22nd November, Black Sail Hut

The Tally-Ho! collective thought that hiring the YHA’s Black Sail Hut for a weekend at the end of November would be a bit of a wheeze. After all, the hut is advertised as being the YHA’s most remote hostel and it’s situated in a stunningly beautiful area. We’d have short days, almost guaranteed poor weather, I’d be assured of sharing a cramped dormitory with a bunch of smelly, sweaty, burping, farting fell-runners…...what’s not to like?

Perhaps foolishly, I rejoined the YHA. My original idea was to travel by train to St Bees, walk to Gillerthwaite YHA, and then walk up to Black Sail the next day. Except Gillerthwaite YHA was closed.

Not to worry, I’d instigate Plan B: travel to Whitehaven and walk to Buttermere YHA, spending the night there instead. It would be a lovely walk to Black Sail Hut from there – through Scarth Gap and all that. Buttermere YHA was closed too.

Plan C then came about. At the last minute the group had decided to meet up at Braithwaite for breakfast at the Coledale Inn on the Friday morning. Being as wot Braithwaite is close to Keswick I decided to spend the Thursday night at the (open) Keswick YHA. Unfortunately this meant that I’d need to drive, something I was hoping to avoid.

A not very flattering photograph of Keswick’s new Wetherspoon’s pub - ‘The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas’, Keswick’s old Police Station.

Anyroadup, Plan C worked out quite well in the end: I needed to call in to see Beryl who lives near Preston at some point to deliver her new Scarp 1, and I was keen to check out the new Wetherspoon’s pub in Keswick – it all went swimmingly.  Wetherspoon’s much lowerer beer prices have had quite an effect on the beer prices at Keswick’s other pubs. And Beryl’s very happy with her new tent.

Breakfast in Braithwaite – and Cheshire’s leanest, fittest runners. Hmmm. 

Arrangements had been made for the Warden of Black Sail to meet us at the Bowness Knott car park in order to transport essential supplies (beer, food, more beer, wine, even more beer, objects of musical torture etc) to the hut in his Land Rover. We arrived at the car park at the appointed meeting time: 10.30am. It was over two hours later when the Warden eventually appeared – Walter (pr: ‘Volter’….he’s from Abroad) wasn’t popular.

Our Plan (Ho-ho!) was to get up to Great Borne and then follow the ridgy-thing to Seat, taking in Starling Dodd, Little Dodd, Red Pike, High Stile and High Crag and then to drop down to the hut by Scarth Gap.

It was getting on for 1pm when we managed to get away, our enforced late start meant we had to dramatically alter our planned walk for the day. Given the weather this perhaps wasn’t such a bad thing. We followed the LRT to just beyond Gillerthwaite YHA and then headed straight up to the top of Red Pike and on to High Stile…and a very quick lunch.

Up to High Stile

The weather was deteriorating and hanging around wasn’t considered A Good Thing.

Visibility wasn’t brilliant and although it was still quite light we got a shift on – nobody fancied the idea of walking in the dark. By the time we were descending off Seat the light had gone and head torches were needed.

We arrived at the hostel around 6.00pm. It was lovely and warm – central heating and electric lighting had been installed since my last visit. Nice.

Bunks were bagged, the woodburning stove fired-up and essential rehydration (tea…what else?) operations commenced.

We had booked a hostel meal for the first night, Volter Walter rolled up with a huge bowl of hot-pot…he then promptly disappeared. The group then performed a vanishing trick on the hot-pot. Very clever.

A very pleasant evening followed, the beer supply took a severe bashing – more beer was clearly needed. This was where Volter Walter actually performed: he went off to a distant supermarket, in a land far, far away, and returned with bottles and cans. Unfortunately he didn’t return with kindling for the fire or more fuel for the hostel’s diesel generator. Oh well.

Fast Taylor’s guitar being eyed-up as a source of kindling 

I’d like to report that I slept very well in the dorm. I’d like to….

Where we eventually went on the Friday:

 7.5 miles with around 2900’ of up. 

 

Saturday morning dawned, after a fashion. The Tally-Ho! Catering and Washing-up Corps did a splendid job of doing the decent thing of providing excellent breakfasts and packed lunches…

…and doing the washing up 

Plans had been drawn up for a couple of walks for the day, I chose to do Haystacks, Innominate Tarn and Brandreth. Not a  long walk by any means, but given the mizzle, poor visibility etc it seemed to be favourite.

