Sunday 6th July 2014, LDWA Red Rose 100 recce, Day 1

 

The East Lancs LDWA are hosting the annual 100 mile walk on behalf of the Long Distance Walkers Association, LDWA, in 2015.

This event is the LDWA’s flagship event. Held every year in a different part of the country, to coincide with the late May Bank Holiday,
This is a record of my recce of the route that I backpacked over 6 days in July 2014, shortly after the route had been publicised.

The full route description can be read here on the LDWA website.

Adlington to Blackburn

My original plan of a morning start was tweaked for two reasons: firstly it was a hot day and I didn’t want to be walking into increasing temperatures, secondly I was planning a stealth camp that first night and didn’t want to be arriving at my planned overnight pitch too early, and thirdly I hadn’t got my backside into gear. Three reasons.
I’d arranged to park my car outside the house of legendary long distance walker Reg, a former Timperley resident. Reg now lives in Adlington, near Chorley which is perilously close to the official start of the main route and so it suited perfectly. I now owe Reg a substantial quantity of beer in exchange for his kindness. Thanks Reg!
Anyroadup, I left Reg’s at around 3pm in hot sunshine and headed off in a sort of Easterly direction. East is good you know.

Rivington Reservoirs

I crossed over the dam that carries the road across Rivington Reservoirs to Rivington Hall, a favourite haunt of motorcyclists on sunny Sunday afternoons.

Rivington Hall 

There were loads of flashy bikes around but the one that caught my eye was a beautifully restored Greeves fitted with a modified Villiers 197 engine:

The Greeves from t’other side, and some of the other bikes 

Leaving the hustle and bustle of Rivington, the route climbed through Rivington Country Park, a legacy of Lord Leverhulme. The paths were easy to follow and quite busy, loads of folk were out and about for gentle afternoon ambles in the lovely sunshine.

An artist with his very clever French Easel….

  ….that packs away to this. Clever eh?

 

The Pigeon Tower where there were reet good views over t’Lancashire countryside

Looking ahead to the main event next May (which I shan’t be doing) some of the stony tracks are likely to cause the front runners a problem. I suspect one or two may take the odd tumble on the uneven surface:

The route went over Horden Stoops, down to the village of Belmont and then skirted the southern shore of Belmont Reservoir before joining the Witton Weavers Way and then to Slipper Lowe, the site of the event’s Checkpoint 1.   

Belmont Reservoir

The path to the site of Hollinshead Hall and Slipper Lowe

The picturesque site of Checkpoint 1

Next point of significance was Darwen Tower, or more accurately Jubilee Tower. This rather magnificent structure, completed in 1898, was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

Jubilee Tower

It’s not a difficult pull up to the top but I decided to eat my butties before, to paraphrase Julia Bradbury, ‘the final assault on the summit’.

India Mill Chimney, viewed from Darwen Jubilee Tower

The only navigational problem I had on this first day was from Tockholes, after descending from the tower. Both the map and the route description tallied perfectly, but the footpath signpost was completely contradictory – I suspect the signpost may have been deliberately aligned to confuse.

Footpath to nowhere 

I ended up going off-route – but not a lot. A tarmac detour did the trick and I was back on the proper route. Perhaps a 20 minute faff.
My planned stealth camp for the night was in Witton Park, Blackburn. ‘City’ stealth pitches are far from ideal and I wasn’t really relishing the prospect. Walking though a grassy field, just south of the M65, I spotted a lovely secluded and hidden corner – just the job. There was even a stream very close by. It didn’t think it wise to drink the stream water, even after boiling, I was glad to have brought my Travel Tap water filter with me.
Unfortunately the warm evening was quite still. And there were trees. And that stream. And therefore midges. Thankfully there was also Deet.
Overall this had been a very easy section to navigate and really quite pleasurable. The only fly in the ointment was the Tockholes Navigational Faff which will be reported to The Commitee for further investigation.

Where I went:

A more detailed view of the route can be found on Viewranger.

100 mile walkies

I’ve not been sleeping at all well of late, so….

Tomorrow morning I’ll be setting out to walk from Rivington in Lancashire to, er, Rivington in Lancashire – a distance of 100 miles.

The route I’ll be following is that of next year’s LDWA 100 event, The Red Rose 100. The Plan (I love A Plan!) is for me to walk the route in about 6 days, stealth / wild camping en-route.

Those taking part in the actual event itself next May will have to complete the route in 48 hours. I’m taking the easy option.

