Upper Teesdale

Date: 31st January 2012
Route: Bowlees Visitor Centre - Dirt Pit - Etterdgill - Hurth edge Caves - Hanging Shaw - Sayer Hill Bridge - Watgarth Bridge - Cronkly Farm - High Force - Low Force - Bowlees Visitor Centre
Distance: - 12 miles

Weather: -Bright & Sunny with some snow flurries.

Arriving at Bob's in Barney we drove on to park in the layby just past Bowless Visitor Centre. Yet again we had struck lucky with the weather with a bright, sunny, albeit cold, day. There was still some snow on the ground particularly as we gained height but not enough to cause us any worries - so very different from the previous year!

The Snow covered Dales

So we set off at 10.00am, well wrapped up from the cold and headed off on a route we had covered a number of times previously. As we headed to the Caves we reviewed FC's friendly games, a defeat to Rovers and a convincing win against the Bulls. Why of why do we seem to have a problem winning against the Dobbins? Friendly or not they always seem to be more fired up for a derby game than we do. Still, our pre-season optimism was not wavering and our imminent first game against the Wire was met with a degree of positivity.

From the caves we headed towards Sayer Hill Bridge (the last time we'd been here was in Summer with the FAC boys. We managed to find some shelter from the wind and settled down for lunch. however, as the flasks came out the snow began to fall - for once Bob's short 15 min lunch break was not met with any complaints from this quarter.

Man / Bird / Rabbit!

The view from Cronkley Farm

 As we passed through Cronkly Farm and began our climb upward the scenery was pretty impressive with a nice dusting of snow despite the attempts of the sun to melt it away.











We were now following the Tees towards High Force, which was looking mightily impressive due to a fair amount of water flowing into the rivers.

High Force in full flow

Even Low Force was looking good as we passsed it and returned back to the car at 3.00pm.
A good look out for our second walk of the year.

Low Force

First walk of 2012

Date: 11th January 2012
Route: Willington - Brancepeth - Brandon - Broom Park - Ushaw Moor - Esh Winning - Waterhouses - Stanley Crook - Willington
Distance: - 17 miles

Weather: -Bright & sunny

Time to blow the cobwebs off and begin 2012's walking diary. With the forecast pretty good for this early in the year we decided on a walk along the old railway lines. So Bob picked me up and we drove the short distance to Willington to park up near the Co-Op store.
Setting off in high spirits we headed towards Broom Park near Durham along a by now familiar route. With a new owner, new board, new coach and a raft of new players at FC pre-season optimism was running high. Is this going to the beginning of a new and more fruitful era for the Black & Whites - lets hope so.
With surprising speed we quickly passed through Brancepeth & Brandon and arrived at Broom Park. We stopped briefly to watch as a Kestrel buzzed us a couple of times (too fast to get a good photo, but incredibly close for us to see the detail and colour). We cracked on heading towards Usher Moor & Esh Winning before finding a canny spot by the river near Rog Path woods for lunch. 

Time for the last of the Christmas Cake. As usual Bob kept our stop to a minimum and after 20 minutes we were packed up and heading off again.

 

The weather was incredible, sunglasses in January! Conversation had turned to work and discussion around the many different opportunities we were already pursuing. We were now into unfamiliar territory and the scenery had changed to woodland as we followed the river through a series of small Town & Villages on our way back to Willington.

Starting at 10.00am we finally got back to the car at 3.30pm and incredibly the weather had remained bright, dry & sunny just like our dispositions!