Cheshire’s finest….er, runners

The alternative walk was to the south, over Great Gable, Kirk Fell and Pillar. Although a number set out on the walk, poor weather had them shortening their route – although when the cloud allowed they had some great views.

 Black Sail Hut from the west

This is a popular route for walkers – cyclists too!

Mapless Taylor, Old Markham and I set off up Scarth Gap as the B Team headed south up Black Sail Pass to climb Kirk Fell. As they disappeared into the cloud I couldn’t help thinking we’d got the better deal with our lower route – we avoided most of the low cloud. 

Old Markham and Mapless 

Buttermere and Crummock Water

We decided not to bother with Brandreth, the weather was worsening and the ground was a gloopy, boggy mess of bog and gloop. The top of Brandreth, which isn’t THAT much of a top had become shrouded in cloud – norralot of point going up there. So we beat a retreat to the hut.

Black Sail Hut in the wet

The B Team arrived back soon after us, they had decided to give Kirk Fell a miss, it was just too murky and grim up there – although when they got breaks in the cloud the views were good.

Where the A Team went:

5 miles / 2000’ of ascent

A pleasant evening followed: good food and good beer – the Catering Crew did us proud. The high class (?) entertainment was, er, entertaining too:

Val Doonican eat your heart out!

The excellent Dick Turpin Ale lasted until mid evening, after which the back-up supplies were called into service.

Next morning, after a good breakfast, we gave the hut a good clean before heading back down the track to pick up our cars from the Bowness Knott car park. We’d had a brilliant weekend – so much so that we’re looking to do it all over again next year.

17th November, A bit more Dales Way

Bridges and Bodgers from Grassington to Bolton Abbey

I collected Rick at the unearthly hour of 7.20am (the 7.20am in the morning) for the drive up to the Yorkshire Dales and the arranged meeting with Bella, Stuart and Peter. It’s a long drive to do such a short walk but it’s an attractive route, we don’t race along, and we enjoy each others company = a lovely day out.

Leaving Bella’s Jeep at Bolton Abbey, 5 walkers squoze into my much smaller car for the drive to Grassington and the start of the day’s walk. Observant readers will notice that we’re doing this route in easy stages (VERY easy stages!) and that we’re walking North to South rather than t’other way around….nor are we walking West to East.

 Off we jolly-well go

The first few miles was on the eastern side of the River Wharfe. The river was a bit full, rain had been raining quite heavily:

The Wharfe, just outside Grassington

Bella

Crossing the suspension bridge over the Wharfe at Hebden

Lunch stop No1, Loup Scar

17th Century bridge at Burnsall

Barden Bridge

A mile or so south of Barden Bridge, the river suddenly narrows quite dramatically at The Strid. The broad and relatively slow flowing River Wharfe is forced through a narrow rocky ravine resulting in a maelstrom of churning, choppy waters. If you fall in it’s unlikely that you’d survive.

 The Strid

Right in the middle of Strid Wood we happened upon this bodger’s workshop:

Nobody at home 

The bodger’s handiwork

The path climbed away from the river to give us a nice view of Bolton Abbey:

 

 

The final river crossing of the day and we were given a choice – footbridge or stepping stones. Guess which way we crossed?

Two sheep 

A tree

A lovely day out in great company…..and scones and flapjacks. And a beer before heading for home.

This is what we did (sort of):

17.5km, with 286m of up and 364m of down.

15th November, Tally-Ho! from Nangreaves, Route v4.2

The real thing..

A number of exploratory / recce trips to this area were needed in order to finalise this route, mainly due to the large number of illegally blocked Rights of Way (Right of Ways?), completely unmarked footpaths and generally difficult to navigate ground. An a lot of mud.

Anyroadup, this is what happened on the Big Day…

 

The Lord Raglan, Nangreaves

The choice of this pub as a venue for Tally-Ho! had absolutely nothing to do with The Leyden Brewery. Nothing at all.

