Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

After a mini-heatwave, we seem to have returned to more run-of-the-mill British weather again. Not being a fan of hot weather, I am not sorry even if it means that things are little damper. That heat made the past weekend none too ideal for a spot of hill wandering but July seemed to slip by without such an outing and, on Sunday, I headed off to Welshpool for a circular hike regardless. It was to be a day for protecting oneself from the effects of strong sun and intense heat. There was a threat of showers but I was long esconced at home by the time that one happened on Macclesfield and none was to cool me down on my way around Montgomeryshire.

The travel arrangements were easy: take a train to Wolverhampton and change there for the last leg of the journey both on the way out and the way back. Public transport arrangements aren’t that easy sometimes so this was one of the simpler days. The journey wasn’t too long either with a departure not long before 09:00 landing me in Welshpool at around 11:25. Even with departing at about 18:50, I was back home well before 22:00.

Being allotted a good amount of time, I decided not to force myself and to watch how much walking I was doing, understandable given the weather on the day. I started with a quick amble about Welshpool before heading for the hills and it actually looks a reasonably pleasant town. My escape into the countryside took me north along the Montgomery canal, part of the Severn Way, until I came within reach of the Offa’s Dyke Path. Crossing from one trail to the other did mean some crossing of busy roads and a building site for a new livestock market. Once past those obstacles, I joined the aforementioned national trail at Buttington to proceed through fields where cereals are growing before the I hit the slopes. The hinterland of the Severn clearly has its fertile spots.

As with other parts of the Offa’s Dyke Path, the hills to the east of Welshpool are not that high but they are steep-sided. I found the same sort of topography around Knighton and the hill country north around Ruthin, Llangollen and Chirk also shares this characteristic. The day was getting hotter all the while so I took my time ascending the slopes until they levelled out a bit as I neared Beacon Ring fort, the highest point of my hike at around 400 metres above sea level. From there on, the terrain stayed more friendly with its ups and downs and forest cover was on offer for a good of the journey down to Forden where I left the Offa’s Dyke Path to return to Welshpool.

That return involved a lot of road walking, never a pleasant thing and not helped by boiling heat or having to keep an eye out for combine harvesters and their ilk. A plan for using the public footpath network to cut down on the tarmac bashing came to nought when I saw what my map’s suggestion crossed: a field with growing crops and no obvious way through. In any case, it was better not to attempt tricky navigation in the heat.

As I continued on, I took advantage of any shade for a rest when it offered and it is for that reason that I took a break beside a high hedge near Welshpool’s airport. After negotiating roundabout that thankfully wasn’t too busy at the time, I made my way up a quiet lane that took me again onto the Montgomery canal and the Severn Way for the last stretch of the way into Welshpool. By now, the heat was such that I was glad to be reaching my journey’s end for the day and, when I did make Welshpool, I found a quiet and well appreciated shady spot for a bit of recuperation before catching the train home again.

It’s the sort of one where I might have been off somewhere braving the threat of showers. However, a bout of flu picked up last weekend in Ireland has meant that staying at home has been the most sensible option. Still, getting grounded with sunny skies outside does wonders for the outdoors enthusiasm, never a bad thing. For one thing, it allows ideas for excursions to foment and the same could be said for that weekend in Ireland.

Regular visitors will know that my native Ireland has never played host to a proper hillwalking outing of mine to date and that I am always wanting to change that, even if plans have never come to fruition to date. Last weekend’s outing to Killarney was as strong a reminder of that as any. It was anything but my typical outing with it involving a lot of driving and I doing it. My people are not big into walking but I still managed to get a stroll lasting up to two hours out of the day.

