My God it's Full of Frogs!

Pennine Adventure (5)

I've been up ont' moors again. Yesterday. This time it was the leg of the Pennine Way between Hebden Bridge and Haworth.

Here are the ups and downs (and even a map this time):


(From Where's the Path)

You will need to click on the pic if you want to see any detail.

Highlights of this section:

1. Hebden Bridge is charming.

2. Quite early on I passed the remains of what I believe is called a 'drop water closest'. Basically this is a structure built over a waterfall where one can move one's bowels - then presumably pop down to the River Calder later in the day and try to identify one's own turd bobbing about in the water. As far as I could tell it was no longer in use.

3. The heather is in bloom, giving the moors a lovely purple glow.

4. I passed the 50 mile point on the Pennine Way - not sure where exactly.

5. I also passed Top Withins. Legend has it that this is the ruins of the farmhouse that Emily Bronte based Wuthering Heights on. Despite a Bronte Society plaque stating "the buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described" the place must have some sort of tourist-pulling-power - it is possibly the only part of the Pennine Way which has signposts in both English and Japanese.

Here's a photo of Top Withins from the 1920s. It still had a roof then.


(From Wuthering Heights)

6. I'm saving the best for last. This section of the Pennine Way is covered in frogs! Lots and lots of frogs! Big frogs, little frogs, green frogs, yellow frogs, red frogs.

(More about frogs here)

Who would have thought?!

Pennine Adventure (4)

Yesterday I walked the next section of the Pennine Way, this time starting at Littleborough and finishing at Hebden Bridge.

I've not made a profile of this bit. Last week I was provided with a new PC and I've just discovered it doesn't have any picture editing tools. Boo!

To be honest, though, this section of the Pennine Way is virtually flat (even the walk uphill from Littleborough is reasonably gentle) so this was an easy day's walk.

It's not always easy though. I was here in February with Mr Crab and a couple of chums. There was a lot of snow on the ground, the reservoirs were frozen solid, the path was an ice-slick from start to finish and we spent the whole day walking in heavy fog.

So heavy we couldn't even see this until it was a matter of metres away.


© Copyright Andy Stephenson and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

This is Stoodley Pike. The views from here are magnificent (assuming you're not walking in a pea-souper, that is).

Hare & Hounds (13)

I visited this Hare & Hounds yesterday:

(Photo as usual is from Google Streetview. Click on the pic if you'd like to see the full size image.)

I probably should have been here long before now, it's in Shudehill and I've been past it dozens of times since I started my Hare & Hounds quest.

A pub in the centre of Manchester possibly isn't a likely destination for a ramble, and when I set out from home I had no idea I going there. I thought I was going to the craft shop on Oldham Street to get some supplies - but it was a hot muggy day and by the time I got there I felt very grimy and dehydrated. A quick refreshing lager was just the ticket!

Of all the Hare & Houndses I've visited this one certainly had the most atmosphere, in fact it was a bit bonkers (in a good way). It was a shame I didn't have time to linger longer, but I still had nearly seven miles to walk to get home again. I will be visiting again.

Back to the craft shop. It has a name something like Azkaban, but it's not that, that's the prison in Harry Potter where the Dementors live. The craft shop is a happy place and I was getting some bits for one of my other hobbies. I am making a rainbow in installments. (My life isn't all beer and hill-walking, you know.)

Yesterday's provisions were needed for the chartreuse portion of the rainbow.

My rainbow, my rules.

Pennine Journey (3)

After an absence of a couple of months, I have finally returned to my Pennine Adventure. On Saturday, I picked up where I left off back in April and continued my journey North - this time from Greenfield to Littleborough.

The Pennine Way doesn't actually go through Greenfield (but the train does) so I had a walk of nearly four miles to the start of my route. This was the shortest and easiest stretch of Pennine yet, just a short haul up the Standedge Tunnel, then pretty flat all the way. Here's the profile:

From Where's the Path.

I've drawn in that little black cloud to indicate the section of the walk that was through a torrential thunderstorm. It didn't last long, maybe half an hour, but it was half an hour of boiling thunder and unrelenting, pissing rain. Luckily there wasn't any lightning nearby, because at the time I was the only feature in a bleak and soggy landscape.

The blue dip in the middle indicates something I've held an overwhelming ambition for, for a long time. It is the footbridge that crosses the motorway. Everytime we go to an away game in Yorkshire (which is most of them) I gaze up at that bridge and dream about walking across it. And now I have!!

Here it is:

© Copyright David Dixon and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

Fortunately it had stopped raining by then so the magic of the moment wasn't in anyway marred.

Some other landmarks of Saturday's walk:
1). I have left the OL1 behind; I am now walking on the OL21. That's progress!

(Ordnance Survey) In case you're not familiar with the area, my route is number 15.

2). At the very start of the Pennine Way, where I set out back in March, there is a pub. For the first time since then, there is a pub right on the route.

When I got there, it was closed.
This is becoming something of a feature of my walks, isn't it?

3). This walk completed the first 1,000 miles I have walked this year.

Golden Apple of the Sun

I was very sad to hear of the death of Ray Bradbury on 5th June. He has been one of my very favourite authors for many years.

Many, many years...

When I was about 12 or 13, one of my Christmas presents from my parents was Silver Locusts. I'd got to that age where reading just wasn't exciting as it had used to be - or maybe it was that there just weren't that many good books for one of that age.

Either way, it didn't matter - I absolutely loved it!



I still have this edition of the book, but I have no idea how many times I have read it over the intervening decades. This, and all his other books.

What a wonderful world they have opened for me - a world of colour and kindness, mystery and warmth.

Thank you, Ray, and rest in peace.

Hare & Hounds (12)

I've been on my holidays (yippee!) and while I was away I visited another Hare & Hounds .

This one is in Hawsker, and it was visited after a walk along a coastal bit of the Cleveland Way from Whitby to Robin Hood's Bay. I was rather pleased with this as it satisfied not one but two ambitions: 1. visiting Hare & Houndses, and 2. more walks in Yorkshire.

This picture is from the pub's own website. I don't know what the pub was like as we got there just after 3pm and it was closed. Never mind - it is the furtherest away Hare & Hounds I've visited, the weather was glorious and we were heading back to Whitby for yet another fish dinner in the much-loved Magpie Cafe.

Some other things I did on my holidays: Norton Priory, Biddulph Grange, the Middlewood - Chadkirk - Marple walk(again, but without a Hare & Hounds stop this time) and the Chelsea Flower Show.

It has all been very, very good!

Pennine Journey (2)

Yesterday I tackled the second phase of my assault on the Pennine Way. This leg of the journey was the section from Crowden to Standedge - but I started in Hadfield and finished in Greenfield, for the simple practicality that both these towns have railway stations.

Here's the profile:


Actually this isn't quite all of it. Where's the Path struggled to generate a profile for 20 miles of hills, so this one peters out somewhere near Diggle. If you'd like to know what the rest of it looked like, imagine three miles of flat towpath. It was bliss.

I've never walked most of this section of Pennine Way before (the bit between Laddow Rocks and Standedge) so it was a bit of an adventure for me.

Actually my whole weekend was spent in the Peak District. Before my Dark Peak adventure yesterday I had a trip to the White Peak on Saturday. We were away at Matlock Town (another game we managed to lose, sigh) but it is a lovely place to visit. And a lovely journey to get there, with many scenic highlights. Here's Frankie at Monsal Head last year:



What a happy little bear!