A 12 mile Plodders Walk

The good folk of the East Lancashire LDWA have recently re-started their 'Plodder' walks, shorter walks of around 12 miles.

This particular walk kicked off from outside a pub (obv) in Ringley, to the west of Prestwich / Whitefield.. The pub, The Horseshoe, was a Thwaites house, just in case you were interested....which you probably were.

18 walkers, well it was 20 walkers if you counted the dogs, gathered at the appointed hour and we trundled off at a brisk pace.

It always surprises my how easy it is to follow 'green' routes, even in well populated or industrial areas, and so it was.

We crossed the River Irwell and then walked through Clifton Country Park, heading in a south-easterly direction, through a lovely green corridor, to Clifton Junction and then to Prestwich Forest Park. All really quite nice.

The route passed some interesting features relating to the mining history of the area.

It was good to catch up with East Lancs once again, they're a great bunch. There were a few new faces in attendance, the group doesn't have any problem attracting new members. It's a very friendly and active group. I really should get out with them more often.

The lunch stop was in a park where we had the luxury of park benches to sit on. Nice.

Suitably fed and watered, we were off once again, now on the return leg, heading.through Philips Park and then picking up the Irwell Sculpture Trail which followed the course of a disused railway for some distance.

Then it started to rain. Oh well.

We were soon back on tarmac and within a few minutes the Horseshoe pub hove into view. This suited many, the rain was properly raining now and many dived into the pub for beer and shelter. Not me though, not this time. I needed to get back home.

Thanks to East Lancs for a nice little walk, I'll be back for another one soon.

Where we went (anticlockwise):

 Around 12 miles.
 

A night with a Madwoman. And a gear test.

It was all a bit last minute. I needed to get out for some serious brain-straightening peace and quiet, plus I had some new(ish) kit to test out.

I packed my rucksack and travelled by train to Edale, alighting in the late afternoon. I scuttled up Grindsbrook Clough in the failing light and once at the top, headed east (East is good) along the edges to a nice little spot by Madwoman's Stones.

It was dark by the time I was putting the tent up, but the sky was clear and the moon was shining brightly - and it was damned cold. I grabbed a couple of litres of water from the trickling stream at Jaggers Clough and got my tea on the go

My Plan, given the lovely clear skies, was to spend a bit of time taking photographs by moonlight. The Plan, like so many plans, failed. By the time I'd eaten and sorted my kit out it had clouded over. And then it started to rain. And then it got very windy. VERY windy.

Ho hum.

I was checking some new kit out: a NeoAir X-Therm, a down-filled balaclave (for sleeping in) and down-filled socks.

The socks and balaclava all came from AliExpress for around £15 each.

Balaclava: 85gms, Down socks: 105gms

All this kit worked superbly well, I spent a very warm and cosy night in spite of the horribly cold conditions. I was so warm that I had to unzip my sleeping bag and remove the balaclava during the night.

 My wind-battered Akto

Leave no trace

 My water source at Jaggers Clough....a bit peaty!

Jaggers Clough

 Descent into Edale

Next morning I headed down by Ringing Roger, back into Edale for my train home.

Good bits:
a) All the kit I took out for testing worked well
b) I had a nice overnighter.

Bad bits:
a) I forgot to take a compass (tsk).
b) I've decided that my Caldera Cone meths stove really isn't up to winter camping trips.
c) I missed my intended train home 'cos of phone call...so I had to drink filter coffee in the cafe by the station....so it wasn't ALL bad!

Breaking News… 21st Feb 2019

Open LiveWriter and Blogger are once again talking to one another

A blessed miracle!

Almost. Photographs won’t post.

This was better than last week when NOTHING would post.

Test Post, images added in Blogger

Test post to try to identify the latest Open Live Writer / Blogger compatibility problem.

Original post was text only and posted without problem using OLW.

If I try to post with images from OLW the post is rejected (Error 400).

Text in between two added images

Open Live Writer / Blogger problems....again

In recent times I've suffered various problems using Open Live Writer, nearly all resulting in the message:

Can't Publish Files

The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad request

I know some bloggers have had problems with posting photographs, removing the photos has resulted in the text being published - but obviously no pretty pictures.

I've tried removing photos but I still get the same error.

