Wednesday 17th February 2010

Stanhope, Rookhope 13 miles.

It is Wednesday, which means "walk day". Phil has selected a walk from his book of one hundred walks, Peter is available so we are all up for it.

The weather forecast from Carol on the BBC is promising to excellent, but at 08:45 when Phil and Peter arrive, the reality is a damp, cold morning and thick fog.

Ever the optimists we convince ourselves it will "burn off" and, with Phil driving, head to the start point,  Stanhope in Weardale. By the time we reach Witton Gilbert, the fog has cleared and a pleasant day looks a possibility.

As instructed in the book, we park the car in the Market Square beside the Pack Horse Inn.

We are all booted up and ready to go, Peter synchronises his watch and off we go at 10:00. 

The instructions are to walk along the A689 (the main street through Stanhope) toward the B6278, and turn left opposite Stanhope Old Hall. We go wrong almost immediatey, turning left too early, arriving a the ford and stepping stones, over the River Wear. No names mentioned for this navigational error, surfice to say, it was not Peter, and it was not me.

Now a decision, do we turn back and follow the correct route, or do we fudge it?

Of course we fudge it.

We know the general direction we should be heading in (west), so we scramble along the river bank, for a few yards until we come to another path along the river. Problem number two, we come to another (not so small stream), flowing into the main river. There is no way to cross, so we turn north, our only choice, (except to turn around of course, and you just know we are not going to do that). We scramble over some sandbags into the grounds of some municipal type building and nonchalantly walk through the grounds and rejoin the A689.

For future reference the 13 mile walk is now a 14 mile walk.

We continue along the A689, until we reach the B6278 and turn left.

A short distance along this quiet road, just before the road bends sharp left onto a bridge over the River Wear, we go through a small gate to join a track heading west along the river bank.

On our right is a flooded quarry, the surface of the water still covered in ice.

We are now heading towards Eastgate, about three miles away.

The route follows the river bank, on a strip of land bounded on our left by the River Wear and on our right by a disused railway line. As Peter points out, even we can follow that!. 

We have brilliant sunshine, which is just beginning to clear the frost from the grass.

This is easy walking, along a track called "The Weardale Way", more or less level, and very pretty.

We reach and pass through a caravan site and then arrive at Eastgate without further drama.

We cross the A689 and head along a small street following the signpost "Village Hall", until we come to a pretty little house called "Rose Cottage".

Here the book tells us, there is the possibility of a small detour to view a local beauty spot in the form of a waterfall. This proves somewhat difficult to find, but after a few false starts, we eventually spot the yellow way marker, which appears to be taking us into someone's back garden, but sure enough we find the waterfall.

We retrace our steps to Rose Cottage and turn left up a steep tarmac track, which takes us high above Rookhope Burn, still following the Weardale Way route. We pass Holm House and the track now becomes a path, still following the Rookhope Burn, more or less due north now, toward Rookhope,  and climbing steadily through lightly wooded slopes, with literally dozens of rabbits scattering infront of us as we walk along.

The weather is now brilliant, bright warm sunshine and clear blue sky, the air crisp and clear.

So, time to ponder, where would your rather be Phil? (or anyone else for that matter),

at work, pondering plans and programmes

or

here walking in the sunshine?.

Don't take too long to think about it!

No contest really is there?

We come to a point where the way marking signs (for the Weardale Way), appear to point us in the "wrong" direction, wanting to take us at right angles to the burn, ie heading East. 

We decide to ignore them, and follow the burn north.

We soon find out why the path is signposted away from the riverbank.

We are in an enormous squelchy bog.

Nothing for it but to attempt to walk around it, keeping as dry as possible. Phil takes the lead, scrambling up the bank and hopping gingerly from (hopefully) firm spot to firm spot. Peter and I wisely hang back to check he is not going to disappear upto his knees in mire, before following his trail. Well. no point everyone getting wet is there?

We are now heading for a footbridge which will bring us onto the road to Rookhope. There are many abandoned mine workings and quarries along the riverbank here, all evidence of an earlier industrial past in this area. 

We come to a footbridge over the burn and a stile which brings us onto the road to Rookhope. A combination of the warm sunshine and our exertions mean we need to pause and remove  a layer. Phil is really entering into the spirit of things given the sunshine, and decides he needs to be in shorts, so he unzips the legs of his super adaptable walking trousers and off he goes towards Rookhope in his shorts.

We head along the minor road, for about a mile, past Stotfield Burn, and into Rookhope village

It is time for lunch.

We find a pleasant sunny spot, opposite the Post Office / Newsagent / General Dealers, complete with seats, and settle down to our picnic lunch.