The route:

 That’s Rivington at the bottom, where the red blob is. I’ll be going widdershins.

If anybody fancies coming along, a GPX file can be found on Viewranger here. If the link doesn’t work just go on Viewranger and search for ‘LDWA Red Rose 100’. I’ll be checking my emails as and when I can – my email address can be found somewhere on the right of this page.

I’m intending doing 17 – 20 miles a day, camping where I can – the spreadsheet below is my feeble attempt at getting as organised as Gayle. I think I’ve very successfully failed!

CP No	Camp	Location	Map Ref	Mileage
1		Slipper Low car park	SD664203	8.5
2		St Francis Church Hall, Feniscliffe	SD662268	16
	Stealth camp	Witton Country Park	SD657277	17
	Scout campsite	Bowley CS	SD734339	25.5
3		Whalley Village Hall	SD734361	27
	Stealth camp	Fellwood	SD812398	34
4		Barley Village Hall	SD822402	35
5		Downham Village Hall	SD787440	40
	YHA camping barn	West Lane Farmhouse, Downham	SD795445	41
	BPC campsite	Fields House Farm	SD766456	43
6		Bolton-by-Bowland	SD785493	44
7		Tosside Community Hall	SD769560	49
	Hartley's Farm CS	Tosside	SD769555	49
8		Slaidburn Village Hall	SD713523	56
	YHA	Slaidburn YHA	SD711523	56
9		Dunsop Bridge Village Hall	SD657501	61
	Wild camp	E of Totridge	SD642488	63.5
10		Chipping Village Hall	SD621432	68
	YHA camping barn	Clark House Farm	SD616435	68
	BPC campsite	Lower Core Farm	SD587439
11		Hurst Green Memorial Hall	SD684382	76
	BPC campsite	Lower Alston Farm, Ribchester	SD649349	80
12		Mellor Brook Community Centre	SD641312	84
13		Hoghton Village Hall	SD614264	89
	Stealth camp	Leeds Liverpool Canal towpath, Riley Green	SD624251	90
14		St Lukes Church Hall, Brinscall	SD629214	94

I hope this will help my sleep pattern. I’ll be back in a week.

Lunch on High Spy

A last minute brain-straightening backpack in Cumbria. The weather has been glorious for the last couple of days although rain is forecast for tomorrow.

The photo is my view looking north from my lunch stop at the cairn on High Spy.

Hidden from view is my intended pitch for tonight,  Keswick = beer and fish and chips.

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.

First 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.

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.

Posing 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:

 A face?

 Reptile Head

 

He’s got more bottle than me!

Crag rats

Even more Crag Rats

 

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:

I 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:

Alderley Edge

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.

 The remains of a very rare money tree

Here’s a map with Lud’s Church on – highlighted with a little red flag:

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.

Friday 16th May, TGOC2014 Day 8

Derry Lodge to Braemar

This was planned as an easy-peasy day, and so it was.

Derry Lodge. And some trees. 

The weather was good – our tents were dry so there minimal faffing before setting off to our first destination of the day – Mar Lodge.

With leaving Glen Derry behind came the realisation that we were also bidding farewell to the real rufty-tufty wilderness. Apart from the Fife of course!

 

No biscuits!

Image c/o McVitie’s

In recent years Mar Lodge has been a very welcome port of call for passing Challengers, offering refreshments and even accommodation to those in the know. I’d told Alan all about the legendary welcome offered here and he was looking forward to his visit as much as I was. Imagine our horror, sadness, disappointment even, to find that this year Mar Lodge wasn’t providing biscuits.

Other Challengers were clearly equally shocked by this revelation. The usual banter was noticeably absent – we were dumbstruck. It can only have been down to the recession. It’s the cutbacks y’see.

We had a quick explore before heading off to Braemar:

Spectacularly horrific. There must be 700-800 trophies hanging here.

Alan hadn’t yet experienced the excruciatingly boring road walk into Braemar, and well, I didn’t want him to miss out on what has become a Challenge rite-of-passage. So that’s the way we went.

  Alan on Victoria Bridge

Looking back over the River Dee

 Braemar wildlife

We stayed at Kate’s very excellent Rucksacks Braemar bunkhouse. We were beginning to feel almost human after cleansing showers, washing our kit through and excellent grub at The Old Bakery (purveyors of very fine meals to Challengers). This eatery has become something of a focal point for Challengers in recent years, deservedly so.

