The car park for the Falls of Kirkaig is empty when we arrive with two steak pie and mashed potato dinners purchased twenty minutes earlier from Lochinver Larder but still hot. “How many other vans do you think will turn up, three, four?” I muse over our meal. Mish looks out of the window at the April showers and lowering temperature and confidently predicts “none”. Surely not, we’re in beautiful Assynt, surrounded by ancient woodland with the Kirkaig river not twenty feet from us. When I look out the window in the early hours the rain has stopped and we are alone, with just the owls, the roaring river and a billion stars twinkling in the ink black night sky to keep us company. Wives, why are they always right.
Continue reading “A walk to The Falls of Kirkaig”
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My journey along Wainwrights’s Coast to Coast Walk from St Bee’s Head to Robin Hood’s Bay. Walking from the Irish Sea to the North Sea and through three National Parks this walk has everything, Mountains, Dales, Moorland and Ocean and is soon to become a National Trail. Click on the walk to read the post or use the interactive map to see the route.
Introduction. I’m sitting in the bedroom at our bed and breakfast in St Bees the night before I set off ...
Day 1 St Bees Head to Ennerdale Bridge 14 Miles. It's a rainy start to our adventure. Gwen and I ...
Day 2 Ennerdale Bridge To Rosthwaite 14 1/2 Miles. Day two dawns dry but misty. We set off from our ...
Day 3 Rosthwaite to Grasmere 9 1/4 Miles. Today was the day I got a twenty six year old monkey ...
Day 4 Grasmere to Patterdale 8 1/2 Miles Today turned into a very eventful day for what was meant to ...
Day 5 Patterdale to Shap 17-18 Miles Overnight, Gwen and I had talked and we decided that if the wind ...
Day 6 Shap to Kirkby Stephen 20 miles Had a leisurely breakfast catching up with Bob and Alan who were ...
Day 7 Kirkby Stephen to Keld 12 miles We don’t often consider it, but sleep is a powerful healer. Despite ...
Day 8 Keld to Reeth 12 Miles Keld sits right in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. If you are ...
Day 9 Reeth to Richmond 10 miles After a comfortable night in the Dales Bike Centre we enjoy a leisurely ...
Day 10 Richmond to Danby Wiske 14 miles When I first walked this section of the Coast to Coast 26 ...
Day 11 Danby Wiske to Osmotherley 10 miles We had breakfast with a couple who had stayed in the same ...
Day 12 Osmotherley to Clay Bank Top 11 Miles Having spent two days crossing the Vale of York we are ...
Day 13 Clay Bank Top to Glaisdale 18 Miles The end of the walk, which for a couple of weeks ...
Day 14 Glaisdale to Robin Hoods Bay 19 Miles Day fourteen, the last day, starts with a wholesome farmhouse breakfast ...
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What they undertook to do they brought to pass;
All things hang like a drop of dew Upon a blade of grass
William Butler Yeats
Ambitions and goals are important things in life. They give you purpose and hope. They keep you focused, moving forward and concentrating on the future instead of dwelling on the past or being indolent in the present. I have a fair number of goals, targets and projects or more poetically, dreams, hopes and aspirations. There are things I want to see and experience, walks I want to complete and places I want to visit before I go off to rest with my ancestors. And one long standing project is to stand on top of the highest points in the five nations that make up the British Isles, England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland.
Continue reading “A Walk Up Slieve Donard”
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The Isle of Arran is often referred to as ‘Scotland in Miniature’ because the north of the island is mountainous whereas the south is more pastoral. We’ve brought the van over from Ardrossan and are enjoying a mini road trip around the island, mini because Arran is only twenty miles long and nine miles wide. But what it lacks in acreage it more than makes up for in natural scenery and human history with an abundance of beaches, waterfalls and wildlife, castles, distillery’s and ancient monuments.
Continue reading “A walk to Glenashdale Falls, Isle of Arran”
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‘Everywhere peace, everywhere serenity, and a marvelous freedom from the tumult of the world.’
Saint Aelred
Rievaulx Abbey sits on the slopes of a quiet valley nestled in peaceful woodland with the River Rye flowing gently past as it has done for centuries. In its heyday it was home to about 640 Cistercian monks who devoted themselves to God following a daily routine of prayer, meditation, reading and church services. They also reared sheep and diverted the river to assist with smelting iron ore. This made Rievaulx one of the wealthiest Abbey’s in England in the 13th century. It was in this hard working, simple spiritual life that Saint Aelred found his peace and freedom from the tumult of the world. Eight hundred years later his words still resonate with many in the modern world who are finding themselves increasingly busy but less fulfilled and would love to find their own peaceful corner of serenity in a ever tumultuous and uncertain world.
Continue reading “A walk from Rievaulx Abbey to Helmsley”
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I first read about Sandwood Bay in 1982 in that wonderful series of hardback ‘Classic Walks’ books written by Ken Wilson and Richard Gilbert. Gilbert’s description of the walk fired my imagination, “rounding the cliff, one of the most glorious sights in Britain unfolds before you. Below your feet lies Sandwood Bay, a mile long sweep of golden sand bounded by rolling dunes and crashing breakers that makes you want to shout for joy”. I too wanted to shout for joy in Sandwood Bay. Thirty Nine years later I got the opportunity.
Continue reading “A walk to Sandwood Bay”
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“This oak tree and me, we’re made of the same stuff.” Carl Sagan
There has been a great outpouring of emotion and some anger this week and not just on social media about the Sycamore Gap tree. For those who have no idea you can read the story here.
I thought I would tell of my own walk to that tree one grey October day some years ago and share some thoughts as to why it’s felling may have touched people’s emotions.
Continue reading “My walk to Sycamore Gap and some thoughts”
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This last section of the Sandstone Trail is possibly the best. There is sustained good walking throughout the day along varied and interesting paths passing through differing landscapes. There are hills to climb with sandstone escarpments to walk along providing panoramic views of surrounding counties. There is peaceful walking to be had through ancient woodland and unique heathland and, once across the obligatory fields there is a pleasant watery flat section along the Llangollen canal before a short walk across town takes you to the finish in Jubilee Park, Whitchurch.
Continue reading “Sandstone Trail Day Three Burwardsley to Whitchurch”
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Today’s section of the Sandstone Trail turns out to be a walk of two halves, the first, fields and crops, the second canals, woods and castles. I’m dropped off where I finished last week and the early walking is a very pleasant downhill section along a pretty tree lined track. Thick old oaks and beech trees line the trail, roots exposed on some by the erosion of the path. The walking is easy along soft earth with views between the oaks of flat green fields and distant Welsh hills. It’s another warm dry summers day and the morning sun is strobing through the leaves.
Continue reading “Sandstone Trail Day Two Willington to Burwardsley”
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The Sandstone Trail is a thirty four mile footpath that runs down the centre of my home county of Cheshire. Starting in Frodsham it follows a sandstone ridge south through the Cheshire countryside giving good views of the Cheshire plain, the Clwydian hills in the west and the Peak District in the east. It finishes in the attractive market town of Whitchurch. Being a walker and living locally I have walked various sections of it over the years.
Continue reading “Sandstone Trail Day One Frodsham to Willington”
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