Category Archives: Milady steps out

Crackpots and Conker Crafts : Moor Mosaics and More Mosaics

Meeting up with my friend Rosanna this weekend reminded me that I had not yet posted about a recent walk in North Yorkshire. Rosanna is a Mosaic Artist and she designs and produces (and sells) her lovely craft work. You can read about her and her work here. It was when I was looking at her nature mosaics – birds and other creatures that I was reminded of the walk I lead one Thursday in August : The Crackpots Mosaic Trail.

1. Sheep – local farmers have the right to graze their sheep on the moor (by Kirtsy Hallett)

2. Red Grouse – The moor is managed for the grouse which feed on the ling heather (by Patrice Lyth)

The six and a half mile trail starts several miles northeast of Pateley Bridge in the Nidderdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Indeed it was to celebrate this designation that a local group of crafts people decided create the trail. In all there are 22 mosaics and a leaflet has been produced with the trail notes, map and brief description of each mosaic.

3. Dragon Fly – common on heathlands and moors they lay eggs in water or mud or in water plants (by Margaret Crosfield)

4. Adder – sometimes seen basking on rocks (by Nora Whipp) [I’m glad I didn’t see one!]

I chose that we parked near to the ‘first’ mosaic but there’s a car park by the ‘last’ one. From here, and it’s a pretty exposed windy spot, we were soon branching off the road onto a moorland track. This track takes you along to numbers 2, 3 and 4 then, on a track through the hamlet of Carlesmoor, you come across the first non-nature mosaic : number 5 The Potato House. Known locally as “taty houses’ it was/is used for storing … potatoes.

5. The Potato House (by Gwynneth Jackson)

The Potato House today

The next mosaic illustrates The Sighting Tower which stands on a nearby hill and was built to achieve the level for a tunnel from Round Hill Reservoir for Harrogate’s water supply.

6. The Sighting Tower (by Naomi Lyth)

7. Wild Rose – can be seen in abundance in local hedgerows in May and June (by Judy Schlehr)

We rejoined the road briefly and then took a track/bridleway which also appeared to be a water conduit and was therefore rather muddy, even at times of dry weather. Each ford we crossed though had its own footbridge, which was handy. Mosaics 8 to 12 indicated that we were on the right track and some were also indicative of local dampness!

8. Greater Spotted Woodpecker – at home in both coniferous and deciduous woodland (by Sue Swales)

9. Friesian Cow – one of the most popular dairy breeds (by Audrey Mackenzie)

10. Flag Iris & Tadpoles – both like pools and marshy areas (by Hilary Roome & Nora Whipp)

11. Brown Trout – coming from the moor, Stock Beck joins the River Laver and eventually the Skell and the Ure (by Patrice Lyth)

Eventually we joined a country lane and then briefly had to walk along the side of a busyish road.

12. Leaves – a wide selection of species abound in this area – beech, oak, hawthorn, hazel (by Margaret Crosfield)

13. Curlew – a large wading bird that nests and breeds in upland areas (by Nora Whipp)

There’s a pub by the road, The Drovers Inn, but it was closed on the Thursday when we passed by. This being the case we decided anyway to stop and eat our lunches at the handily placed picnic tables. The Drovers has its own mosaic set on a rock by the roadside.

14. Boots & beer – stop here for refreshment and good company [we brought our own of both!], but not on Mondays (by Gerry Mass)

Here’s what I found about the inn (there’s no website) :

“Dallowgill – ‘The Drovers Inn’

Free House. Locally and affectionately known as ‘The Little Drovers’. Not technically in Nidderdale but an allowable indulgence as the characterful Drovers Inn has strong connections with the dale, lying about five miles or so eastwards from Pateley Bridge at the far end of Dallowgill Moor. An isolated moor edge pub notable for its tiny ‘living room’ 1960’s feel bar. The pub is owned by Dallowgill shooting estate and as such remains unspoilt and un-commercialised. Closed all day Mondays.
Built between 1856-1861 by Joseph Atkinson. Friendly licensee in Steve Plews, with the pub offering bar meals and two/three Real Ales (normally inc. Hambleton Bitter plus one other)
Tel. 01765 658510”

[http://www.nidderdale.fslife.co.uk/nidderdale.html]

Refreshed, we moved on along this road for probably just under a mile and by Castiles Farm another track (with its own mosaic of bluebells) led off down to Dallow hamlet.

