Friday 23rd to Sunday 25th - Fern (via Backwater Reservoir)

Where's Bertie? He's spending three nights in the relative shelter of Gardener's Cottage campsite, where he's been a number of times before (most recently in May this year). It's still £20 including 10kwh of electricity, plus £1 for a 6-minute shower.

Weather: Friday - dry until the middle of the day then increasingly wet. Saturday - calm and dry morning, getting a bit breezy as Storm Boelo approached. Sunday - absolutely wild as I type this, half an hour before the wind speeds are due to peak at 66mph.

Checking Bertie's leisure battery status when I got up, it was with some alarm that I found it reporting a voltage of 11.2. Yikes! Allowing a lead acid battery to go below 11.9v doesn't do it any good at all. Moreover, it was going to be a problem in the current weather if our battery couldn't cope with running the heating for a couple or three hours a day. The problem with reading a voltage off a battery is that you get a false reading if there's any draw (or input) currently on the battery, and because it had been such a cold night, the heater fan had been on high for a while by the time I got out of bed. Happily, once I'd turned the heating off, the voltage slowly settled at a more acceptable level - phew, the battery isn't quite dead yet. 

Once that was sorted, my mind turned to the weather forecast, which had now improved from 95% chance of heavy rain all day, to a 70% chance at 8am, rising in increments to 95% by 11am. With the wind speeds being unremarkable, I decided to omit the other Marilyn I wanted to do in the area in favour of getting another TGOCE recce done, this one taking me from Glen Isla (initially retracing my steps from the end of yesterday) and over to Backwater Reservoir. It's a route that Mick and I took in 2009 on the TGOC, in wet weather and poor visibility. Thankfully the cloud base this morning was high - indeed, I even saw some glimpses of blue sky along the way.

As I set out, I figured that if I could get 5k before it rained on me, then even if it remained wet the rest of the way, I would have done well. When a few drops fell on me at 4km, I quickly popped my pack off, dug out my waterproof gloves, put my pack back on ... and the rain stopped again. I completed the 12k outing without so much as another drop hitting me. Indeed, so pleasant was it that as I approached Backwater, I sent Mick a message suggesting that he stroll out to meet me, which he duly did. Had I been five minutes behind myself, he wouldn't have appreciated my suggestion, but as it was, I'd just got my shoes off inside Bertie when a gentle pitter pattering was heard on his roof, and a few minutes later it was drumming. Once again, I'd timed myself to perfection.  

Having booked this campsite at Fern for a couple of nights, I now realised that I wouldn't be able to deliver on the breakfast I'd promised Mick at the cafe at Peel Farm (although had I thought about it within twenty minutes of finishing my recce, we could have made it before the noon cut off time). As it was, we popped by for lunch, during which time it occurred to me that there was no point driving past my next recce location, only to have to drive back to it in a few days time. It wouldn't be worth a 12-mile backtracking round trip next time the weather was good just to avoid half an hour of unpleasant weather now, which was all that would be required, if we could get Bertie to the nearest car park (last year I'd walked in from a few miles away, and hadn't checked out the car park, but my recollection of the lane to get there was that it would be fine for Bertie. As it turned out, the access track to the car park is in a dreadful state, but Bertie was easily able to cope with it).

Then onto Fern we came, to batten down the hatches for Storm Boelo. 

Yesterday (Saturday) morning was the calm before the storm, giving us a 3-hour window to go out and do something nearby, except that there's nothing obvious nearby to go and do. So after showers and a few chores, we turned Bertie around so he was facing the predicted wind direction for the worst part of the storm (just S of W), being sure that he was out of the reach of any tree that might fall, and just sat around and waited for the weather. 

We fully expected a rough night, but the shelter of the wall of the walled-garden that sits 20m in front of us, combined with being head on into the wind meant it wasn't bad at all. In fact, I slept for 8 solid hours, without stirring once.

As I type this in the middle of Sunday, it has got wild out there. The gusts are swirling around, so we're getting walloped from the side every now and then. Fortunately, the rain hasn't reached us yet and the sun is on the windscreen, so after days of being huddled under blankets and wearing hats at all times, we're currently enjoying it being 23 degrees inside without the need for any heating. In fact, I've just checked the forecast again and it seems that the big band of rain is now going to miss us, so if we're lucky this sun will last until sunset ... which will come an hour earlier today than it did yesterday.  

Lentil & veg soup with a scone the size of my head for me, Cullen Skink pie for Mick. 
 

21 to 22 October - Glen Shee and Glen Isla

Wednesday 21st - Braemar & Glenshee Ski Centre

Where was Bertie? He spent another night at Glenshee Ski Centre 

Weather: Wet with a variable cloud base. 

We weren't in a rush to leave Braemar, so after getting Bertie largely ready to leave, we walked into the village, had coffee and a crossword at The Bothy cafe, then allowed the Coop to relieve us of a large sum of money for a few groceries in their poorly stocked store.

The servicing of Bertie's tanks completed our stay in Braemar (oh, and I got the balance of our electricity credit refunded - we'd used £3.40 across these two nights, at 31p/kwh), and rolled off up the road, although only a couple of miles, as the first stop was Auchallater, for me to nip up a hill in the rain and low cloud - which wasn't as bad as it sounds as there wasn't a breath of wind.

With Mick relocating to a layby a few miles up the road, I was able to do a linear route (albeit with a small loop where I missed a turn and nearly descended the wrong side of the hill), then onward to Glenshee we went, popping Bertie back into the spot he'd vacated a few days ago. 