This part of Kerry plays host to a goodly amount of quality hill country and there’s a very tempting long distance trail that threads its way though a lot of it: the Kerry Way. As it happened, my short walk wandered along part of the said trail as I plied my way from Muckross House to Torc Waterfall and back again. The day was a grey one, damp at times, but the scenery was nonetheless wonderful; if we had the weather of preceding and subsequent days, then the appearance of the surrounding landscape would have been next to peerless. I had to leave the tempting track of the old Kenmare road after me or those with me might have been wondering what happened to me on my brief escape. The wander was a good taster and I must sort out that proper Irish hillwalking trip…

This past weekend might be seen as not being that friendly towards hill country hikers with its mix of high temperatures and an ever present threat of torrential downpours with added son et lumière. Apart from a session allotted to the breaking in of my Scarpa ZG10’s, my own outdoors activity was non too extensive. As it happened, I just couldn’t get myself in the mood for a longer hike. The thundery atmosphere and the heat might have something to do with this lethargy but it also could be due my having decent walking outings over the previous bank holiday weekend. After a climax, an encore can be too much to ask.

The Mayday weekend might have shared weather uncertainties with that following it but, in a lot of ways, it was a very different affair. For one thing, I managed to make my mind up that I was going for a walk and that was that. I was playing with a multi-day Pennine Way outing but doubts over the weather and personal fitness toned things down a lot. I still experienced a new section of the trail but in a much more manageable fashion: an out and back back along the Tees from Middleton-in-Teesdale. Though there was a threat of rain and skies were packed full of light cloud, I was determined to explore a part of England that was hitherto new to me. At times, the sun broke through anyway and all fears of drenching were for naught; it was sun screen that was needed rather than water proofs.

Getting to Middleton and away is easily described: by train from Macclesfield to Darlington and by bus from there. Returning home simply reversed things. An early morning departure ensure that I was in Teesdale not long after 11:00 and the only concern was a short connection time in Darlington but I made the bus in the nick of time. On the way back, a spot of muddling meant that I missed the 19:34 southbound train and I had to await the 20:14 instead. I still got home but at the same time but retain the lesson that you shouldn’t trust your memory too closely: I took the correct turns but at the wrong locations. All got resolved in good time.

The Tees-side walk itself was devoid of such navigational blundering. From Middleton to Low Force, the track of the Pennine Way (which it shares with the Teesdale Way at this point) was quiet as it followed the fast flowing Tees through fields filled with sheep and their lambs. Apart from some ramblers, very few folk were met until around Low Force and High Force. The capacity for dramatic waterworks of the natural variety to attract wider humanity should never be underestimated. The fact that the day was balmy contributed to the attraction of the features in question, as it always does.

I didn’t have to go far past High Force for things to quieten down again. However, the pleasing sights of torrents of water spouting over rocks were replaced momentarily by the fruits of some human industrial activity: quarrying. Having passed this, I became conscious of the time that I had, perhaps overly so, and decided to turn back on Bracken Rigg rather than dropping down to Cronkley and Forest-in-Teesdale. I am beginning to notice that I am overcautious with out and back treks while throwing some caution to the wind on point to point hikes. My visits to Teesdale and Kinlochleven typified the former while my bank holiday wander from Bethesda to Bangor (to be described in a future post) could be seen as being very much of the latter. This is something that I’ll be watching, especially for linear walks.

Perambulation over a combination of footpaths and bridleways, some boggy, was to land me at Holwick with the scars looking very impressive, even on a cloudy day. After that, it was back to the Pennine Way and Middleton where I whiled away a relaxing hour before my bus turned up. It was a good relaxing end to an enjoyable day. Thoughts are now turning to future Pennine Way expeditions with a walk from Teesdale to Dufton in the mind. Connecting with Swaledale and Wensleydale to usher forth my progress is yet another proposition. We’ll see how that might come to pass…

That prospect of two dry days with a wet one in between certainly put paid to any ideas of spending a few days away progressing my Pennine Way walking project. Even then, the wonderful British weather ensures that you can’t hope for each of those dry days to frequent the same location. The result was yesterday saw me go exploring Teesdale, sampling a short stretch of the aforementioned long distance trail in advance of more concerted trekking along its length around those parts. Plans for tomorrow see me looking to the west while I rest my legs after yesterday’s exertions, in between the other things that need doing of course. A full trip report report for my Teesdale outing should come soon and we shall see what happens tomorrow.