15. Bluebells – a common sight in May along hedgerows and on woodland floors (by Margaret Crosfield)

There we met the ‘stick man’. He showed us a wonderful collection of sticks that he made – each one different from the next. The pub is owned by the Dallowgill shooting estate so indeed is the hamlet of Dallow and our stick maker Terry Holman is a beater. From the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ (of August) he’s a beater or some such for the estate up on the local moors and (he told us) his business is put on hold for 12 weeks.

16. Fungi – found in the woods in autumn (Gwynneth Jackson)

17. Deer – most commonly roe deer who are rather partial to young trees (by Wahneta Thorne)

18. Rabbits – the farmers’ pest, six of these furry creatures eat as much as one sheep! (James Stewart)

19. Barn owl – sadly in decline. Lives in deserted barns. (Patrice Lyth)

After Dallow there’s a lot of woodland or forest path to cover until finally we strike across fields from one building (Bents House with its own mosaic)

20. Bents House – built in the late 18th century, named after Bent, a type of grass (Really??) (by Frances Lyth)

to another (a buttressed barn)

21. Pheasant – very colourful birds with a distinct lack of road sense! (by Margaret Crosfield)

to another (Pete’s Place) and finally a last climb up to the road where lies the final mosaic (and a car park). Our own parking place was just a few paces on from this. The final mosaic is of a Roman soldier whose remains were found on Grewelthorpe Moor and buried in Kirkby Malzeard churchyard.

22 Roman soldier (By Gerry Mass)

This being a shortish walk for the group we drove home via The Coldstones Cut a “monumental sculpture for spectacular views of North Yorkshire” (leaflet). Just outside Pateley Bridge on the B6265 road to Skipton there’s a free car park and its a toughish climb up but well worth the effort for the views and the panorama that awaits you. The orientation ‘table’ set in the wall top indicates the direction to locations near and far and very very far away!

Then what better way to round of the day than a round of drinks at The Royal Oak in Dacre one of my favourite Dales pub stops!

I Miss Miro but Make a Beeline for The Bee Library

A Sunny September Saturday Afternoon at The Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Oh dear, I seem to have lots of favourite places to walk and yesterday I revisited another but it’s a good place to take visitors who enjoy stepping out in the countryside but not too strenuously and with added cultural interest. Yesterday we spent a lovely warm sunny afternoon at The Yorkshire Sculpture Park. I was last there on a cold blustery January morning earlier this year. Despite a busy car park and visitor centre it was easy to get away from the crowds and although our aim was to see the Joan Miro exhibits we never actually got to them! The plan was to hike up to the Longside Gallery to see the Anish Kapoor exhibits and return to the car via the Underground Gallery and Miro exhibition.

Of course, it didn’t turn out like that as we were constantly stopping to inspect the wonderful sculptures dotted around the Park.

One of the first up was Barbara Hepworth‘s The Family of Man. Only as recently as July I had come across an edition of this bronze work at Snape Maltings in Suffolk.

Family of Man at Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Family of Man at Snape Maltings

Descending through the park we were waylaid by other intriguing and clever works of art including The Greyworld Playground (make your own music!), Magdalena Abakanowicz’s Ten Seated Figures and nearby Sophie Ryder‘s Lady-Hare Sitting.

Our visitors have connections with the northeast and were expecting to see an Antony Gormley, almost featureless but still expressive, sculpture as they, like me, are fans of The Angel of The North.