With the next spell of bad weather due on Friday, I thought we might return to the same car park after a quick trip out on Thursday for another couple of nights, but that plan was thwarted by a mobile phone mast having gone out of service (I assume - we've always had a good signal up there before, and now neither of us had any signal at all) and if we were going to sit still for a whole day, we needed to be able to do some work online, not to mention the important issue of being able to stream Traitors on Thursday and Friday nights.

As I've mentioned before, we carry many mobile phones (4 at the moment with 5 SIMs on three different networks between them), so I was able to nip over to the cafe and use their wifi (which sadly didn't quite stretch to being usable over at the motorhome spaces) to put some credit onto a phone on the Vodafone network (our main phones are on EE and 3). Standing in the lobby juggling three phones, trying to work out which SIM was in which phone, I'm sure I looked like some sort of shady character.

As the weather transpired, I'm now happy that circumstances caused us to move on.

Thursday 22nd - Glen Isla

Where was Bertie? In a parking area in Glen Isla, within a mile S of Little Forter. 

Weather: Dry and bright, with a cold start. Snow fell above about 900m overnight.

The best weather forecast for the week, so I made the most of it. First an out-and-back to visit a Corbett by Spittal of Glenshee, then a TGOC E recce taking me from Westerton of Runavey via Loch Beanie to Glen Isla, followed by a linear route over a 740m Marilyn, that I attacked pathlessly up its W side. It was a long and tiring day, not seeing me back at Bertie (who had relocated into Glen Isla) until gone 4pm. 

Fortunately by putting Mick's phone up on Bertie's roof we were able to get just enough signal to stream Traitors.

 

snowy Cairngorms viewed from Ben Gulabin 

Heading E from Westerton of Runavey on an old, grassy track

Looking back to Loch Beanie

Looking down into upper Glen Isla

Atop Badandua Hill. I'd been sweating cobs on the steep, sheltered ascent. Once I got to the top it was suddenly rather chilly.

Looking up Glen Isla from the other side of the glen.

Thursday 15 to Tuesday 20 October - Scotland

Thursday 15th

Where was Bertie? A night at Faskally Holiday Park at a cost of £33 including electricity

I'd intended to do a TGOC East recce on our way down to Faskally, but Mick was still rather poorly, with a high fever as well as general cold symptoms so we didn't get an early start and I deferred the recce by a day, even though it would require a minor backtrack.

A stop for a few essentials in Newtonmore, then a killing-time pause at House of Bruar for 15 minutes, and we arrived at the holiday park 2 minutes after the earliest arrival time. 

We soon had Bertie plugged in and then suddenly it was teatime. I have absolutely no idea what happened to the intervening hours, but they certainly weren't spent doing any of the chores I'd intended to do upon arrival at the campsite!

Friday 16th

Where was Bertie? He spent another night in the little car park alongside the A924, about 5 miles east of Pitlochry. 

The quandary with the recce I needed to do (in Glen Girnaig), was that in order to be sure of a space in the Killiecrankie Visitor Centre car park, we would need to get there early, but if we arrived early we would be foregoing hours of included electricity at the campsite, and that seemed a shame as we'd paid for it. 

Then it occurred to me that Killiecrankie really is only a couple of miles along the road from Faskally campsite, I had a bike at my disposal, and if I was on the bike, I could ride the first part of the recce route too. I reckoned that if I could be out the door at 8am, I'd be back in time to have a shower, before we had to vacate our pitch at noon.

The 8am start wasn't quite achieved, but I was on my way at twenty past. The ride in was hard, mainly because of how much uphill was involved and the gradients, but also as I was now sickening with the lurgi that I thought I'd dodged when my couple of days of feeling off colour earlier in the week didn't amount to anything.

The outing was a circuit in glorious surroundings, but it was also somewhat nugatory. One of my missions was to find a way to bypass a wooden walkway that had been in a dangerous state when I used it last year. I achieved that, but I also chatted to the workmen who are in the process of replacing the walkway, and established that no bypass will be needed by next May. I then needed to check out another path, but soon found a locked and unclimbable gate in a deer fence - not a problem for me (I scaled the fence), but it makes the route unsuitable for TGOC East purposes. I continued along the route 95% sure that there was now no value in the rest of my recce, but again, the surroundings were lovely and if it wasn't for the raging sore throat and the time pressure of wanting to be back on the campsite in time for a shower, I wouldn't have even thought twice about the merit of continuing. 

Thanks to a very easy return bike ride, I was back at the campsite before 11.30 and achieved uncommon efficiency in getting showered whilst Mick stowed the bike. We left our pitch with a whole 9 minutes to spare. (Mick had tried to extend our stay whilst I'd been out, but they'd not had any cancellations, and there was not a pitch to be had.)

A pitstop in Pitlochry (mega busy - it's 'Enchanted Forest' time of year) for some more supplies, then it wasn't far to our overnight spot, where we frittered the rest of the afternoon away.

Saturday 17th

Where was Bertie? At Glenshee Ski Centre, where a pitch with electric hook up costs £15, but if you want water or waste it's another £5 for each extra service you want. 

I think we may have to stop using the park up on the A924. One year to the day since I woke up in that layby feeling very unwell, I woke up in that layby feeling rather unwell, although this time with whatever cold-like lurgi Mick & Ali have been suffering, rather than a stomach bug. That meant that for the second year in a row, I wasn't going to be doing the Glen Fearnach recce that I'd had on the agenda.