For the weak willed, the threat of heavy showers over the past weekend might have been an excuse to stay at home from the outdoors but dry sunny weather featured more than one would have thought in light of the various forecasts. As for me, I just couldn’t rouse up any enthusiasm for going anywhere; I just was not in the mood for it. The weekend before couldn’t have been more different: after a month of March that was quiet on the hill wandering front for various reasons, a lengthy bout of "manflu" included, I firmly decided that I was going somewhere to get out among hills and an imperfect wasn’t going to stop. I was prepared for it.

The destination was to be the hill country near Knighton on the Wales-England border. It was a plan that I attempted to execute last December but a late train thwarted my designs and I explored the Long Mynd instead. This time, no mistake was made as I left Macclesfield early in the morning and ended up leaving myself a forty minute window in Shrewsbury after a train journey involving a change in Wolverhampton. I used that time to go for a walk around the town in damp weather and I came away impressed with what I saw. In fact, I have made a mental note to make photographic foray to both Shrewsbury and Oswestry some sunny day when I want something a little different from my usual hill country forays.

I completed my stroll in ample time to catch my train to Knighton and, when I arrived there at around 10:00, I found the place to have taken on the feeling of a ghost town. On the train, there were a goodly number of ramblers and I thought that this might be their destination but I was to be very wrong: when I did disembark, there more waiting to depart than what actually arrived. I took my time while ambling through this sleepy agrarian spot and dropped into the Offa’s Dyke Centre, a spot nearly as quiet as everywhere else.

In fact, that quietness was to pervade the most of my day’s wandering. The sky indicated a day that was to be "iffy" on the weather front but any predictions made based on its initial appearance were to be proved completely wrong; the only rain encountered was the odd drop if that at all. Once out of the Offa’s Dyke Centre, I made my way north and, within minutes, I was in Shropshire and England was to play host to all of my footfall between then and my return to Knighton. Loosely defined plans are typical of my walking exploits and this was no different: follow the Offa’s Dyke Path north and turn around to return to the train station in time to get home again.

Along the way, I saw very few people and the weather kept getting better as I perambulated over the not so high English hills and looking west was all that was needed if wanted to see their Welsh counterparts across the Teme valley. The lack of stature in the hills didn’t make any difference to the effort required to surmount them: a fact borne out by my progress up the not inappropriately named Panpunton Hill after crossing the Teme a short stroll away from Knighton. From there on to Cwm-sanaham Hill, progress was gentler and serious up and down activity was deferred until the descent from the latter and the subsequent re-ascent.

It was not so far northeast of Llanfair Waterdine that I decided that I had gone far enough north for the day and set to following Shropshire’s public footpath network proper for a return to base. It was at this time that the cloud really started to break up to make up for some superb sunshine as I negotiated my way from field to field, never a strong point of mine. Crossing a minor road, I picked up a clear bridleway along which I continued on my way back to Panpunton Hill, Knighton and home. Everything was going well until confusion struck at a meeting of rights of way for which nothing on the map seemed to represent where I was. There was only one thing for it: head west until I met the national trail along which I had been hiking earlier. A stone’s throw was all it took to get me back onto terra cognita and I am not sure how I ended up where I did but I am inclined to suspect that a new public footpath may have been set up that the OS do not show on their maps. It’s exactly the sort of muddle that makes a GPS receiver very useful for confirming that you aren’t going completely mad!

Once back on the Offa’s Dyke Path, the journey was unremarkable apart from the descent of Panpunton Hill paining my tired knees. The sun remained out in force as I made my way through Knighton, the place now being more alive than it was earlier, to its train station for the 16:15 to Shrewsbury. With the weather as resplendent as it was, it seemed a pity to leave so early but I had a good walk lasting more than five hours and the next train would have been at around 21:00 anyway. Nevertheless, I resolved that if the weather stayed as it was, I would stop off in Church Stretton for a quick nip into Carding Mill Valley with the idea of putting my camera to some use. That did happen and I was leaving when the first of the forecasted "nasty" showers arrived.