They were not disappointed. Right by the gate, through which you head into open country and fields of sheep and cattle, and standing high above our heads on a massive tree trunk is Gormley’s One & Other.

At this point we were intrigued to take a detour from our proposed route to inspect Alec Finlay’s The Bee Library. Along a path through woodland surrounding the Upper Lake hang 24 ‘Bee Hotels’ each is labelled with the title of the book and a link to the website www.the-bee-bole.com where the full story can be read.

Finally we headed up the hill to the Longside Gallery which features currently an exhibition of the work of Anish Kapoor designer and creator of the Orbit structure in the London 2012 Olympic Park and of Cloudgate, commonly called “The Bean”, in Chicago.

Chicago’s Cloudgate by Anish Kapoor at night

No photography is allowed inside the gallery. After a brief stop for refreshments we headed back down hill past work of Andy Goldsworthy and down David Nash’s Seventy One Steps returning to the car with only the briefest glance round the lovely shop. Maybe I will get back to see the Miro exhibits before they move on in January 2013 – I hope so!

[Post updated with links 03.09.12]

The Old Ways Part Two : Mastiles Lane Revisited and Meet the Author

Well, it finally happened a few weeks ago in the middle of July, I walked the length of the Yorkshire old way, Mastiles Lane. The weather stayed reasonable and it’s a dry track most of the way but there was a fair wind blowing on the top. Amazing to see the remains of the Roman Camp – how did those soldiers feel about the winds and rain up there in such an exposed location? – and we managed to spot for sure one of the two remaining stone cross bases where the monks from Fountains placed crosses along the way.

“Along the lines of monastic roads it was the custom to place crosses at prominent points, partly to stand as landmarks pointing the way and partly as a symbol of consecration or dedication to the service of the church. Crosses were usually a very plain and rather stumpy shaft, roughly squared or sometimes bevelled to a rough octagon and set in a socket cut in a large base block but in others it is squared up and tooled. five of these crosses lie alongside the old road across Malham Moor, one near Strete Gate.” [Malham and Malham Moor, by Arthur Raistrick]

Most Dales hikes that I undertake tend to be circular but it made a nice change to do a there and back one and my fellow hikers agreed. Mastiles Lane starts in the village of Kilnsey.

This high limestone landscape is unsuited to arable but the monks of Fountains Abbey brought their flocks of sheep to this area and the lane itself was established by them. Mastiles Lane is almost totally for its full length a walled lane and those walls are just a small proportion of the dry stone walls that criss-cross the county (and other counties too, of course).

We reach Strete Gate

About ten days before the walk I had the good fortune to meet Robert Macfarlane author of The Old Ways book. He was speaking at The Buxton Festival. I was interested to hear him talk about how landscapes shape us and he talked (and wrote in the book) at length about the East Anglian walker and writer George Borrow who was one of the first people to note the connection between walking and health and memory-making and re-walking in the memory. His (Borrow’s) walks were full of meetings and conversations with people. A fine example is his book Wild Wales.

From Borrow Robert moved on to talk about his walk along The Icknield Way, which he chose because of its proximity to Cambridge where he lives. Edward Thomas’s “The Icknield Way“ was an inspiration to him as well. Thomas in turn was influenced by a poem by Robert Frost :

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost
This poem prompted ET to sign up to serve in the army during The First World War. He was killed at The Battle of Arras on Easter Day (8 April), 1917. Thomas and Frost had become friends and Frost encouraged ET to move from prose into poetry. There’s much more in The Old Ways about the two poets, about Thomas’s war service and death and about the South Downs Way. And Macfarlane asked, do we trust Frost’s poem?

Milady’s short trip to Geneva

Geneva is not the most attractive of the cities I have visited in Switzerland (like Bern, Zurich and Lucerne) but beyond the designer watch ads atop the lakeside buildings and Geneva’s ‘mountain’ looking more like a rocky ridge, from where I was standing, I found a delightful Old Town and two worthwhile excursions to fill my two days perfectly.