The crying shame about this was that we were now entering a three day weather window of spectacular blue skies, and frosty nights, and given my complete lack of energy, it looked very much like we were going to be sitting them out. The forecast after that involved a rain symbol every day for the next two weeks. 

Really not the best start to the trip, but there was nothing to be done, other than to book a pitch up at Glenshee, so that we could get some power into Bertie's battery, and do a lot of sitting around. 

Sunday 18th to Tuesday 20th

Where's Bertie? He's at Braemar Caravan Park at a cost of £30 per night, plus electricity at 31p/kwh (we used £1.82 on our first night)

I'm pleased to say that I woke up on Sunday morning feeling massively better. The sore throat was still persisting, but my short-lived sore lungs and face-ache had resolved. I was optimistic that I would be able to take advantage of Monday's good weather, even if Sunday was going to be another day of largely sitting around. A cafe visit was off the agenda (not wanting to spread germs), and with such good weather and it being a Sunday in school holidays, we weren't confident that we would be able to park in Braemar if we got down there early. So, we hung around at Glenshee until 1pm, then drove down to Braemar campsite.

We did actually manage a recce on Sunday, but it was less than a kilometre long, starting from the campsite, so it didn't overly tax us. We even tagged a gentle stroll through the village onto the end of it. 

I then spent most of the rest of the afternoon doing laundry. Early in the trip to need to do laundry, but with Mick's persisting fever (read: extreme nighttime sweating), and not knowing when we may next find ourselves with laundry machines at our disposal, it would have been negligent to have passed by the opportunity. 

We checked out of the campsite at 9 on Monday morning, although with the comment that we would likely be back in a couple of days. Out to Linn of Dee we drove, where I walked a 15km circuit up the glen, going out at a good pace on the track that runs up the N side of the Dee to the Geldie Burn/Bynack Burn confluence, then back at a much slower pace on the pathless terrain on the S side of the water. It felt like an odd thing to do on a day when water levels were so low that I could have forded at any point, to reach that perfectly good track on the other side. However, that wouldn't have served the purpose of the recce, so I did as I had been asked.

I fear that my photos don't do justice to how spectacular this outing was. 

We'd intended to spend the night at Linn of Dee, so that I could visit a Corbett on Tuesday morning, but the forecast was such a story of heavy rain and high winds for the morrow that a hill looked unlikely. There seemed little point in spending the night at Linn of Dee for any other reason, mainly because it's so cold in that car park. It doesn't get much sun, and as Mick sat in Bertie wearing hat and jacket and hiding under a blanket, he was surprised to see me return in my shirt sleeves and exclaimed as to how I wasn't freezing*. The answer was that about 200m away from the car park, it was actually quite warm in the sunshine, but I could feel the temperature dropping as I crossed the road on the final approach to Bertie). We thus decided to return to Braemar campsite and spend another couple of nights plugged into the mains. (*When I'd set out at gone 1030, it had been -3 degrees in that car park, and as I headed up the glen I wondered whether I'd accidentally left my toes behind as for all I could perceive they were absent from my feet. It was only when I got out into the sunshine that I finally started to warm up.)

That brings us to today, and in common with the same day last year, I feel like I've been conned by the weather forecasters. That 95% chance of heavy rain all day has materialised to be many hours of mizzly rain and quite a few dry hours. I took myself out to walk a short low-level from the campsite, and there was no notable wind either, making me think that I could have made it up my hill, even if I wouldn't have had any visibility and would have returned with a filthy bike. 

Instead, we've been to the Bothy cafe, where I accidentally over-ordered toast (when asked 'do you want one round or two' I understood the question to be one slice of bread or two, but it turned out to be 'one serving of two slices or two servings'), and Mick has got on with some work that he's been meaning to do for days whilst I've tapped out these blog posts - so all in all, a productive day. 

Hopefully, after a rather disappointing start to the trip, we are now back in good health and it's now only going to be the weather that mars our fun! 

 Photos all from Monday, in reverse order:

Looking over the confluence of the Geldie and Bynack Burns to the Red House Bothy

 

Heading up the glen on the good track on a glorious, if cold morning

 

Bit of a frosty start on Braemar campsite.

 

 

 

Friday 9 to Wednesday 14 October - Newtonmore/Kingussie/Glen Feshie

Friday 9 October
Where was Bertie? He spent the night at one of his regular haunts: Broxden Park & Ride, Perth.

When Mick's appointment for his eye ultrasound finally came through (after a delay due to the consultant failing to request it) for late on Thursday afternoon, we realised that we would be able to make it up to Newtonmore for the TGO Challenge reunion weekend. So, Bertie was packed and on Friday morning we set out, with the SatNav set to Perth.

Pauses were had for fuel (funny that 195.9/litre can result in an exclamation of cheapness, after weeks of not seeing anything below 199.9/litre), and LPG, plus a short lunch break. Otherwise, it was just a day of driving, ending with me declaring once again that Perth is about an hour too far for me to comfortably travel in a day. If only there was somewhere equally handy a bit further south.

We settled into the Park & Ride car park, which was as busy as ever, and a bit noisier overnight than I recall it being before. Perhaps we don’t usually find ourselves there on a Friday night.

Saturday 10th
Where was Bertie? He spent two nights parked on a back road in Newtonmore.