From Church Stretton, I took a train to Stockport although Shrewsbury’s looking wonderful in the post shower sunshine had me sorely tempted. I stayed on the train, resolving that a quick run around with my camera (for most of the day, I had been working exclusively with film thanks to my DSLR running down its battery and my lack of foresight for not recharging the thing in time) wouldn’t do the place justice anyway. Given that I travel this way regularly, the journey from Stockport to Macclesfield should have been routine but I have encountered an incident verging on adventure before. This time, I was both lucky and unlucky to meet the first southbound Virgin departure from Manchester since 17:00; I was lucky that it ran on time but unlucky in that it was overcrowded. I inadvertently, and unusually for me. got on in the first class bit and, not realising that it was open to all anyway due to what happened earlier, I made my way to standard class on a very crowded train. If I wasn’t on autopilot to an extent and know more of what was going on, I would have stayed where I was but hindsight is always twenty-twenty vision, isn’t it? Anyway, a ten minute journey like this is never going spoil the memory of what was a good varied outing and I hope to head down that way again. The possibility of spending more time along the Offa’s Dyke Path rears its head too.

The options that I have in mind for this post are of the public transport variety. I have noticed that there are years when I visit an area a lot and that is down to number of factors: it might be somewhere new for me to explore and the weather conditions are more favourable there than other places. A window of opportunity for getting there using public transport can be yet another contributor.

After all, public transport options do change over time and not always for the better. One factor that contributes to this is public demand. There have been times when the frequency for bus services has been improved only for it to be cut back again, possibly because of patronage. An example of this that comes to mind is the X94 Trawscambria service that became hourly in 2006 but is as good as two-hourly these days, even if some services extend to and from Chester with Wrexham being the main northern terminus. the trouble with this is that there is the nagging question as to whether enough time was allowed for patronage to build up; that is something that might take a few years rather than twelve months in some cases.

The next thing that crops up in my mind is the loss of a public transport connection and rail-bus connections particularly come to mind. Sunday rail-bus connections in Bangor (in Wales, not NI) or the lack of them have disappointed me in the past. Having the bus leave before the train arrives does sound a bit ridiculous but short connection times are just as useless, especially when you recall how late trains can be.

Then, there regulatory hurdles to be overcome. One that recently came into play was the 50 km limit for local bus services brought into force following an EU directive. That has done for a Sunday Dalesbus service operated by Arriva and introduced changes where there previously were through services. I could see the 555 in the Lake District being hit by this as well. However, I suppose that England and Wales had a better express bus system like Ireland and Scotland, then all of this wouldn’t cause any problems.

The route length limitation can be seen as a piece of regulatory madness but there are home grown ones in the U.K. too. One that annoys me a little is the intervention of the Competition Commission in the Scottish bus market following the coming together of Scottish Citylink and Stagecoach’s Megabus. Thankfully, a sensible compromise was reached with services on some routes going to Parks of Hamilton and they are agreeing to work with Citylink as regards timetables and ticketing. Otherwise, it could have further fragmented an already fragmented system and is an exhibition of the sort of mindset that could stop us ever getting the joined up transport system that we so desire.

What has brought all of this to mind is the retiming of the Macclesfield-Crewe bus service on Sundays to leave twenty five minutes earlier. I seem to remember that an early departure from Macclesfield on Sundays was a possibility some years back but it has since disappeared for some reason. So, the earlier start for the bus service in question is very much a good thing, even if it means that last one home is earlier too. That earlier first departure restores the option of getting to Shropshire and Mid Wales after its being removed by train retiming. I hope to make good use of this opportunity to explore Shropshire and mid Wales a bit more. Who knows but I may even walk new sections of the Offa’s Dyke Path. Not all of the world’s going downhill…