Lake Geneva

On the first full day we boarded an early boat, the S/S Simplon, from the Quai Mont-Blanc and headed off under rather cloudy overcast skies for an hour and three quarter lake cruise to Yvoire on the southern shore of Lake Geneva.

Whenever she can Milady hopes to travel in style

S/S Simplon and the famous Jet D’Eau, from Quai Mont-Blanc Geneva

Paquins Lighthouse

The S/S Simplon leaves us at Yvoire

Yvoire is in France but there are no passport controls or inspections it was just straight off the boat into the Restaurant du Port (the name tells you where it’s located) and lunch was served!

Restaurant Du Port, Yvoire

The proposed return sailing was cancelled which meant a 3 hour stay at Yvoire and you can only spend so long eating lunch. This attractive little medieval town was full of tourists so we two decided to take a walk to the next stop and pick up our boat from there later.

After inspecting the little shops we set off to find the footpath to Nernier. (Sounds like something out of C. S. Lewis.) It was a most pleasant walk along shady paths and tracks past interesting houses but with minimal views of the Lake, unfortunately. We came across a lovely wildflower meadow, visited an old church and arrived at Nernier with lots of time for people-watching at the port until the Simplon arrived on the dot at  5.37pm.

The small beach at Nernier

The Old Town

The next day I made a morning visit to the Old Town. There are some steepish climbs and lovely cobbled paths and streets and I enjoyed browsing in a secondhand book stall on the way and at a second hand book and prints shop on the Grand’Rue. There are some delightful street cafes for outdoor refreshments and the Cathedral is situated there. There’s a great view from the tower but we didn’t go up. It’s a lovely area for a bit of “flaner“.

Cologny

 I can only take so much aimless wandering interspersed with breaks for tea or beer so in the early afternoon I took the bus out to the residential suburb of Cologny. My purpose was to visit the Martin Bodmer Library and to try to find the Villa Diodati, the former home of Lord Byron and now a private residence.

The Bodmer Foundation is fantastic! It’s one of the biggest private libraries in the world and the breadth of the display is simply breathtaking. There are samples of the written or typeset word from the earliest times – Greek papyrus fragments, the oldest manuscripts of St John’s Gospel – to ‘modern’ American first editions – Ginsberg, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Hemingway – and everything in between. And not just literary but medical, scientific, music. There’s a Shakespeare 1623 First Folio and an early Chaucer Canterbury Tales. All displayed in a modern, subtly-lit underground gallery on two floors designed by Swiss architect Mario Botta.

From the Bodmer gallery it’s a 10-15 minute walk to the Chemin de Ruth and number 9, The Villa Diodati.

First I found the entrance gate and a bit further along the road is a meadow with seats and a view over the lake and towards the city. It’s called ‘Le Pré Byron‘. An Information Board welcomes you to the spot and explains :

“On this very spot the story of ‘Frankenstein’ was born. During the summer of 1816, the weather was atrocious, cold and rainy spells alternating with violent thunder storms. At that time, Byron, a 28 years old poet , was renting the Villa Diodati to the left of this meadow. … Mary Shelley was also spending the summer at Cologny at Jacob Chappuis’ home situated at the lower end of Montalegre, below where you are now standing. One evening at the Villa Diodati Byron and Mary Shelley made a bet as to who would be the first to write a horror novel. Mary became excited at this idea, completed the story of ‘Frankenstein’ a year later in England and won the bet.”

As you walk down towards the lake the house becomes clearly visible.

From the lake side it’s an easy bus ride back into town.

The Footloose Route Booklet – reading between the lines

In the ATG Footloose Walks brochure there’s a little section called “Finding Your Way” :

“The ATG Route Booklet includes detailed directions and maps, as well as up-to-date information on towns visited, places of interest, local history, restaurants, cafes and shops en route.”