Braemar has become popular with motorcyclists and there were some fine examples of British stuff:

 Two Norton Commandos

Triumph Bonneville 750

Both the Triumph and the Nortons represent the death-throes of the British motorcycle industry. Both engines are OLD and developed well beyond their capabilities. The Triumph’s 55bhp engine, for example, is a development of a 27bhp engine designed by Edward Turner in 1937.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around in a decadent and rather lazy manner (nice!): eating, drinking, socialising…..the things a couple of chaps need to do. It was great to catch up with other Challengers. It was quite busy in the Fife even though we were a day ahead of the main wave of Challengers.

We had an early night. It hadn’t been a long day but relaxing is a tiring business.

Wot we did: 14km with 200m ascent…but 290m DESCENT!

If you study the map you may notice that this wasn’t actually the route we took – Alan needed to do that tarmac into Braemar. Just so he’d know how boring it is.

Thursday 15th May, TGOC2014 Day 7

Aviemore to Derry Lodge via Cafe Akto (Cairngorm Club Footbridge branch). Not.

We did a bit of shopping in down-town Aviemore: lunch for Viv’s long train journey home, odds and sods for Alan and I. Leaving Viv to find her way to the railway station, Alan and I set off in an Easterly direction (East is good…..etc) to meet up with Cafe Akto (Cairngorm Club Footbridge branch) for bacon butties and coffee.

We missed the turn-off from the road and ended up taking the Loch Morlich / Rothiemurchus Lodge footpath to the Lairig Ghru instead. This meant we missed Cafe Akto. A bit of a faff but I suppose our waistlines were safer for the lack of bacon butties.

The start of the climb up through the Lairig Ghru – and Alan in the distance

The Lairig Ghru isn’t a hard climb in decent weather, it’s just a slog. It got quite breezy on the top and there was a goodly amount of hard, frozen snow around – much of it covering the horrible rock-fall bits on the top. As long a care was taken, it made for a much easier traverse than without the snow.

Dedicated to the memory of Col. Angus Sinclair, died 1954 on the slopes of Cairn Gorm. And that’s Alan disappearing into the distance.

Un-snow covered rocks. Horrible to cross

Looking back at Aviemore. Honest. 

Snow sculpture

The wonderfully crystal-clear Pools of Dee

Soon after the Pools of Dee we began to descend. Up until this point the streamlets were shrinking in size the higher we got. Less water flowing y’see.

Over the watershed and water flowing t’other way, the watercourses gradually grew in size. It was still a long way to our destination – and I was quite knackered.

Walking south, descending the Lairig Ghru 

I caught Alan up close to Corrour, he was chatting to Ian (can’t remember his surname I’m afraid) who had a really nice pitch close to the path whilst far enough away from the bothy. We really didn’t want to stop at Corrour Bothy, it’s not the nicest place to spend the night and we were quite determined to push on to Derry Lodge.

At around 8 – 8.15pm we rolled up at Derry Lodge, more than a bit tired. A few tents were pitched around 100 yards away, not Challengers though.

Breezy pitch at Derry Lodge

The clear waters of the Dee 

Once our tents were up and we’d eaten, other than using the en-suite, I don’t think either of us left our tents that night.

I slept well.

This is where we went: 19 miles / 2600’ of ascent

25th June 2014, Does size matter?

Time for a changNow that the nights are closing in I’ve been spending time doing other stuff in the long and dark evenings. Like thinking about things.

One of the things that has been bouncing around my little brain is size. Well not particularly size per se, but the units of measurement used to specify size – length and height in particular.
I’m thinking more of the units of measurement I use when describing a route that I’ve walked or cycled.
Should I use good old imperial feet and inches, or the new-fangled SI, metric system?
‘Imperial’ does sound rather superior though. On the other hand it’s much easier to calculate in units of 10 rather that 12, 25.4, 36, 1760 etc.
Kilometres fly by so much more quickly than miles – but there’s always more of them to cover. Ascent in metres is a whole different ball game when measured in feet. It’s a perception thing.
It’s a tough one.
These things are important. In 1999 NASA lost the $125 million Mars Climate Orbiter because an outsourced engineering team used imperial units of measurement whilst the NASA team used the metric system for a particular spacecraft operation.
From the ever informative wired.com:

Metric Math(s) Mistake Muffed Mars Meteorology Mission

Thoughts anybody?