Favourite Walks and Rambles

[LizG]

I'm impressed. Am I right in saying it's about 6.5 miles so 12 -13 km? That's fantastic for little kids. We did the walk around Dove Lake at Cradle Mountain when we visited Tasmania recently. That's about half the distance, maybe a bit more rugged under foot, but it was hard work. I wouldn't have wanted to do double the distance. Fantastic photos.

[Wendyf]

Great photos Ian.

[Stanley]

A good advert for living on the edge of the Dales.....

[PanBiker]

We still have relations in the dales and have just spent a few days up at Sally's cousin Ann's cottage at Gayle. She makes it available for us to use when she and her family are away. Sally's Uncle Joe (Ann's dad who is a Gayle man himself) still lives in the village. Joe, who is just short of 90 now used to live in the cottage that he has now passed to his daughter. Joe still lives independently in a barn conversion just on the edge of the village. He is still very active and we went on a few walks with him over the last couple of days. Joe is a mine of information and knows who owns just about every field and barn for miles around. He told us how the village has altered over the years and showed us the Tic Tac Toe grid that he and his mates carved into one of the top stones on the bridge over Gayle Beck over 80 years ago.




The bridge used to be a meeting point for him and his mates.

On Tuesday, we walked out of the village on Old Gayle Lane then into the fields for a mile and half or so then climbed up the fell to Burtersett. Here we are having a chat in the village.



We returned via an old pack horse lane higher up the fell side and then back up into the fields for Joe to show us the acreage he still owns in the valley. The footpaths along this route on the fell all run through Joe's fields and he has given me permission to detect on his land so I will have a look around the footpath line and around one or two other interesting areas later this year. The footpaths will have been in use for generations so it could be interesting. He has asked me if I could look for one of his Moldy traps that he has lost, he will show me the general area next time we are up. We returned back down to Joe's for a brew and a biscuit. The route is below.



Yesterday we went up to Hardrow Force and then a bit further up the dale towards Garsdale for a walk up to Cotter Force. Joe again relating his knowledge of 90 years of the area. None of the walks we have been on over the last three days have been overly strenuous but they have all been very pleasant with good company.

[Stanley]

Joe looks to be in good nick considering the mileage!

[PanBiker]

Indeed Stanley, he did say he was getting a bit of jip from his hip the day after our walk. His replacement has lasted 12 years but he doubts that he will get another one. He didn't do bad though, I bet we negotiated 20 stiles on our walk round the fell. Joe still has fields but no beasts, he helps his mate with his livestock though.

[Stanley]

Wonderful!

[PanBiker]

Sally has been on the train today until just after 2pm coming home from taking our Ruby back to Stratford. She fancied a bit of a walk so we just did a couple of miles round the lanes at the top of town. Out via Parrock, up Calf Hall and over the buttercup meadow in front of Cow Pasture, down Hollins Lane then up to Springs, up the field and out onto Esp Lane. The small gate on the stile at the top of the field is dropping in bits so I will report this on the LCC site. We returned home down the lane, Westgate and Walmsgate and home.

I forgot to mention that when we were up in Gayle we were treated to transit fights of one of the BBMF Hurricanes on two separate days. It made four transits along the valley one day and an outward and return the following day. During the week we also had daily sorties of a couple of RAF helicopters that seemed to be doing low flying maneuvers around Cotterdale. Always as a pair, twin rotor Chinook and a single rotor Merlin or Puma. All came from the East so I assume they would be flying from RAF Leeming.

[PanBiker]

Here's my latest addition to the walking gear although it will get used more for our geocaching forays. It's a small Garmin Etrex 10 GPS unit. I normally use my phone with it's geocaching app but it does have an odd drawback in that it sometimes loses the cache descriptions and information if it does not have a decent signal.




This little unit is about 2/3rds the size of my smartphone but chunkier as it runs on AA batteries, it can use alkaline's, lithium or NiMh types. It's a basic unit but has a dedicated geocaching mode. It only has 8Mb of memory and no micro SD slot for maps or additional storage, it is USB enabled though so you can upload waypoints and Geocache data straight to it. It comes supplied with a basic vector map of the entire planet but this is very rudimentary consisting mainly of country outlines with major cities marked but no other topographical information. It is possible to replace this within the limits of the available memory. There are numerous sites that have free topographical mapping available. One such is this which is provided for cyclists to plan cycling routes.