After a parkrun to start our day, and more fuel put into Bertie’s tank, up to Newtonmore we came. Bertie was parked in the same spot that we used on our previous visit, it being the nearest Bertie-sized parking to Ali & Adrian’s house. I was all for walking the long way around, in view of the wet grass, but Mick thought we would be okay just walking down the field. He had returned to Bertie for his forgotten glasses when I slid in some mud, fell and managed to spectacularly cover myself with mud and slurry. I was wearing both the jeans and shirt that I intended to wear for the dinner that night, and didn’t have any alternative clothes with me - unless I wanted to go in leggings and t-shirt (and, in all honesty, I doubt anyone would have batted an eyelid if I had).

We often turn up at friends’ houses and request to use the shower. This time I turned up covered from shoulder to toe in foul smelling filth and asked to use the washer and dryer too. By late afternoon, I was outfitted again.

Around 40 people came along for the reunion dinner, and we knew all bar a couple - I’m not sure whether that’s a good thing, as it does demonstrate that not many new Challengers come along to these events.

It was a late night, but for once Mick and I weren’t the last standing (I’m claiming that, even though the other contenders for being last to leave were just heading up to their rooms as we stepped out the door for the dark walk back up to Bertie.

Incidentally, bar the 2 October when I wore longs, I managed to stay in my shorts until 8 October, so warm was it at home. Scotland has been a bit of a shock to the system, putting me straight from summer into winter attire.

Sunday 11th
Where was Bertie? He spent a second night in Newtonmore

We’d intended to move to Kingussie on Sunday, but after I’d met up with Ali for a short walk up the glen, we convened in her kitchen to plan the TGOC East recces that are needed for the 2027 event. Time then passed by over many cups of tea, during which we all sat down to catch-up on Saturday’s Strictly, followed immediately by the results show. Then, suddenly, it was bed time, at which point it didn’t make sense to move on.

By the end of the day, Ali and I both felt like we were coming down with colds. I clutched at the straw that, in my case, it was just a mild reaction to the dog.

Monday 12th
Where was Bertie? At the motorhome Aire in Kingussie, at a cost of £10.

My day started with the realisation that I’d made a significant packing omission: I’d brought my bike, but forgotten a bike helmet. Ali to the rescue - although I didn’t stay for long when I picked it up as she now decidedly had a cold.

We needed to be in Kingussie by 11am, when Mick had a meeting at the Railway cafe, but we arrived an hour early, so had time for coffee and a crossword before I left him to talk shop with Sue & Di.

I’d like to describe all the active things we did to fill the rest of the day, but I felt so ill-inclined to go out in the cold that a walk through the village and a quick trip to the Coop was all we managed. I did, however, come up with a route and itinerararary for this trip that should see quite a few of the TGOC East recces accomplished and hopefully a few hills bagged too.

Tuesday 13th
Where was Bertie? He spent a second night at the Aire in Kingussie, mainly because it has an excellent phone signal and I had a video appointment on Wednesday morning.
Weather: What bizarre weather! Monday had seen a daytime high of 12 degrees. Tuesday was the same, but in between the night was a steady 15 degrees between 10pm and 6am. The brief spell of warmth ended as a band of heavy rain came through.

My first recce was in Glen Feshie, and surely no one has ever complained about an outing in that glen? Where best to park (taking into account the size of Bertie vs the size of the roads into the glen)? We opted for Uath Lochans on the basis that it gave me a shorter bike ride that would take me further up the glen (to the bridge at Stronetoper) than if we parked on the N side of the river.

Mick wasn’t able to join me as we only have one bike, but in any case, he had now come down with the cold (I was still feeling vaguely coldy, but not enough to stop me doing anything), so once he’d retrieved my bike from the boot whilst I faffed with my pack, he spent the day resting.

I had a good outing, getting the info that had been requested for the TGOC East routes. Glen Feshie really is a lovely glen, and I was blessed with sunshine for much of the first two-thirds. Alas, it then rained until just before I got back to my bike. It had been far less showery than forecast, but that one shower went on far too long to be classed as a shower in my book!

The one eye-opening aspect of the day was seeing people tackling the ford of the Allt Garbhlach. To me the approach was obvious: walk across the ford, with the water slow moving and only up to ankle height. I must have witnessed another dozen people, all bar two of whom opted to cross further down where the water was narrower, but faster and the bed much rockier. A few managed to cross on a fallen tree trunk, but the consequences of a slip or loss of balance half way across would have been more significant than the wet feet of using the ford.

As for the two who also used the ford, I’d come across them stymied on the west bank when I’d arrived. I simply walked across, then offered to throw my walking poles back for them to use in turn. It was only after they were safely across that I realised that they’d still need to get back later, and I commented that we’d just need to time our return journeys to coincide at that point. “We will be about an hour and a half” they said.

My outing was 4 or 5k longer than theirs, but as I came back past Ruigh Aiteachain bothy, they joined the path just ahead of me. I was moving faster, but I also needed to walk a few loops on my way back. I thus met them three more times, not always going in the same direction. They were thirty seconds behind me by the time I crossed the water, and thus with some more walking pole flinging, we all got back across securely and without drama. Impressive timing!

As I’ve done so many times before, I spent the outward ride thinking there was a surprising amount of downhill, wondering why the flat bits were so hard, and slightly dreading the return ride. Once again, the return ride turned out to be predominantly downhill and the reason the morning’s flat sections were hard was because they were uphill. I really have some slant perception issues! I’d been 35 minutes on the outward ride, but it only took me 19 to get back, whereupon we scurried to get the bike away, as the next rain was just arriving.

If it hadn’t been for my need for a good phone signal in the morning, we likely would have spent the night where we were, but as it was we returned to Kingussie.