First to set off from The Lord Raglan at Nangreaves were Ding Dong and Whitworth. They had arranged to meet at the pub at 12.30, thus ensuring an early start. After a leisurely tour around the lanes of South Lancashire, Ding-Dong arrived promptly at 1.30pm thus ensuring a not terribly early start.

Rumours of a collection in the pub to raise dosh to buy Ding-Dong a map are completely false….I think they want to buy him a SatNav so his navigation prowess could match that of Whitworth’s…..and he NEVER gets lost. Well, not very often – especially now he has a new Merc with a built in SatNav.

Whitworth and Prez Park left the pub in a blur (well that’s what the drunk outside the pub said), heading north along a short strip of tarmac. The money men (Ding Dong and Mapless  Taylor) ran together – leaving a little later than normal.

The dryness of the tarmac wasn’t to last long. Leaving the road, the extremely well-laid sawdust trail led our valiant heroes to a soggy path of a couple of hundred yards (around 183.44m). Damp grass drenched their running shoes comprehensively. Nice.

Other runners followed in their wake, all finding the extremely well-laid trail very easy to follow.

Whilst the hounds were enjoying (eh?) following the trail, the hares were taking great care to leave a clear sawdust & paper trail across some seriously rough and boggy ground.

First obstacle of the day was the illegally blocked footpath at  Croston Close:

A Concessionary Path is offered as an alternative route, but the path through the farmyard exists as a Public Right of Way – the landowner clearly has a different opinion.

Next came the first ‘river’ crossing of the day. In recent weeks the stream that is Cheesden Brook had been a mere 2 – 3ft wide (609.6– 914.4mm….approx), the recent heavy rain had swollen the watercourse quite considerably. This ensured that many pairs of Innovates were suddenly mud-free. For a minute.

An uphill pull to a track led the hounds to Ashworth Reservoir. Once through a heavy metal gate the trail ran alongside a Water Authority-built wall to pick up a minor road at the east side of the reservoir.

The Trail-Layers were on the return leg of the trail and were able to watch some of the hounds, on the outward leg, as they ran along that stretch of road. Fortunately they were too far away to be able to hear the runners cursing, swearing and plotting sweet revenge.

Once across Edenfield Road, Knowle Hill came into full view. Curses were heard to be uttered as it slowly dawned on the hounds that the trig-point at the top was to be their next objective. And so it was.

Mud, bog, streams, windmills and sheep were just some of the hazards to be encountered on this uphill stretch. The sheep seemed intrigued:

 The view south from Knowle Hill

A clear path off the eastern flank of Knowle Hill led the runners along part of the Rochdale Way, (thank-you Wiki!) in the direction of the Naden Reservoirs. The reservoirs only became visible after climbing a stile at Dixon’s Brow. The change of scenery was quite a revelation – so far the views were mainly of moorland, bogs and mud. To see the land open out in such a dramatic way almost caused some to stop and stare for a few minutes. It was either that or they were knackered after Knowle Hill and they needed a breather.

Naden Reservoirs 

Clumps of sawdust and the Rochdale Way made for easy navigation as the route swung south and then west(ish) on the return leg.

Another stream crossing and on through Knowl Farm:

Knowle Farm, used for filming ‘Last Tango in Halifax’ 

Re-crossing Edenfield Road gave temporary relief from the mud and gunge, in fact there was a good 10-15 minutes of relatively clean running. Until a particularly muddy, sludgy stretch of track that led to a particularly muddy, sludgy river crossing. It wasn’t long before Ashworth Reservoir once again hove into view, this heralded some nice running along only slightly horrendously waterlogged ground.

The Right of Way runs through Yates Farm but there was so much rubbish and detritus on the ground that a diversion was needed. It looks like the place is used as a scrap yard, a real mess.

Much nicer running followed once passed the farm: good tracks and paths, a short stretch of tarmac, and then a really gloopy farm track.

An uphill pull to a ‘notch’ on the horizon indicated the last stretch of the trail, although it was only once through the notch that it became clear the running was almost done. A stile and a short stretch of tarmac had us back at the pub.

First runners in 

Next in, Paul and Les 

The trail seemed to have been generally well received – although the beer at the pub got a better reception. It was rather good – just a shame I was driving.