Planet.OSM extracts

It is based on Open Topographical Mapping and allows you to select an area within a bounding rectangle or irregular polygon anywhere on the planet and save it in various different formats, chosen in the drop down at the side. If you point at the format it will show you a preview of the map detail. it indicates how large the file will be as you draw the area you want to extract. The file is produced with all the required GPS datum points embedded so that it will display correctly on the GPS device. It's amazing what you can store in 8Mb of memory. My initial test area is centered on Barlick but goes about 30 miles N and about 10 miles EW of the town so around 600 sq m. This file is only 320Kb but contains detail down to road, street, bridleway and footpath level. It's easy enough to change the maps as it is only a simple transfer to load it into the GPS. I will experiment a bit now and see how much of the UK I can get in without compromising the space needed for waypoint and cache location uploads.

On the Geocaching site it is possible to download groups of caches each complete with all of the records and notes associated with each individual cache. When uploaded to the GPS you can then see the all the cache information as it does not rely on a live data connection to retrieve like the phone. I have uploaded a new series of 24 premium members cache's which are distributed around a 6 mile route on and around Weets hill. This is a puzzle trail with a mystery cache at the end, you have to collect all of the others to reveal the location of the last one. This group of 24 caches with all the associated information is only 189Kb with a further 4Kb file with additional waypoints for traversing some of the unmarked sections across Open Access land that this route takes.

This little Garmin is exactly the same unit that was provided for the kids at Isla's school when we did the Geocaching trail there the other week. It's easy to operate and is the main reason I bought it so the kids can take turns with it when we go out cache hunting. I paid just less than £50 off Ebay, you can still buy it new. It's robust and waterproof, a nice little addition to the kit.

[Wendyf]

Margaret and I are leading a walk for the Earby History Society in the Pendle Walking Festival on Friday 19th August. We are meeting at the Earby Youth Hostel at 10am then heading out on a 7 mile walk which takes in the mill sites at Earby and Booth Bridge, the Bronze Age ring cairn on Thornton Moor and the Roman Fort and Road at Elslack..loads of history and a lovely walk!!
We didn't think that most of the walk is outside Pendle, but never mind.

[Stanley]

Wendy, show them the rack stones in the wall and the one carved out of a mill stone in the surround of the mill door at Booth Bridge....

[Wendyf]

Everything has changed at Booth Bridge Stanley. A piece of rack stone has been used in the renovated building but the rest seem to have disappeared from view. The old barns are being converted at the moment, though that seems to mean a complete rebuild. Margaret got some photos of the arch above the barn door, which is formed from quite narrow flat stones and looks unusual.

[Stanley]

Not surprised, it's over thirty years since I was there. But those stones will still be there somewhere!

[PanBiker]

I went out on the bike down Brogden the other day to search for a new small series of three geocaches that reveal the location of a fourth mystery cache. Each of the caches have part of a grid reference but you need all three for the full reference. I managed to find the first and third caches but could not find the second which needed a second visit.

To that end we decided to include the location into the route of our walk today. It was a nice afternoon so we went out via the stables down Priory Way and then up through the fields to Cow Pasture. Up the side path and onward to Hollins, back into the fields and then down the bridleway as far as the stile then over to Jack House. We took the lane out onto Brogden and then started to make our way back. The missing cache is on the lane above Brogden Farm and we spent about 10 minutes finding it. It was well hidden, hence my miss on the first attempt. I signed off the log and added another swap item to the container then placed it back in it's hiding place. We made our way back on Brogden Lane and then took the footpath up via the side of Kirk Clough. The path was blocked by a gate into the field, the gate is in disrepair and is tied shut effectively blocking the path so we had to climb over into the field. The path is unmarked here but runs parallel to Brogden Lane along the hedge line. There is no stile at the exit onto the bridleway and the gate is again tied shut, so we had to climb again. I have reported both of these on the LCC reporting site and they should be picked up by Tom Partridge. We elected to extend our walk a little bit so came down the track and back onto Brogden at Raygill instead of returning via the fields to below Cow Pasture. We came back as far as the field path up to Fernbank. The second field here has been baled and cleared, they were turning the newly mowed grass earlier in the week the last time I came through. We returned on the short path from Fernbank through to Priory Way and then back home through Valley Gardens. 4.2 miles, in 1h 30min, nice sunny afternoon out and another cache logged with all the coordinates now for the bonus mystery one.