Wednesday 14th
Where’s Bertie? A third night at the Aire in Kingussie.

Not much to say about today. Mick was feeling rather poorly, so after we’d packed away ready to move, and were within 10 minutes of the noon depart-by time, he decided that what he’d like to do today is absolutely nothing. I thus extended our stay.

Another motorhome has joined us this afternoon and chose the spot right next to us. On this occasion, this is a good thing (even though all other spots are empty), as the wind is gusting over 50mph this afternoon and he’s providing a good wind block!

It’s due to calm down as we go into evening.

We are definitely moving on tomorrow - I’ve booked and paid for a night at a campsite.

Talking of which, there’s a real dearth of campsites in these parts (three in Aviemore, one in Blair Atholl, one in Pitlochry). We had no plans to go to Aviemore, but as it’s not too far away and as we’d welcome some electricity, I looked to see how much they were. The most expensive was over £47. The cheapest £42. Is it just me who thinks that’s ridiculous? We decided we can manage without electricity for one more night … and that Bertie’s leisure battery is probably reaching the end of its life. 

Most of the photos I took were of the things I was recceing, rather than of the views, but here are a couple of nice sunny glen shots, taken before the rain came: 

 

Saturday 3 October - Lyme Park

Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine, with a high of 15

An early start (for a Saturday, on holiday), and a 0750 departure from the campsite to arrive at Lyme Park just a couple of minutes after the gates opened at 0830. Our first activity of the day was a parkrun, which quickly overtook other contenders and put it in my top spot of the most spectacular parkrun I've taken part in to date. The glorious sunshine no doubt helped, but the surroundings were outstanding.

It's up there in the lumpiest three parkrun courses we've done too, with the other two being in Germany. I ran those, but was more than happy to stay with Mick today, and he's still rehabbing his knee with a run-walk programme (it's going well so far - he ran far more of today's course than he has in recent weeks on other, easier courses, so that's promising).

A cup of tea, bun, wash and change in Erica, and it was 1030, so we thought we'd go and look at the gardens before the house opened at 11. That we did, followed by a visit to the ticket office to collect the token that acts as an entrance ticket into the house. We were not just given the token, but asked if we wanted to join the 'behind the scenes' tour that was starting at 1130. We didn't hesitate, happily accepting the last two available tickets. 

It was a good one: as the name suggests, it visits parts of the property not generally open to the public, with the theme of this one being the servants.

That lasted fifty minutes, and was hungry work, so a cup of tea and a pasty in the cafe was next on the agenda, whereafter we found that cake was necessary to further bolster our energy for visiting the house. 

That's where we were headed when I pointed out that the next introductory talk to the property was taking place in the chapel in just over five minutes' time, so we thought we may as well listen to that too. We turned out to be the only takers - a shame as the volunteer who ran through the family's history (the property was in the same family from 1398 to 1946, when it was handed over to the National Trust) was excellent. 

I doubt there were many (or any) other people on the property today who arrived at 0830 and didn't even start looking at the house until 1330! And I'd said on arrival that I thought we'd be back at Bertie early today, as I didn't think Lyme was going to hold our attention for too long.

By 1530 we were flagging and headed back to Erica, but it had been another excellent day out. 

We're off home tomorrow for a bit of a rest before we head up to Scotland later in the week...

(After a few days of permitting photos to go in chronological order, Blogger has decided they're going in reverse today) 

Three months ago, I started an exclusion diet to try to improve the migraine situation. It was very successful, insofar as it almost stopped the migraines (going from up to five per week to one per month), but unsuccessful in not really identifying what was causing them (the answer: some unknown threshold of some combination of things that's going to be impossible to pin down). One of the items that I decided I can live without, and haven't really reintroduced, is cake. This is only the second time I've had cake, and we went sharsies. 

The exterior of Lyme played the part of Pemberley in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, and this is the lake in which Mr Darcy famously took a dip (but only in the adaptation, not in the book). I've watched that series more times than I would like to admit. I think I need to watch it again now.

The front of the property. Seems I didn't take a snap of the big courtyard that sits in the middle (as it would, or it wouldn't really be a courtyard). 

 

parkrun snaps:

View over Manchester

The Cage - this building was open to visitors today, but we opted not to walk back up there to see it later. 

I was trying to capture the rolling landscape here, but failed miserably.

Up into the woods

The start is an 800m pull uphill that I was happy to tackle at a fast walk
 

   

Friday 2 October - Little Moreton Hall

Weather: some sunshine, a few showers, high teens. 

I didn't have anything firm on the agenda today and, having no preference myself, I ran through the options with Mick over breakfast, and he chose Little Moreton Hall. We've been there before (twice to look around, once when we walked through on our way from Land's End to John o'Groats and had lunch on the front lawn), but the most recent occasion was 18 years ago.

With a stop for brunch on our way, we arrived just after a scheduled talk had started, and with an hour and a half to wait until the next. So, we had a thorough wander around the property then popped into the little tea room (called The Little Tea Room, because it really is tiny) for tea and scones, then made our way back to the Great Hall for the talk. We'd expected it to be a tour, with information about the property or the family, but it turned out to be a 15-minute static talk entirely about life in Tudor times and some of their traditions. We maybe wouldn't have waited around, had we known, but it's not like we had other pressing engagements or activities that we were missing. 

Fortunately, we paused to browse the book shop before we left, as it was at that point that I realised that neither of us were carrying the backpack, containing our waterproofs and a set of Bertie's keys. It was easily retrieved from exactly where we'd left it some half an hour earlier, in the tea room.