My last blog post was made with Blogger which I find pretty awful. Typically the text size varies and there's nothing I can do about it - I go back into Blogger, change the text size and repost, but the text size immediately returns to the uncorrected size.

Has anyone else had these problems? I've got a backlog of posts and I really don't want to be using Blogger any more than I have to.

Thanks in advance. 

Running around Rainow, Saturday 2nd Feb 2019

The morning was bright and chilly. Others, probably more accurately, would have said it was bloody freezing.

Runners of different shapes, sizes and ages gathered at the Robin Hood in Rainow, near Macclesfield on the afternoon of Saturday 2nd February.

White Nancy, from the Robin Hood

The car park at the pub was exremely slippy. It was also on a slope and I was warned by the landlady not to park at the top of the slope: the previous day 2 cars, unmanned (or unwomanned), had slid across the car park – on car had gone through the hedge.

Whatever…a couple of hours prior to the massed gathering of knees, Rob McHarry and I had arrived in order to lay a sawdust trail of around 8 miles around the lumpier bits of the area….the clumps of sawdust were (supposed) to be followed by the runners.

We had A Plan….that is to say ROB had A Plan. It was actually a very good plan. So we sort of changed it by going clockwise rather that widdershins as Rob had originally suggested.

Suitably armed with bags of sawdust we set off, well we slipped and slid off the ice rink of a car park, and wandered off north along a quiet lane in the direction of, well, north.

Leaving the relative safety of ice-packed tarmac we turned left to skirt Rainowlow where some brown squiggly lines on the map were crossed.

A short stretch of tarmac at Billinge Head Farm took us to a nice path that skirted the eastern edges of Billinge Quarries.

The Audience

Laying Trail

Turning east, we followed a nice path that descended to Mellow Brook, then up the other side of the valley to Harrop Fold Farm….where I have hazy memories of camping weekends where lots of beer may have been consumed. Or Martini.

I didn’t drink the litre bottle of Martini. It’s not the sort of thing I’d do. Obv.

Harrop Fold Farm

A little more tarmac followed, and very icy it was too. The was little warmth from the sun, but as the track was in the shade anyway it would have made little difference.

Our route slowly changed direction to follow a more south-easterly course.

I was a little concerned that the runners following our carefully planned and even more carefully recced <koff> route might lose the sawdust trail; pale sawdust on bright white snow doesn’t stand out particularly well. We needn’t have worried, although we probably went a bit over the top with the clumps of sawdust, nobody got lost. Well not VERY lost.
 
Another valley crossing followed, this time down to Moss Brook and up the other side by Saddle Cote, this was a bit of a pull and Rob was well ahead of me. In my defence I was taking photographs which slowed me down quite a bit. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

It was around about here that Rob spotted a skier doing what skiers do best. Our route turned hard right to follow the skier's tracks.

 Route planner, navigator, trail-layer and runner extraordinaire…

……………and his incapable assistant

 

Ski tracks. And my shadow. Tsk. 

 

Oh, and there were goats too...I almost forgot to mention them

 
Another short stretch of tarmac along Bank Lane and then Ewrin Lane took us to Waggoner’s Brow were another hard right turn delivered into more familiar Turkey Trot country, approaching Lamaload Reservoir.
 

The reservoir dam looked quite spectacular in the freezing temperature, all the buttresses were covered in frost.

A steep descent to cross the infant River Dean, by the waterworks, had me slipping and sliding like a very slippy-slidy thing. But I stayed upright. we continued littering our way in a southerly direction,

It was a bit of a tug up hill. We followed the footpath to the western side of the reservoir to a point just beyond Wickinford Farm. From there we trotted in a south-westerly direction to pass through Valeroyal and very close to the site of the Setter Dog by Walker Barn, and then north by Gulshaw Hollow and Hordern Farm, scattering sawdust trail as we went.

Manchester, with Winter Hill beyond

We crossed the icy Berristall Road and descended steeply to the bottom of the valley before climbing equally steeply to pass by Thornsett Farm.


The going became very easy (easy = gently downhill). The Robin Hood hove into view and after another slippy – slidy adventure across the ice rink of a car park we made it back to our cars.

