The FastDay Forum

Sissinghurst castle, acres of bluebells!!!

The bluebells are out in Cumbria too, earlier than usual because of the warm wet winter. And wild garlic, wood anemone, campion, forget-me-not, buttercups, daisies, lots of other stuff I don't know the name of, all out at once and not even May.

I'm a rambling/hiking geek and living in Northumberland there is plenty of choice. I'm also not that far from Ullswater in the Lake District and frequently walk around the Hallin Fell which is an easy and pretty circular walk.

I have done most of the walks in Mallorca so I'm here if anyone wants any tips. The Barranc de Biniaraix is my favourite and we try to walk it at least once a year http://www.mallorca-spotlight.com/news/ ... llorca.htm

Now I'm in the US, I have a few on my list that I want to do as they are only about 15 minutes away. http://www.everytrail.com/best/hiking-m ... state-park and http://www.ebparks.org/parks/trails. I'd love to hear from anyone who has done some of these trails as there seems alot to choose from!

Looks good rawkaren, but you must get out to Yosemite/Tuolumne when the roads are open - fantastic hiking country, wonderful scenery etc...

carorees wrote: @greenmonster there are wild boar in the Forest of Dean and wolves somewhere in Scotland I believe...

NoooOOOooooOOOOoo we are camping in Scotland next week!! I don't think they actually did reintroduce them (maybe I'm wrong), I just thought that it was being talked about. And yes now you come to think about it I do remember seeing something about the Forest of Dean's wild boar, probably on countryfile.

I like the theory behind 'rewilding' our countryside and support the policies of allowing more native trees and plants to repopulate places like Ennerdale, although it would be quite daunting to go walking if there were wolves around!

Rain has rather stopped play this week. 4 of the walks in the Lowther valley completed, 2 to go. On 2 reliably sunny days last week I had engagements, so no further along the Settle - Carlisle walk alas.

At last. After doing some lovely walks in Shropshire and around Oban, and after a lot of rain, I have done the next walk in the Penrith Ramblers book - Bampton, Haweswater and Rosgill. Good 8.5 mile route with a bit of the Lake District scenery looking up the Haweswater reservoir, and a many beautiful woods, streams and pastures such as you would find elsewhere in the country. Being up in Scotland I got a second helping of bluebells, here in Cumbria it was field after field of buttercups, at one time I followed a very narrow path through them and they were waist high. Bonus as I got to Bampton Grange, the Crown and Mitre was open so I downed a glass of sparkling water with ice and lemon. I am so used to passing through small settlements where there is nowhere that does refreshment, or the pub looks long closed it is a pleasure to find somewhere.

Please, please can I have some fine weather on 3 days in the near future when I don't have to be doing something useful and meritorious so I can have a crack at 1) Mallerstang Edge. 2) Wild Boar Fell. 3) Kirkby Stephen to Appleby?

Nipped up Blencathra via Halls Fell ridge on Friday afternoon, then took nearly as long to get down via the same route. Long gone are the days when I could break the hour for the whole trip...
Lovely weekend staying in Skirwith celebrating the 42nd anniversary of our college expedition to Southern Greenland in 1975, taking in the mountain, above, the Penrith parkrun (very slowly due to excess wine the previous night), a couple of walks and a 30 mile bike ride. I managed to show the ISS to some who had never seen it and also discovered a new gliding club just up the road from the village. And there are several properties for sale... I shall return!

Gosh @creakypete if you were in Skirwith you were hardly more than 5 miles away! Gliding club at Glassonby! Hall's Fell is a perfect example of things I can't do any more - 30 years ago I got up in an hour. Now all the grassy detours past the scrambles have gone there are stretches of unavoidable bare rock I cannot psych myself over. Yesterday I was blessing the guys who had put in a grassy alternative to the scramble down Measand Beck! I didn't know they did Parkruns in Penrith. Last week I jogged round my 5k route for the first time in an amazing 40 minutes.

Yes, the rocky bits got me too! I remember doing the whole up/down in just under the hour in 1991 and that involved running down - I can't believe it is possible to run the top half at all, and my quads/hips were screaming at me by the bottom half on Friday - and the Garmin shows I took longer down than up. Sic transit gloria mundi, as they say....
Penrith parkrun is quite low-key and not well attended yet, running around the football fields on perfectly flat grass for most part with lots of doubling back on yourself to make the distance right, but to find that my old friend's village had all the things I can imagine wanting in my leisure years within 20 minutes or so was amazing and I would be really tempted to look for a small cottage in the area. Just got to convince MrsPete!

4 more walks from the Penrith Ramblers book and an actual walk with the Penrith Ramblers.

The imagination can take you back to childhood when you have to hack your way through rampant vegetation and elude savage beasts (aka nettles and bulls). Nettles grow up amazingly quickly on paths that are rarely used but I smite them with my walking pole. In future I must also carry secateurs so I can force my way along narrow lanes which want to transform themselves into bushes.

As for the bulls, I met a dangerous specimen when I was near the end of a walk, had just crossed several delightful meadows and reached a gate in a dip. Beyond the gate was a short width of field, a shallow stream crossed by a narrow bridge, and a field full of cows and the bull. I slowly moved onto the bridge to evaluate the situation. No he was not going to let inoffensive me walk quietly along the edge of his field and disappear into the lane at the far end. The burly brute was fizzing with testosterone, alternately emitting a grisly bass hum and bellowing, and darting to and fro bullying his cows and chasing them in different directions. When he chased one off to the left I headed calmly but briskly across the field corner and climbed a gate on my right. I walked along the left side of this field and occasionally peered over the wall to see that the bull was also moving up his field, not necessarily to keep track of me but in a foul temper nevertheless. Fortunately the field I was in had only older calves, who were most friendly, and it had a gate onto the road right next to the lane I should have been in.