[PanBiker]

I made a start today on the 24 cache puzzle trail around Weets. I wanted to do the caches is sequence so I made my way to the start point at the end of Lister Well on Gisburn Old Road. I went up Folly Lane and then over to Lane Bottom, from there out onto the heather moor and over onto Lister Well just below Prospect. A mile and half later I was at the first cache position. The trail continues along the lane with three more caches before Weets House and another Just down Gisburn Old Track. I had to retrace back to the footpath over Weets to pick up the next one. I came back down the main footpath signing off a couple more caches bringing my total for the day to seven.

This is a puzzle series of caches so I made a note of the ones that had clues in them. The cache owner has deployed some ingenious cache holders which in some cases you have to solve another problem after finding the cache holder to gain access to the actual cache and log. The best one on this section is a double sided box, one side has free access but the other side of the box is padlocked. Opening up the free side reveals about 8 different sets of grid coordinates. You have to work out which set is nearest to your present location and then navigate to it to retrieve the key for the padlocked half of the box. When you have this you can access the log and sign it off. I spent about 20 minutes on this one sorting out the puzzle. Another cache had a hydro element to it and one a magnetic access mechanism once the penny dropped. 17 more to do to retrieve all the clues to the last one so more fun to come with this series.

It was very hot on the hill today, I spent around five hours in total on the route but my Endomondo tracker is set to pause when stationary. The actual walk was just short of three hours, (it was not a day for rushing). I took a packed lunch and snacks plus water, I consumed and supped all on the way round, the last of the water was quite warm when I finished it off coming off the hill. A tad less than 6 miles, 2h 53m walking, I drank 2 pints of water when I got back and then had 20 minutes in the shower, I was ready for my tea as well

[Stanley]

It was so hot where I was it nearly put my lights out!

[Tizer]

In our bit of Somerset we had: Monday 36C, Tuesday 38C, and then on Wednesday it dropped to 26C and on Thursday it rained and for brief period we were down at 17C, 21 degrees less than on Tuesday and it was quite a shock!

[Cathy]

Welcome to South Australian weather Tize. We often have that in Summer and going into Autumn, until Mother Nature makes up her mind.
13C for us tomorrow with lots of rain.

[Wendyf]

The history society have entered a walk into the Pendle Walking Festival again this year...it's been scheduled for this coming Friday 19th August.
If any one would like to join us we are meeting at Earby Youth Hostel at 10am and walking about 6.5 miles taking in some sites of historical interest.
We start with the water mill site behind the YHA then head up Gaylands Lane to the Bronze Age ring cairn on Thornton Moor before descending into Elslack and the Roman Fort. Along the Roman Road towards Thornton and up to the old mill at Boothbridge then along an ancient trackway back towards the site of Anglo Saxon Earby.
Tea & Biscuits available in the YHA garden on our return.
Don't tell anyone that most of the walk is outside Pendle!

[David Whipp]

The town council's Beating the Bounds walk today has attracted 42 walkers, which is a few more than last year. Keith Pickup, who's leading was hoping for fewer folk! Marjorie Adams, has catered for 40 for the traditional dinner of Yorkshire ham or cheese sandwiches - so more teacakes are needed!

[Wendyf]

Hope it went well David, it has been a fine day for a walk. That's too many people though, you might have to do two beatings next year!

[David Whipp]

We once had over 60 people taking part. Allan Buck was the leader at the time and considered splitting the Beating into clockwise and anti-clockwise groups if we continued getting such numbers. (I suppose the Beating could have taken place when the two groups met...) We eased up on the advertising and numbers dropped to manageable levels. It'll be interesting to hear what Keith Pickup thought about the numbers!

[Wendyf]

It looks as if we will have a wet walk!

[Stanley]

The rain is forecast to come in just as you are starting Wendy......

[PanBiker]

Bike ride for me and swimming for Sally yesterday so just a short hedgerow foraging foray around a few of the lanes at the top of the town. Just over two miles in an hour (including picking time). 2lb of Blackberries on this outing, we can add those to the 1lb that Sally got yesterday and the other 1lb or so last week. All will be frozen and saved for when the 15lb of pears we took from our tree have softened a bit. Jams, Jellies and Chutneys are in the offing.

Back to the walk, quite humid under the overcast sky feels like it's brewing for the promised rain later today, 300 extra calories earned.