Dating from 1504. The incredible wonkiness was caused by the Long Gallery being shoved on the top, without worrying about supporting it on the load-bearing walls below. Significant steel work was installed in the early 1990s to stabilise the structure.

The levels of wonkiness just don't come across in a photo. 
   

 

Thursday 1 October - Quarry Bank, Styal

Weather: mainly sunny, with just one shower whilst we were out, and a temperature in the mid to high teens.

I don't recall another year when the weather has been so reliably warm that I've worn shorts for months at a time. This year I managed four months (almost) straight, with just one cool day in August when I donned longs. Had we been in England in May, I would have managed nearly 5 months, but May in Scotland was still cold. Today the temperature was marginal, and I decided that, with it now being October, it wouldn't be inappropriate to don something warmer. Mick is still persisting in shorts. 

Aside from our chosen attire, our day didn't get off to the best of starts. The journey to Styal was supposed to be 24 miles with a journey time of 50 minutes, but we twice got thwarted by road closures with no signed diversions (and no advance warning signs at the start of the road), where the only option was to turn around and retrace several miles to the main road, to find another route. The journey ended up taking us nearer an hour and a half with an unknown number of miles covered. We hoped getting back would be easier and that our destination would be worth the trouble. 

It was absolutely worth the trouble! What an excellent and interesting day out at Quarry Bank Mill. It's a National Trust Property, but something of an outlier, as it's not a grand mansion but a 'working' cotton mill. It's no longer in commercial operation, but it still has machinery inside, which is run every now and then throughout the day by way of giving demonstrations to visitors. Aside from the mill building itself, there's the owner's house, the apprentice house and, in the old village of Styal, a worker's cottage (only open on Thursdays and weekends, hence our decision to visit today), plus formal gardens and lots of grounds.  

The Apprentice House and the Worker's Cottage are only accessible via a guided tour and we opted to do the former first (a 45-minute tour), followed by a lunch break of just over an hour, then the latter (half hour tour). We possibly just got lucky with the host for the Apprentice House tour, but he was absolutely excellent - entertaining and thoroughly polished with his delivery. The Worker's Cottage tour was fine, but the first one had set a high bar.  

It was knocking on for 2.45pm by the time we got to the owner's house, so we only had a few minutes to wait before the next entrance window (they give an introductory talk every 15 minutes, following which you're free to walk around the ground floor), and finally we were off to see the headline act: the four occupied floors of the mill. 

Even though the site is open until 5.30pm, it was almost deserted by the time we emerged from the mill at knocking on for 4.30pm. We still hadn't seen the gardens, nor walked around any of the grounds that weren't incidental to getting between the buildings, but knowing that we had a potentially long journey to get back to Bertie, and that we were running into rush hour, we didn't try to cram them into the day.  

I'm happy to say that the return journey went much more smoothly (groans were heard when we came upon yet another 'road closed' sign, but with Erica too big to turn around in the road, I had to continue, leading me to discover that there was no obstruction and we were able to pop out the other side of the closure unimpeded). I then took the risk of taking one of the roads that had been closed this morning, and that paid off too, with it now being open again.    

I excelled myself today, taking one photo and one video. It's going to be too difficult to upload the video (of this machine in operation) just now, so here's the photo, of the 'mule', which spins 560 spool of thread at a time, creating 250 miles of thread in (if I remember correctly) an hour and a half. 
 

Wednesday 30 September - Staffs Way (Part 7)

Weather: after early rain, sunny and warm (22 degrees max)

On 13 September, I covered the far north end of the Staffordshire Way, from Mow Cop to Rudyard. With the Leek C&CC campsite lying just a few miles from Rudyard, I wasn't going to pass up the opportunity to go and do another section, and what may well be the final really warm day of the year seemed like a good choice to me. 

The heavy rain that fell as we breakfasted didn't worry us, as all forecasts were in agreement that come 10am it would be sunny, and so it was. That, of course, meant that I wasn't in a rush to get an early start, and it was gone 10.30 by the time I stepped out of the car at Hotel Rudyard, where I'd finished my jaunt a few weeks ago. 

I'm pleased to say that it was another good section. The first 5k were along the engineered canal feeder channel, sheltered by mature trees. The only inconvenient bit along there was where a whole herd of cows were standing on the embankment-top path, causing me to have to detour around them. Some thought about giving chase but after some stern words from me, they thought better of it. Alas, when back on the embankment, the unfortunate effects of many hooves on ground that had so recently received heavy rain were evident and I slip slid my way along. 

The gpx file I've been following contains quite a few little out-and-back spurs, where the person who recorded it went a little awry in their navigation. I've been trying not to blindly follow, but just before Ladderedge Country Park, I kicked myself when I got to a road only for my watch to tell me to make a u-turn. Having not long passed a bridge, I turned to go back to it, only then to look again and realise that the bridge in question is on a number of informal routes within the country park, but it's not a Right of Way. Thus the Staffs Way's official route doesn't use it, but does exactly what the gpx file said: it goes up to the road, across the road culvert and then goes back on itself, along a roadway on the other side of the water. I also learnt as I reached the road that the section I'd just walked along was closed due to a hole having opened up in the path. I saw no hole, nor any closure sign when coming from the other direction.