14 runners sat down to enjoy an excellent meal of beef stew followed by fruit crumble and custard….lots of fattening stodge, just what’s needed after a cold day in the hills.

The day was marred by the news of John Potter’s car suffering the same fate as the sliding cars of the previous day. His unmanned car ended up colliding with two other cars in the car park. John, understandably brassed off with what had happened, didn’t stick around for the run.

My thanks to Rob for letting me ‘help’, and for his good company of course….and to Wells the Elder for buggering off to Brazil so creating a temporary Trail-layer vacancy.

GPS track of where we went (clockwise from Rainow):

Around 8.5 miles / 2,000ft of ascent. And descent. Obv.

More photographs here.

Created in Blogger, because Google / Blogger have done something to stop Open Live Writer communicating with it.

 

Tally-Ho! Turkey Trot, 27th December 2018

The Club’s Hon Sec has been a bit under the weather of late so it was deemed that this year’s Turkey Trot be run close to his home so he could come out to see us, drink beer and join us for the post-run nosh.

The chosen venue was the Olde Number Three pub in Little Bollington, a pub that has had mixed fortunes of late but now seems to be well and truly back on it’s feet, serving good beer and good food at very sensible prices.

As a local lad, and having some knowledge of the countryside around the pub, I volunteered to plot, plan and lay trail. This entailed a 9am start….not the best plan for the day after Boxing Day….but there you go.

The route headed south following footpaths that crossed the odd stream and muddy patch. So far so good.

At the M56 the sawdust trail was laid East to pick up farm tracks, the tarmac of Reddy Lane and yet more tracks and tarmac…it’s a good job that the TT isn’t a candidate for Trail of the Season!

The trail led across fields and some seriously gloopy man-eating fetid swamps to the the familiar sight (for those who did the P2P a couple of years ago) of the Swan with Two Nicks.

The pub was closed (Boo!) and the paths leading north into Dunham Park were quiet. The River Bollin weir was roaring well, testament to the recent rainfall:

A couple of National Trust warden types were curious as to what I was up to, I explained and they seemed happy enough….actually they were mildly amused by the whole thing. It’s good to leave folk smiling!

Continuing NE through the now busy deer park (busy with visitors and deer) the trail eventually crossed Charcoal Road by the gated lodge entrance to enter the Dunham Golf Club which is conveniently criss-crossed by a number of footpaths. Laying trail here was a little difficult, I was trying to be inconspicuous….I don’t think my efforts were successful.

We went the other way….

Emerging in Dunham Town the sawdust led northwards to pick up the Duke’s Cut and then into Dunham Woodhouses. Just short of The Vine (Sam Smith’s, £2 / pint) the trail went south….well it turned left anyway. The ground was a bit soggy and damp here, the route crossed a couple of streams (Agden Brook being one of them) and the River Bollin – by way of a footbridge.

At Agden Bridge Farm the route again joined the Bridgewater Canal towpath, this time heading east.

It may have been a little disconcerting to the hounds to be passing the Olde Number Three on the opposite bank of the canal and with no apparent means of crossing to it…..not without getting feet and other bits wet.

A solution to this little problem soon presented itself close to Little Bollington, a tunnel under the canal.

Splodging (uphill….please note!) through a field of horses the hounds were soon racing (?) westwards along the opposite side of the canal and the final run in to the pub.

Big Ian, camera in hand, was waiting at the pub……he’d not been out on the run but wanted to join us for lunch.

Only one hare today

Runners began appearing – Hon Prez Park being first man in, no doubt driven by thirst and hunger:

Other runners appeared, running on t’other side of the canal but visible from the pub car park. Cameras were readied to record their auspicious arrival:

It should learn to calm down…

The Trail-Layer doing his post-run stretch

Whalley had collected and transported the Hon Sec to the pub where we all enjoyed a beer (maybe more), a nice meal and, far more importantly, good chat with Brian – who seemed to be on good form.

It was a good run. I measured it at 8.8 miles with around 300 – 330ft of ascent, so not the hilliest of trails. Having said that, looking through the Club’s history it would appear that the route covered traditional Tally-Ho! terrain and so it was considered to be acceptable.

Thanks to everyone who turned out to make it a successful day for the Club, and especially for Brian.

Photos by JJ and Big Ian