Oddly enough there was a bull in a field on the Ramblers walk, which had not been there the previous week. This one was Brown and better tempered; we gave him a wide berth and he showed no interest. Had I been alone I would have headed down the field and through a gate onto the road!

It is many years since I have been on a group ramble so it felt strange - the hum of conversation, the meal stops (all but the last before my eating window so just drank water), not having to do any navigation. The walk is the first in a series of what is a new long distance path around the Eden District, so exciting to be one of the first people to do it . Nice route, civilised day out topped off by a block booking in a Pooley Bridge tea shop. Clotted cream scone. Dr Atkins - I did not have the strawberry jam, stop frowning.

Okay, after my return from the Northeast, some serious rambling to report:

29/06. 8 mile walk Howtown to Glenridding via Beda Fell (with 2 tea shops!)
30/06. 8.5 mile walk Skirwith, Kirkland and Blencarn
01/07. 13.4 mile walk Kirkby Stephen to Appleby
02/07. 5.5 mile walk Kirkoswald, Park Head and Scales
03/07. 5.5 mile walk Penrith, Thacka and Newton Rigg
04/07. NOTHING
05/07. 10.5 mile walk Greystoke Forest, Hutton Roof and Lamonby
06/07. 5k jog and 6.25 mile walk Alston and South Tynedale(
0707. 17.3 mile walk Appleby to Langwathby

Incidentally, very pleased that My first jog back on my home circuit came in at just over 36 minutes, proving that my good times on Whitley Bay seafront were a real improvement, not a measuring anomaly .

The second leg of the Eden Wheel was very pleasant, my knees survived the descent from Boredale Hause unscathed. 25 out of 30 walks from the Penrith Ramblers book done, 5 to go. Two legs of the Settle to Carlisle LDP left, today was the longest. I also have to squeeze in 2more Garsdale to Kirkby Stephen walks during the longer days, one over Mallerstang Edge and Nine Standards Rigg and one over Wild Boar Fell. And grrr!! the route from Kirkby Stephen to Appleby in the Walks in the Eden Valley book is different from the one I have just done as far as Soulby, so I will have to do that as well!

What I have learnt - ramblers should not wear shorts, there are too many shoulder high nettles and thistles around at present

Bit late with this, after completing the Settle - Carlisle walk I came over a bit wiped out. Nothing to do with the enormous cappuccino I had in Waterstones to celebrate:

08/07. 5k walk
09/07. 5k walk
10/07. 6 mile walk Ivegill, High Head and Thistlewood
11/07. 12.7 mile walk Langwathby to Armathwaite
12/07. 5k jog
13/07. 9.75 mile walk Glenridding to Wult Bridge - Eden Wheel 3
14/07. NOTHING
15/07. 14.1 mile walk Armathwaite to Carlisle
16/07. NOTHING
17/07. 4 mile walk Threlkeld and Derwent Folds
18/07. 5k walk

A mixed bag. I had had enough of the Ivegill walk by the second paragraph of the instructions where I failed to spot the wooden steps and the stile at the top of the bank and spent about a quarter of an hour following false leads through the overgrowth up the very steep bank. The word "shortly" should be banned on walks books, it can mean anything from a few paces to a few hundred yards, even by the same author. And stretches of it were incredibly boggy, even though we had been in a long dry spell. I decided in retrospect that what I disliked was the finicky nature of the actual route on the ground; such short distances between stiles and gates, uneven terrain, therefore always looking down to prevent twisted ankle. Only towards the end could one stride out. It took me 4 1/2 hours to do this walk of 6 miles, the same time it took me next day to do 12.7 miles from Langwathby to Armathwaite, which was delightful. Far more so than Armathwaite to Carlisle which begins with nearly 8 miles of woodland riverside path, delightful in theory but I found too much of a good thing - on and on seeing nothing but water and trees, some stretches popular and easy, others with the path barely visible through head-high weeds, or narrow, muddy and tilted down toward the drop to the river.

The Eden Wheel walk was another revelation in that apart from a small stretch through Glenridding mines my feet had touched none of the paths during my intensive years of Wainwright bagging.

So 3 more walks from the Penrith Ramblers book to go. I should then do a bit of fell-walking as my chest has not heaved and my heart has not pounded on a walk for some time.

did first walk with hubby yesterday after a virus had me stuck inside for ages. since we did not know how much I could do, hubby found a flat-ish 4 mile walk, starting at Hope, North Derbyshire cross country to Castleton, where there would be an opportunity for a rest and drinks if needed, and along the river back to Hope. As is not too uncommon with us, we didn't bother carrying the OS map as it looked an easy route, and of course we missed a turning. Haha, (the missing the turning bit is what I mean by not too uncommon with us!!) so it ended up STEEP, HILLY and long.. so Castleton rest break was definitely needed, where we had drinks in a bizarre American style diner cafe which seemed very out of place in the little village surrounded by chintzy shops selling blue John stone..... anyway, it did the trick, and only a gentle stroll back to the car at Hope. glorious day and since we ended up rather high... Glorious views!!!!!

19/07. NOTHING
20/07. 5k jog
6 mile walk Garrigill and Ashgill Force
21/07. NOTHING
22/07. 14.5 mile walk Alston, Lambley and Haltwhistle. 4 1/2 hours
23/07. NOTHING
24/07. 12 mile walk Swarth Fell and Wild Boar Fell Garsdale to Kirkby Stephen 2390' 5 hours
25/07. NOTHING
26/07. 17 mile walk Mallerstang and Nine Standards Rigg Garsdale to Kirkby Stephen 2990' 6 hours 20 minutes
27/07. 7.5 mile walk Wolt Bridge to Bowscale Eden Wheel 4 2250'

Glorious, glorious. A bit of rain and wind on the last one.