Within the Country Park, the gpx track took a couple of wanders off the line of the Staffs Way as marked on the map, and the reason became apparent when I got there: the mapped route heads straight through brambly undergrowth. I opted to follow one of the paths, then out of curiosity I circled around to double check I hadn't missed something. I concluded that there are two feasible routes, both of approximately equal length, but the one that goes up the outside edge of the woods not only takes you to an excellent viewpoint, it also avoids a descent to reascend.

The 'joining bit' of path, between the Country Park and the canal was on higher ground, giving good views, then, after dropping down, it was fast going along the tow-path. 

Mick, meanwhile, had driven from Rudyard to Kingsley and Froghall Station, on a heritage steam train line, where he'd enjoyed a cup of coffee and had an 'overly soft, overly sweet' brownie in the station cafe, before he abandoned Erica in neighbouring Kingsley and headed out to meet me. We found each other just S of Consall Station, along the canal. 

It wasn't all swift tow-path walking from there, as the route planners had decided that rather than continuing along the waterway to Froghall, it should climb steeply up out of the valley on some steps that could do with some minor upkeep before they get to the point that they need full-blown maintenance. 

The final field before Kingsley Church had caused Mick a minor navigational issue on his outbound leg, and it did exactly the same to both of us on the way back. There are various RoW that cross it, and after a little wandering we found the right one. It didn't help that there was an erroneous Staffs Way marker on a gate where the Staffs Way doesn't go. 

Reaching Erica, a late lunch was had, before we tootled the 10 miles back to the campsite. 

Leaving Rudyard dam along the waterway that is labelled on the map initially as 'aqueduct' then as 'canal feeder'. Either way, it was a peaceful and pleasant route.

It came out of the trees at times to go through fields. The cows forming a blockade on the path were in the  next field from this one. 

It's lumpy enough in these parts to make the views much more interesting than in the middle section of the Way. 

Urgh! Heavy morning rain + cows = churned up mud.

View from the the Country Park. 
 

My best view of the steam train (or at least it's trail). I had been alongside the track, but not when a train passed.

Mick's best view of the steam train. He was luckier with his position/timing.

Mick's coffee & cake location, whilst I was making my way towards him. 

  

Tuesday 29 - Leek & Biddulph

Where are Bertie & Erica? They are sitting on adjacent pitches at Leek Camping & Caravanning Club site where our five-night stay has come in at £132 and some pence, for hardstanding with electricity. 

Weather: not as good as forecast with a persistently overcast sky keeping the temperature down until late afternoon when it finally got into the 20s. 

We are on holiday! Some might consider that our entire lives are one long holiday, but I make the distinction that usually we just travel around and use Bertie as our mobile house, living pretty normal lives and not trying to pack everything in as one might on holiday. This week we have come away with both Bertie and Erica, with Bertie providing fixed accommodation whilst Erica facilitates day trips. 

The day tripping started yesterday, even though we didn't leave home until late morning and didn't arrive at the campsite until gone 1pm (that being the earliest permitted arrival time). We didn't tarry; as soon as Bertie had been settled onto a pitch and plugged into the mains, we jumped into Erica and headed the 11 miles over to Biddulph Grange Gardens. That is the very National Trust property that Mick visited without me the week before last, whilst I was out on the Staffs Way, but he'd mainly been in their cafe with just a quick look around the nearest section of the gardens. 

This time, we did the place more justice, and discovered that there was more there than just a simple garden, with the hall's original drawing room being accessible, an information display in an underbuilding (an open cellar, is how I'd describe it, if that's a thing?), a geological gallery with a fossil display (which used to be the public entrance to the gardens, back in 1850 when it first opened) and a Chinese pagoda, together with a couple of other small follies. 

I wouldn't have classed myself as an appreciator of gardens, but I was taken with this one and it was well worth the visit.  

Look at those hedges! Mick talked to one of the hedge-tending gardeners, who said that they get them that straight by eye and by long experience, not by using level-sticks or lasers. 

The quantity of trees masks what is hidden between them. Unfortunately, I failed to take any photos of those things (or maybe that's a good thing, that I was so taken with looking at the surroundings that I didn't even think to take a snap)

A very poor shot of the dahlia walk. 

The Pinetum. We later walked the Lime Avenue. 

The hall itself is privately owned. Mick tells me that there are currently two apartments therein for sale, one at £700k, the other at £1.1m. 
 

Friday 25 September - Kinver

Weather: One short, light shower. Decidedly cool compared to recent norms (but still pretty decent for the time of year). 

The reason for staying in Wolverley for two nights was that I wanted to visit the cave houses at Kinver, and they're only open Friday to Sunday. I've been told that I've been there before, but as a child, when they were still openly accessible (they're now a National Trust Property, with a couple having been restored) but I have no memory of it. 

Arriving at the same parking area where Mick picked me up on Wednesday, we didn't immediately rush to the National Trust entrance, but first walked up onto Kinver Edge, then along to where the Staffordshire/Worcestershire boundary runs across it, which I believe is the start/end point of the Staffordshire Way. 

The only indication that this is true is subtle: there's a waymarker post that only has a Staffs Way marker on one side of it, not needing one the other side as the Way doesn't continue in that direction. As start/end of routes go, it's not a reliable way of marking it, given how many other places along the route have equally haphazard waymarking, for entirely different reasons.  

I'd intended for us to do a circuit, but didn't remember that until we'd already walked half way back along the ridge. So, we continued as we were, then on past where we'd gained the edge, over the hill fort and down to the cave houses, where we walked three sides of its boundary to find the entrance. 