Numbers were a bit low today, only 14(?) members sat down to a filling dinner of stewy stuff and mushy peas followed by fruit crumble. ‘Always hungry’  Blackshaw was unable to stay for dinner due to family commitments, this left Murray in a bit of a quandary regarding his pudding. He needn’t have worried though, help was at hand and his pudding vanished in the blink of an eye.

Layers of trail were Blackshaw and Jocys who had a thoroughly good day out – and even managed to beat all the hounds back to the pub.

This is where we went:

Around 9 miles with about 1200’ ascent

That’s according to Memory Map and my Garmin Etrex20. I felt I could do with a good laugh so I took my SatMap Active10 along too. According to that heap of junk we covered 16.75 miles.

Impressed, eh?

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

11am on Tuesday 11th November 2014

The Bravest Little Street in England

Lest we forget. Only 4 people there today. Are we forgetting?

Recessional, by Rudyard Kipling

God of our fathers, known of old--
Lord of our far-flung battle line
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;
The captains and the kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe--
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law--
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget - lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard--
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard--
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!

21st Oct – 5th Nov, America

A few observations

I’ve been here for two weeks and I’m now getting ready to travel home.

It’s been a busy visit, carrying out renovations and repairs to an apartment that my Dad and I own in Florida. It’s a trip that I need to do each year, it’s important to keep an eye on the family assets don’t yer know. Some property-related legal stuff that needs sorting calls for a return trip in the not too distant future.

This trip has seen me decorating, replacing a water heater, repairing a shower, sorting the garden and patio, fettling the air-con….plus all manner of other stuff that goes with owning a property.

The language

It’s a funny old country – to say that the UK and USA are two countries separated by a common language is no understatement. Did you know that a faucet (pr: fosset) is a water tap? There’s loads more.

Americans are often very direct, if they need to deal will a problem they’re not afraid to use unambiguous language:

One phrase / sentence that maddens me is, when in a restaurant ‘a waiter will be with you momentarily’. A momentary visit from a waiter is not what I want or expect, thank you very much. I want a waiter to spend a little time with me (more than a moment) to answer any questions I might have.

Of course the waiter DOES spend time with you, as much as is needed. It’s just a strange use of words.

Whilst on the subject of words, strange-sounding names abound in America:

That’s the name of a road – in case you were wondering.

American prices vs UK prices

Generally, although not always, the price we pay in UK is the same (very often more) than the American price, just change the $ sign to a £ sign.

A few examples from my direct experience:

Hilleberg Akto tent:              USA: $498 (=£311)          UK: £490

MFJ259 antenna analyser:  USA: $259 (=£162)         UK: £280

Flir Infra-Red camera:        USA: $1800 (=£1125)    UK: £2400 

Petrol, per gallon:               USA: $2.80 (=£1.75)      UK: £4.91*

*adjusted to US Gallon = 0.83 Imperial Gallon

Food

Food is plentiful and cheap in Florida, lots of it looks good, some of it is quite nice….too much of it can cause problems of course.

   

Those puddings were wonderful – so good I went twice. Ask Mick & Gayle about them!

There seem to be eateries everywhere:

A steak with chips and broccoli in this restaurant tasted wonderful and cost norralot, BUT…the steak was quite salty, the broccoli was served in a salty garlic butter sauce, and the chips were served ready salted.

The convenience of the car

The car is king here, petrol is cheap. These prices are PER GALLON:

$2.79 = £1.75

You don’t even have to get out of your car to go to the bank:

Patriotism / National pride

Americans are seriously proud of their country and it’s flag. Americans do not need an excuse to fly their flag. Stars & Stripes appear everywhere: in shops, fluttering from houses, in gardens, on cars….virtually everywhere you can imagine. By comparison the British appear quite unpatriotic. 

Last week’s polling day

A UK Polling Station sign, emblazoned with a Union Flag? I’ve not ever seen one - I can’t see it ever happening. It might cause offence to someone….and that would never do.

Property Repairs

It’s been pointed out to me in the past (very frequently and quite recently) that it would be cheaper for me to employ someone in Florida to carry out these tasks. Not so.

I was quoted $1000 to replace a shower that was described as unrepairable: I mended it in a couple of hours.

Replacing the water heater would have cost at least $650, I did it myself for $250.