Approaching Mittelbergheim from Barr

In addition to our Route Manager the other key to the success of our trip was The ATG Route Booklet. With this winning combination we knew we could set out each day with confidence knowing that we’d be able to find our way without difficulty. We could decide whether to either buy lunch before setting off from the village or buy it at a cafe or from a village patisserie/boulangerie on the route and eat in a charming village square or in the welcome shade of a churchyard.

You can’t go wrong – and we didn’t.

Our walk from Barr southwards to Kaysersberg covered about 38-39 miles. Sometimes we coincided with the famous pilgrim way of St Jacques de Compostelle. There seem to be many starting points to this major pilgrim route – I’ve seen another part of the route in Switzerland – but they all meet at  Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain. The grooves of the traditional scallop shell sign indicate the paths all converging onto Santiago de Compostela.

Luckily we were walking via Dieffenthal and Chatenois to St Hippolyte

Each village or small town which we passed through was distinctive and yet they all had several aspects in common: the half-timbered buildings, often gaily painted with flower-bedecked windows; decorated fountains, some with drinkable water and others not; wine growing businesses offering tastings (degustations); distinctive towers, arches and gates and quite a few had revived old medieval gardens demonstrating herbs and other useful plants.

Colourful houses in Andlau

Window in the sunshine at Dieffenthal

Drinking water fountain at Orschwiller

Medieval Garden at Chatenois

Tower/Gateway at Riquewihr

Fountain at Kaysersberg

Between the villages many of the tracks were alongside fields planted full-to-bursting with grape vines – still in the very early stages of growth for this summer. These were tracks were dotted with stone crucifixes and roadside shrines which were often included in our directions.

The Route Booklet offered us a daily choice of routes – higher and therefore longer and more remote or lower and generally shorter and passing through small centres of population. Until the last day we chose the lower routes as we found the villages delightful and the tracks easier. Despite this we covered over 10 miles a day on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th days and we had great views across the Rhine Valley to the German Black Forest and the Swiss Alps. Above us on our right loomed the defensive castles and fortresses prominently located on higher ground above the valley.

Haut Koenigsbourg Castle above St Hippolyte

Ciconia ciconia – lucky to see you!

One thing I really hoped to see on my walking tour in Alsace was a stork on its nest. And my wish came true as we arrived at Dambach-La-Ville at the end of our first day’s walking. I used to read a book called ‘The Wheel on the School’ by Meindert Dejong to my sons when they were young.

It’s the story of a village in Holland that the storks have forsaken and the efforts made by the villagers and especially the school children to encourage those birds to come back. Although this story is set in Holland I knew that storks could also be seen – if one was lucky – in Alsace. I was reminded of the Alsace-stork connection as we came across countless images of storks in every conceivable place during our journey.

We saw storks again on the next day in the small town of Chatenois and had one further spotting of a stork in flight from its nest at Ribeauville on the third day.

On the Blienschwiller Gate at Dambach-La-Ville

Dambach Storks

The storks we saw were White Storks – the best known of the 17 species of the stork family. With their long broad wings these long legged birds can apparently fly to great heights on upward convection currents.

Storks are a symbol of good luck and the traditional bearers of babies.

To encourage the storks to nest in the neighbourhood and therefore increase their chances of having good luck the villagers put up baskets or cartwheels. We saw many empty examples of these. Storks spend the winter in South Africa and think about heading north in March and April. They often return to their old nests adding to them and repairing them and in so doing increasing the weight and height of the nest substantially. The young birds tend to stay in the nests for about two months and I think we were lucky indeed to catch sight of occupied nests on our brief trip.

Classic Alsace … you will be welcomed!!

I’ve just returned from a five day walking holiday in Alsace! After last year – my first such walking holiday – in Shropshire my sister and I vowed “never again”. But as the months went by our memories of the tough climbs and steep descents on the Offa’s Dyke Path Day gradually faded so much so that earlier this year we decided to take the plunge and book another such trip!

