

Wednesday 20 August 2014

19th August 2014, Trying to get fit

The Original Plan (Plan A) was to go out for an evening trot with the Cheshire Hash House Harriers but other stuff came up that meant I had to give the Hash a miss.

Plan B was dreamt up instead:

I’ve done this route before – it’s basically from Timperley to the outskirts of Warrington. The outward leg is along the The Transpennine Trail, whilst the return leg is along the Bridgewater Canal towpath obstacle course….a section of the towpath is being improved, something to do with SusTrans I think.

The Plan was to jog 5 minutes / walk 5 minutes, then as I got a bit tired, the walking bit would be extended to 10 minutes….and by the time I’d hit around 13/14 miles I would extend the walking bits to 15 minutes. In my defence, M’Lud, the walking bits were very strenuous – I walked as fast as I could.

The straight bits are along the TransPennine Trail:

image

So….18 miles with about 300ft of upness: 3hrs 41mins. And tired legs. Must try harder.

Little outings like this are good for the head, I’ll be doing them more often.

Monday 30 June 2014

Sunday 30th June 2013, Midlands Magic

Anyone who enjoys the great outdoors doesn’t need telling of it’s spirit-enhancing powers. Having had a particularly crappy couple of weeks I felt the need to ‘get out there’.
Ideas for a long trip are now being put together, but in the meantime a shorter, single day walk was needed as a matter of urgency.
Today’s little jaunt was c/o Outdoors Magic, a fine bunch of folks who inhabit t’interweb, hilly bits of countryside….and the odd pub. Or two.
Simon was the main instigator, and being as wot he lives in Leek a wander around The Roaches was deemed appropriate. Since the idea was first mooted, the list of those wishing to attend just growed and growed. Eventually eleven bodies (well it was eleven if you include the three doggies) assembled in the car park of the Three Horseshoes pub at Blackshaw Moor. The sun was shining a bit and my choice of shorts had proved to be a good ‘un – although my white and pimply legs stood out against the muscly, tanned legs of the other OMers.
It was good to catch up with Skip, The Teesdale Viking, and Ella – her doggy. The rest of the group were strangers to me – but there did seem to be a lot of Mikes in attendance.
P1020494First up of the day
The Roaches, Hen Cloud and Ramshaw Rocks are a rocky escarpment formed from gritstone and their appearance is quite spectacular. The area is very popular with rock-climbers, indeed we saw a goodly number out today.
P1020496 First stop of the day, Simon (our glorious leader on the Left)
Up and down we went. Then up and down again. To be honest I’m not at all sure where were went. I spent a good half-hour looking at my map this evening, and apart from picking out a few features that I knew we visited I just can’t be sure of the route. What I can say about the route with absolute certainty is that is was a bit good – not the usual trade-route along the Roaches to Lud’s Church and back.
So, anyway, I’ll just write less about the route – and put up some nice photos.
P1020500Posing on top of the escarpment
There are plenty of wonderfully-shaped tors and other rock formations in the area, imagination can run riot when looking at some of them:
P1020505
P1020511 A face?
P1020521 Reptile Head
P1020522 
He’s got more bottle than me!
P1020526
Crag rats
P1020535
Even more Crag Rats
P1020548 
P1020533
The Queen’s Chair
Although why the Queen’s Chair is so named is a bit of a mystery – especially as the spot was visited by the Prince and Princess of Teck a bit back:
P1020532I tink Teck is German or perhaps has some German connection. I dunno. I shall have to ask 'er indoors – she knows everything.
More views over the surrounding (and some quite distant) countryside:
P1020553 Alderley Edge
P1020558
The pimple on the skyline is The Matterhorn Shutlingsloe
After not a lot of time we dropped into Lud’s Church, which isn’t a church – but a cave. and not really a cave because it’s not go a lid on it. It’s really just a deep and rocky gully. Because it’s so deep there are lots of ferns and probably a few rare plants down there, the conditions are moist and quite stable.
P1020560
P1020565
P1020568 The remains of a very rare money tree
Here’s a map with Lud’s Church on – highlighted with a little red flag:
image It’ll give you some idea of the terrain but it won’t show the mud in Lud’s church.
Lud’s Church behind we sort-of turned back, south-eastish through Forest Wood (isn’t that a bit like saying Wood Wood….or Tree Forest?) that followed the valley of Black Brook. A bit of a tug up to Roach End – and an ice-cream van. Well it would have been rude not to. So I wasn’t, and after parting with £2 I was presented with an enormous and delicious ice-cream. And it was none of yer Mr Whipee crap. Oh no, this was REAL ice-cream. Yum!
Some of our party chose to walk along the top of The Roaches, whilst others (me included)followed the very pleasant road back. There was very little difference, timewise – we were all back at the car-park within a few minutes of each other.
‘Twas a good day out, just what the doctor ordered. Thanks to the entire party for letting me come along, for sharing, for putting up with me – especially Meravingian for making it happen.
I think we ended up doing around 13.5 miles and we seemed to visit Hen Cloud, Ramshaw Rocks, Roaches Ridge and Lud’s Church – although we missed out the spectacular Hanging Rock. I’ve been to Hanging Rock loads of times, but it still takes my breath away from the top!  Hopefully some kind soul will tell be where we actually went today so I can put up a route map.
More pics, including some really interesting shots of the rock formations.

Saturday 27 July 2013

Thursday 26th July, to Brereton, Macclesfield and Gawsworth

My mate Mark is currently unable to drive because of a buggered tendon and I offered to transport him to hospital for his bits to be fettled – in return for which he very generously treated me to lunch at Gawsworth’s  Harrington Arms (rather fine Robinson’s). We usually go to The Harrington to play music at the regular Friday evening sessions.
The journey to Mark’s was slower than usual…and my camera was on the passenger seat of the car:
P1020455    What???
P1020456 
Lunch stop, The Harrington – we usually go there on a Friday evening to play music. I was there playing music only last Friday, ‘twas a rather very excellent evening!
P1020458 
Mark in hop-along mode
Brereton, home to odd-ball bears:
P1020459
P1020460
P1020461 
P1020462
Jodrell Bank Radio Telescope, last seen from The Gritstone Trail a couple of weeks ago:
P1020463
It was good to catch up with Mark – especially being able to enjoy a leisurely lunch with him: thanks Mark!

Sunday 30 June 2013

Staffordshire stuff


A few pics from today's Outdoors Magic walk around The Roaches. Sorry about the very poor quality, they were taken on my phone and it was set to horribly low resolution so there was half a chance of being able to post using mobile internet..
A fuller report will follow in a bit.


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