As for sorting the Air Conditioning unit, it would have been a lot of money. Then move the decimal point to the right. For some reason Air Conditioning units are shrouded in mystery here. This I find surprising – virtually everyone has Air-Con, but hardly anyone understands how they work….so they pay lots of dosh to A Man. It’s always A Man. The only bit I can’t do is recharge the unit with refrigerant. You need a special bit of paper to be able to do that. 

I much prefer to come over here to do the jobs myself, apart from anything else I know that the work has been carried out to a reasonable standard.

Just….different

Americans do many things differently. This is the electrical bit of the water heater I replaced:

Wires are joined by twisting them together and covering the connection with a plastic ‘nut’. Not a junction box to be seen. I find this a bit frightening.

Domestic wiring installations are potentially (see what I did there?) bloody dangerous. A house frequently has both 120v AND 240v available. 120v for normal household appliances like kettles, TV etc, but 240v is used for higher current stuff like cookers, water heaters and so on. Get your wiring wrong and……

Weather

I go to Florida where it’s currently 80degF. And the sky is blue. At the end of October / beginning of November. A few years ago they had an overnight frost – they still talk about it now.

It’s hi$$ing it down in Timperley, And it’s cold.

Nuff said.

Anyroadup, it’s an interesting place once you understand the language. I’ll be going back fairly soon – more stuff to do.

18th October, Tally-Ho! from The Jug and Glass

This was a re-introduced venue for the Club. The Jug & Glass at Newhaven in the White Peak has a had a chequered history in recent years. It seems to have been closed more than open. Happily it’s now very much open and in the hands of good people who know how to run a pub, keep beer properly and look after their customers.

I arrived early at the pub, my Plan was to start and finish early because I needed to be in Dunham later that day to play at a ceilidh with Neezzup and it wouldn’t do to be late for that!

In the car park were two very shady-looking characters – one trying to flog some obviously nicked silverware to a local fence:

I set off running with Ding Dong, struggling to keep up with him. We followed the sawdust trail out of the pub car park and across the main A515 to pick up a green lane which turned to tarmac after a mile or so. The lane crossed the course of a Roman Road running roughly North to South.

Remarkably well preserved Roman Water Board sign

We headed eastwards almost as far as Middleton, keeping our shoes mostly shiny-clean. Avoiding Middleton, trail then led us on a dogleg uphill (?) close to Ringham Low – an ancient monument or something. Wisely the trail-layers didn’t take us quite as far as the site, our ancient and monumental runners might get lost in a place like that…..we’d blend in with the background too easily.

The initially easy running surface had lulled us into a false sense of security, before long we had dual battles on our hands: overgrown undergrowth (eh?) and difficult-to-follow sawdust trail…...but we weren’t to be deterred. Well not much:

  Ding-Dong tearing up the trail at break-neck speed

Next came a short dale, a section of typically White Peak countryside. I’m not sure of it’s name, there’s no name mentioned on either the 1:25k or 1:50k maps, but it runs West - East from near Ringham Low to Smerrill Grange.

A much nicer dale was to come: Long Dale – lovely it is:

It’s a shame this section was so short, it made for very pleasant running. Within a short distance the terrain changed and we left the dale behind.

  

Another short stretch of tarmac took us to the Mid-Shires Way / Pennine Bridleway…and past the picturesque brickworks at Friden:

 

Lovely

There was definitely ‘something in the air’ around this part of the route, both Ding-Dong and I ended up coughing and spluttering. It might just have been a misfire though…I don’t recall any of the other runners mentioning a problem.

A loooong, flat and straight stretch of the Way took us almost back to the pub where a quick pose (or two) was called for:

 

Unusually (VERY unsually) clean-ish shoes

This is where we wented:

Around 8.3 miles with norralot of ascent / descent…

Atcherly (and quite coincidently, I’m sure) the total ascent was exactly the same as the total descent. You’ll need to ask Ding Dong to explain, he’s good with numbers.

The food and the beer at the pub were both excellent – it was just a shame I had to rush off without being able to sample the beers properly. I was driving anyway. Ho-hum.

Thanks to David for allowing me to trot round with him. As always, he was the very best of company.

Thanks and great appreciation to Ships and Whitworth for laying an easy trail….just right for an unfit old fart like me.