Here is Edina on the back cover of the ATG Footloose 2012 Brochure

Many companies will arrange independent walking holidays but ATG Oxford (Alternative Travel Group) came with an excellent personal recommendation from friends of mine. As they say on their website “almost everyone comes through personal recommendations”. They send out a Route Booklet, transfer bags from one hotel to the next along a continuous route and (I don’t know whether other companies do this) they add in the services of a Route Manager. Ours was the lovely Edina and in her ATG have  a star!

And here she is just before we said our goodbyes, yesterday

One reason for choosing the Classic Alsace Walk was the fact that it’s accessible by train and I love to travel on Eurostar, it is just so civilised and exciting. We met up in London last Wednesday evening and the next morning took an early train to Strasbourg via Lille and from there we caught a local train to the village, or maybe town, of Obernai – deep in the Viticulture and Degustation Region of Alsace.

The market square at Obernai

 

Obernai Corn Exchange

Obernai Place du Marche

Obernai Ramparts Walk

Obernai Ramparts

Obernai Ramparts

The Obernai Town Hall

Light rain was falling that Thursday evening but even so we dined on a restaurant terrace, walked the ramparts and generally relaxed before starting our four day ‘ordeal’ (which turned out to be nothing but a pleasure from beginning to end) the next day. Friday dawned brighter and sunny and Edina arrived ready to talk about the trip and transport us to our starting point. We met with two other lady walkers from the US who, although starting on the same day as us, were tackling the 8 day version. So our paths never crossed with them again.

Edina insisted that before starting out and before leaving Obernai we must visit the monastery of Le Mont Saint Odile way up above the town. Although anxious to begin walking we accepted her kind invitation and were delighted to have the opportunity to visit this most popular summit in the whole of Alsace. It’s quite a climb (even by car!) up to the summit of the sandstone crag but as you might expect the views are spectacular. It’s an important place of pilgrimage – popular, at least last Friday, as an excursion for young French school children.

Mont Sainte Odile

Gardens at Mont Sainte Odile

Courtyard at Mont Sainte Odile

The Tomb of Sainte Odile

Spectacular Views from Mont Sainte Odile

Finally, we said Goodbye and Good luck to Pam and Joyce and thanked Edina and set off on our own, with the Route Booklet as our guide, from Barr to Kaysersberg a distance of nearly 40 miles! Read more about our adventures in future posts.

The Old Ways – Mastiles Lane Drovers’ Road

I’m currently reading a book called ‘The Old Ways : a journey on foot‘ by Robert Macfarlane. In fact, I have a pre-publication copy. A couple of months ago I decided that I would like to participate in a group read of the book organised by Lynne – the Dovegreyreader.

The plan is to read the book and and record our own ‘journey on foot’ along an ‘old way’. My hike was originally planned with a group friends for a Saturday in April but the weather on the days leading up to the trip was so bad that it has been postponed and hopefully the full walk will take place in July or August. Mastiles Lane is to be ‘my’ Old Way.

On Thursday I had been invited by my Landmarking friends to visit them during their stay at one of the latest Landmark properties : Cowside. It’s way up in Langstrothdale in Upper Wharfedale, North Yorkshire and as the invitation was for tea I set off early from home in order to fit in a couple of hours hiking along the beginning of Mastiles Lane. It is just part of an old monastic road which linked Cumbria with Fountains Abbey. Mastiles Lane itself is the stretch between Strete Gate, on Malham Moor, and Kilnsey – a distance of about 5 miles. The Cistercian monks of Fountains established a grange at Kilnsey which formed an administrative centre for the vast sheep farming estate.

Kilnsey is the village at the start of the route and it is most famous for its Kilnsey Crag a great rocky outcrop that juts out almost over the main road and is very popular with rock climbers. There are places to park in the village and along the main road and Mastiles Lane itself, although I never noticed an actual sign for it, is easy enough to find.