Peter has smuggled a bar of chocolate out of the house. But it is Ash Wednesday today, and Phil shows will power by refusing to have any.  We decide that to be fair we will not eat the whole bar, and leave six squares for Val. So Val, if you are reading this, and you did not get six squares of chocolate on Peters return, then he has eaten them!

The route now leaves the Weardale Way, and we follow a track signposted as a part of the C2C cycle ride, which takes us North East and steadily up hill.  After a few houses, we come to a fork in the track, which is not mentioned in the book, we opt to go left, which does turn out to be the right choice.

We are now following an old waggonway (The Boltslaw Incline). It is recorded that this mineral line dates back back to 1845, built to bring iron ore from Westgate, but I have been unable to find out any more details about it.

It is a good track, but climbs steadily for about a mile, steadily enough to cause me at least to need to pause for breath regularly.

As I said it does climb steadily, and reaches an altitude of just under 540 metres. As you can see at this height, it may still be sunny, but there is significant snow still lying on the ground, and you can see Phil (still in his shorts), doing his intrepid mountineer impression.

At the summit of the incline there are significant ruins of what was once the Engine House, for the Winding Engine which hauled the waggons up the incline, in the past

Actually I am am a bit miffed it is called an incline, which implies a slight rise, it is I can assure you most definately a hill!

Being overgrown schoolboys, we could not resist pausing at the top, to walk about in the snow, which, in places had drifted to be as much as two metres deep.

We had the usual Ray Mears fantasies about digging  a hole in the snow and climbing in, to keep warm. Fortunately common sense prevailed and we resisted. 

We took a few photographs.

It must have been bleak to have been working up here to build this thing in eighteen hundred and whatever, in fact it must have been bleak to have been working up here to operate the thing!

At least once it was working there must have been some warmth from the fire which was used to make the steam to drive the Hauling Engine.

As you will see from later events, I think the snow must have upset the synchronisation of Peter's distance measuring watch.

From this point, our route takes us East and slightly South, following the contours of the land, so it is fairly level walking.

The book says it is four miles from Rookhope, to the point where we must join the B6278. Given that it is a mile from Rookhope to the ruined Engine Shed, that means we should have three miles to go across the moors to the B6278.

When we first stopped to enjoy the Alpine snow scene, it was sunny and bright, but in the short time we lingered, what looked like definate storm clouds appeared. That was not in Carol's weather forecast. Peter assures us, that any snow today was to be in Humberside, but the clouds definately looked like snow clouds to me. Since it did not seem like a good idea to get caught out on the open moor in a snow storm (even with a compass), we decided to continue on our way before the snow came. In the event, the snow seems to have passed us by, so perhaps Carol was right after all.

After we had been walking for about three miles, according to Peters watch, and should therefore have reached the B6278, but visibly had not, having reached a fork in the track at a place called "Dead Friars Stone", we were overtaken by a (show off) jogger, who was running across the fells, and then came upon a group of thirty of so school girls and their leader, who were heading in the opposite direction (ie towards Rookhope).

At the front of the group were a few enthusiastic individuals, clutching maps and striding out. Phil's Shorts brought a few (admiring) comments. Further down the line where make-up and ear-rings where clearly more prized than maps, we were asked "how far to Rookhope", so we cheered them up by telling them "only four miles". This was greeted with groans, so I pointed out that if three geriatrics like us could make it, so could youngsters like them, plus the line "its all down hill from here", which was not strictly speaking true, but the last mile is down hill so it's almost true.

Since we were walking across open moorland, with no other visible track, we had to be going the right way, but according to Peter's watch we should have come to the point where we joined the road. We could actually see the road (marked by a line of dirty ploughed snow and the odd snow pole) running parallel to our route, which according to the OS map, was as it should be.

At this point we noticed many Black Grouse, feeding on the moor in among the heather. Both Phil and I thought they were confined to Scotland, but on looking them up, no they are found in the North of England, as we had indeed found.

We eventually came to the point where the track crosses the B6278 and becomes "The Waskerly Way". We stopped for coffee / tea. I think it was about 15:30 by now, by which time we had expected to be back in Stanhope.

The route according to the book, took us along the B6278, towards Weatherhill Cottages, which were visible about a mile away. Instead we elected to take a slight detour to avoid walking along the road, to arrive at Weatherhill Cottages according to plan. Now we joined another old railway track, running parallel to the B6278, heading downhill, and south, towards Stanhope.

At Crawley Engine (another ruin), we headed away from the road towards Crawley Edge. This was covered in deep frozen snow, and we could not find the path we were supposed to take, so resorted to sliding down the snow on our backsides, into Crawleyside (what fun, but a bit wet), eventually picking up the path (we should have been on) at two kissing gates. Then on downhill, through an enormous area of disused quarry workings to arrive in Stanhope back at the car for 16:30. 

Peter's distance measuring watch said 15 miles, not 13.

We arrive home about 18:00.