There's not an awful lot at the property, but I'd not expected much, so I wasn't disappointed. As is our norm, we started out in the cafe (arriving at the tail end of an organised group, giving us quite a wait to be served), before visiting the three cave houses, two of which are restored and the other is just a large open room. All interesting enough. 

And then we went home, getting ahead of Friday afternoon traffic, but it has to be said that it's a rather slow, fiddly route from Kinver, having to negotiate whole chunks of built-up areas. 

 

A good view from the edge when we first got up there, but as the rain came in, it got severely curtailed 

Start of the Staffordshire Way (because there's a waymarker)

End of the Staffs Way (because there's no waymarker). There's no county boundary markers either.
 

 

Cave houses. The last inhabitants moved out in the 1960s. 

Thursday 24 September - Wolverley

Where was Bertie? He was still at Wolverley C&CC Site 

Weather: After a cool night (5 degrees said the forecast and we wished we'd put a blanket on the bed), a fine day with a high of 19 degrees. 

Our intention to walk the 3.5k along the canal into Kidderminster for a look around and a cafe visit got modified when I picked three locations at random in the town on Google StreetView. My random picks may have been bad, but it didn't look an inviting destination, so instead we headed the other way to the village of Cookley. 

The walk was pleasant enough, with a few narrow boats on the move and with the route being pleasantly tree lined, with one section of the waterway having been hewn through the sandstone. As for the cafe: if I was to be charitable I would say that it was an interesting and memorable experience ... but the words 'Acorn Antiques' also sprang to mind - quite appropriately too as it was located in an antiques/tat shop. 

The real low-light was that my cup and saucer were filthy, and it wasn't tea-staining, but some sort of dregs of food all over them. In fact, I wondered if the saucer had been used to feed the owner's dog (which sat quietly on a chair most of the time we were there) and not washed. Did I complain and ask for a clean set? No, because apparently I'm going soft in my older age, and the two ladies running the place were trying so hard to be friendly that I worked on the basis that the hot water makes a cup of tea self-sterilising (which is the basis on which I have never washed my own mug during a multi-week backpack), and here I am a week later, still alive. 

Back at Bertie, most of the rest of the day was spent watching the cricket (ODI against Sri Lanka, with a disappointing result), with an interlude when we nipped to the pub next door for tea. The pub was far less entertaining than the cafe, which was a good thing!

 

Wednesday 23 September - Staffordshire Way (Pt 6)

Where's Bertie? He's at Wolverley Camping & Caravanning Club Site at a total cost, for 2 nights, of £40.55 for a grass pitch without electricity.

Weather: A few light showers, but otherwise sunny intervals and warm. 

I needed Mick to drive me back to the Way this morning, but I wasn't in any urgent rush to get going, so we had a moderately leisurely start. At the other end of the day I could have walked all the way to tonight's campsite, which would have added 3km onto the end of the Staffordshire Way, but with the earliest permitted arrival time at today's campsite being, 1pm and with feasible intermediate meeting points, I opted to first meet him in a cafe in Enville, then in the parking area on the fringe of Kinver Edge, with Kinver being the decision point as to whether I would stop or go on.

Mick had already had coffee and cake by the time I arrived in Enville, so I just had a pot of tea - perfectly timed to arrive at the table just as I walked through the door. With more perfect timing, it rained sharply whilst we were in there. I'd set out a couple of hours earlier in a very light mizzle that only lasted for a few minutes, and another bit of mizzle hit not long after I left Enville, but it soon passed through. 

The last four kilometres of the Way are decidedly undulating, but each little ascent was countered by a nice runnable descent. 

I didn't do the final ascent, up to the Way's end point in the middle of Kinver Edge, as Mick said he'd join me to do it as part of a circuit on Friday, when we intend to return to see the cave houses (not open today). By the time we'd had lunch in Bertie (during which time the heaviest rain of the day fell, but aside from the perfect timing of me not being out in it, it wasn't anything remarkable), it was gone 1pm so to the campsite we came.  

Over the last couple of weeks, I've covered 110km of the 158km-long Staffordshire Way. Of the bits that I've missed, I know that the 12km on the canal near/through Rugeley then across Cannock Chase are mainly good and I've no doubt that the final 1.5km onto Kinver Edge will be lovely too. That leaves 34km currently unknown, but even so my early assessment of 50/50 good and bad needs to be revised significantly upwards in favour of good. I really did wonder at one point whether this route only had merit for its first 20km, it's final few km, and across Cannock Chase in the middle, with the rest being at best mediocre stitching together of those features, but I'm pleased to say that fear seems to be unfounded. 

That said, a bit of maintenance and a scattering of new Way Markers would definitely not go amiss!

This snap isn't overly representative, but the wooded ridge of Abbot's Castle Hill was pleasant

Forest Covert was also a pleasant woodland with a myriad of paths. There were waymarks, but often not in the most helpful of places. 

After good paths all the way through, the correct exit from Forest Covert wasn't obvious. The chap who recorded the gpx file I was using detoured through the field to the left of the boundary as shown in this photo (this is looking back into the woods); I tried a different path but ended up on a road adjacent to the woods. Having walked the perimeter to see where I should have come out, I saw that the route runs along the right hand side of this field boundary. I was glad not to have taken it!

Spot the stile. It'd be easy to continue straight on along the field, but if you look carefully the path goes over a stile, through all those brambles on the left. 

Path

View

Path

With there being a lot of sandstone hereabouts, I probably shouldn't have been surprised at finding sandy tracks, akin to walking along a beach.