Kilnsey Old Hall

Built over the site of the former Kilnsey Grange

Kilnsey Old Hall (17th century) built on the site of the original Kilnsey grange (Fountains Abbey – by Herbert Whone, 1987.)

As you start uphill out of the village you notice Kilnsey Old Hall. The seventeenth century hall is built over the site of the original Kilnsey Grange

“Kilnsey was the place to which the immense flock of this [Fountains] Abbey were driven from the surrounding hills for their annual shearing; a scene of primitive festivity to which the imagination delights on recurring'” 

from ‘The Deanery of Craven’ by T. D. Whitaker (1878).

The tarmac road is soon replaced by an open track which itself is replaced, after a passing through a gate, by a walled track.

Mastiles Lane walled track in the Yorkshire Dales

Mastiles Lane continues on in a WSW direction towards Malham Moor

 I walked for about an hour on a gradual incline until I reached the highest point of the track as indicated by 1384 feet/423 meter marks on my Ordnance Survey maps. A few paces further along and I was over the brow, round a bend and could see the walled track clearly wending its way for possibly another couple of miles before disappearing over another brow.

At this point I turned back. The picture above shows the return route to Kilnsey. Many of the members of the discussion group are keen on flowers and birds and I duly noted that these both existed along the route but my own interest lies in the influence of man on the landscape and I hope to report back later in the year on the walk in full and on the evidence man has had on the landscape.

And so back to Kilnsey and a further drive deeper into the more remote part of the Dales – Langstrothdale Chase where the kettle at Cowside was whistling on the stove and the fruit cake and Yorkshire parkin were lying in wait for one hungry walker!

A Bridge, Rocks and Old Bushmills Whiskey – a Day on the Antrim Coast

Last week I went on my first ever coach holiday. And I must say I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a very enjoyable experience. In mid-2011 I received a mail shot through the post from the National Trust advertising coach holidays in the UK in conjunction with the company Just Go! If you follow the link you will see the wide selection of holidays available. The brochure last year arrived too late to consider booking in 2011 but I hoped the experiment would be repeated for this year. It was and my first choice “Welcome to Northern Ireland” was available with bookings from Leeds during May. Perfect! Although in the end we decided to fly out from our local airport and take a taxi from Belfast City Airport to join our party at the Hotel La Mon in the countryside just outside the city.

The first day dawned somewhat misty and overcast but as we got underway, heading north through the Belfast traffic, the sun appeared and the sky turned blue. The week continued in the same vein.

Our first destination was Carrick-a-Rede on the north Antrim coast. From here we had a clear view of Rathlin Island and the Scottish mainland – The Mull of Kintyre. My previous visit to Northern Ireland had been 45 years ago when I spent just over a week at Girl Guide camp at Magilligan Point a beautiful and remote spot on the County Londonderry coast. (Sadly, it became an internment camp and prison during the recent troubles.) From there we visited north Antrim coast and I made my first walk across The Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. Today the whole area is owned by the National Trust. There’s a large car park and cafe-cum-shop and there’s a one mile walk along the coast path from there to reach that wobbly bridge.

The Rope Bridge was originally erected by local fishermen and links the mainland of County Antrim to the rocky outcrop 20 metres away. The chasm between the two is 30 metres deep. It’s an exhilarating walk, challenging crossing and satisfying achievement to arrive on the island where there are great opportunities for birdwatching and more spectacular views.

From Carrick-a-Rede we headed slightly inland to the nearby town of Bushmills where the Old Bushmills Distillery is open to group tours. Making whiskey here is huge business and it has been carried on since the first licence was granted in 1608. The tour is very well done and very professional – you get to see the process of Whiskey making step-by-step and you end up in the ‘pub’ at the end where you may claim your nip, or hot toddy or (in my case) soft drink.

Then it was on to the final stop for the day – the Unesco World Heritage Site of The Giant’s Causeway.The Causeway today is a very busy place. Besides all the visitors, there is a lot of building work going on. The National Trust is building a whole new visitor centre and car park behind the Causeway Hotel where the present shop and facilities are located. For our walk to the Causeway we were accompanied by a volunteer guide who was well-versed in Irish mythology and legends and possibly also in geology and coastal geomorphology. The few facts have been lost amidst the mass of stories connected with Giant Finn MacCool and the unusual rock formations.

The Camel

The Organ

Tall Rock Formations

Walking The Huddersfield Narrow Canal

About once a year we each volunteer to lead the other Weekday Wanderers on one of our monthly hikes. My choice of walk usually involves  something more than just pleasant green paths, nice views and heart-failure-inducing climbs – although I love these too! (Well, not the actual climbs, but the resultant views and feelings of achievement). For some time simmering on the back-burner  has been my idea of using public transport and doing an end-to-end walk as opposed to a circular one. With my interest in historical geography and since I heard about its re-opening about 10 years ago I’ve been wanting to plan a walk along the towpath beside The Huddersfield Narrow Canal. My chance finally arrived yesterday when I did a practice run for my ‘turn’ to lead in April.

The Huddersfield Narrow Canal was originally opened back in 1811 at the time of the great expansion of transport by waterways across England. The Canal runs for 20 miles between Huddersfield to the east of the Pennines and Ashton-under-Lyne in Lancashire to the west. This was no mean feat of engineering. Some facts from the website state :

“The summit of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal is the highest navigable waterway in Britain.
Standedge Tunnel on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal is Britain’s longest canal tunnel.
The canal has a total of 74 locks. It connects end on with the Ashton Canal and the Huddersfield Broad Canal.”

I travelled by train via Leeds and Huddersfield to one of the furthermost stations in Yorkshire – Marsden. Alighting at Marsden I chose to walk back up the canal, as far as one may go on this side of the Pennines in fact. About half a mile from Marsden is the Standedge Tunnel entrance and Tunnel End. Here there’s a Visitor Centre and the starting point in summer of public tours into the Standedge Tunnel in glass-roofed narrow boats.

Tunnel End

Tunnel End Visitor Centre and glass-topped tour boats

The tunnel being 3 miles long and with no towpath for a horse to pull the boat it was down to men to do their own “legging” to get the boat from Yorkshire into Lancashire or vice versa. These days the tour boats are hauled into the tunnel by electric tug boats.

It’s about seven and a half miles from the Standedge  (pronounced Stannige) Tunnel down to the centre of Huddersfield and this section also includes more than 40 locks. Yesterday the walk was very peaceful. There were no boats on the canal but I hope there will be more ‘action’ on our April visit. Each narrow lock area has its own number and character and it was intriguing to look down into the depths of the lock itself.

There are stretches of shady wooded paths, paths past green fields and reservoirs, past old out-of-operation mills, past mills now converted to a multitude of innovative uses such as The Titanic Mill (below) opened in 1912 and named for the ill-fated liner launched in the same year now a luxury hotel, spa and apartment building …

… and through small towns like Slaithwaite (pronounced Slawit) where we popped into the irresistible Slaithwaite Bakery, noted the pretty Moonraker Floating Tearoom, saw the only working guillotine lock gate in the country and ate our sandwiches under shadow of the towering Globe Mill between the canal and the main street.

At Lock 4E you are diverted away from the canal as it passes under buildings in Huddersfield. The Pennine Waterways website provides a useful map and directions to get you back on track for the last section to where the Huddersfield Narrow joins the Huddersfield Broad Canal at Aspley Marina. Reaching the town and feeling the solid pavement under my feet I felt ready to hunt out the station and start for my journey home.

Poster seen on an unoccupied shop building in Huddersfield town centre