Collected Musings of a Hill Wanderer

Apparently, my late Uncle Jim had a fascination for exploring the byways of his local stomping ground and I am left wondering if my own inclinations come from the same gene pool. For instance, an unexpectedly Sunday morning from more than a week ago was the cause of dragging me out on my bike for a local run when the enticement failed to take me further afield. At the time, the main attraction was the prospect of having another go at making a photo of Little Moreton Hall. After a bright start, the day did progressively cloud over but that didn't make my visit to the old pile an unprofitable venture. As it happened, I came away satisfied and it didn't cost me a penny either because the National Trust hadn't opened up the place to the visiting public. That reminds me of Irish forest parks in the low season when it is possible to get in without paying. In the case of Little Moreton Hall, I may have had to stay on the outside of its walls and its gardens but I was temporarily ensconced on its front lawn all the same.

On the way there, I took diversions to stop off at Gawsworth and Astbury. Photographic endeavours of either weren't to better previous efforts but there were compensations too. Quite a lot of the fish pool in front of Gawsworth's Old Hall was frozen, confining squabbling ducks to the end near the church and they amused me for a few minutes before I carried on down the A536. It looks as if Astbury will be providing me with another reason for going past Congleton on the A34 but it may facilitate another outing that takes me somewhere new too.

The journey that I took back from Little Moreton Hall was the main cause of my travelling around 37 miles in total. Apart from those aforementioned deviations, the outward journey followed the A536/A34 as if to make a bee line for the antiquity. Once there, I was lured towards Holmes Chapel with quieter lanes conveying me towards Rode Heath and the A50 taking me the rest of the way. The wideness of the road ensured that any traffic wasn't in conflict with me nor I with it, a useful state of affairs when part of me began to complain about the time spent on the saddle; small conurbations like Arclid and Brereton Green were useful punctuations that made the distance feel shorter as I completed bypassed Sandbach, spot not without its own attractions. It was after Holmes Chapel that my legs began to fatigue so I left a busy A535 at Twemlow Green to pick my way along much quieter lanes around by Goostrey and Over Peover until I reached Chelford. After all, busy twisty undulating roads and tiring cyclists never make a good match. A stop in Chelford allowed for some rest and a spot of refreshment too before I followed the A537 back to Macclesfield for a longer recuperation, a direct end to a good day's cycling.

The whole jaunt has thrown other ideas into sharp focus, especially those pertaining to exploring the middle of Cheshire by bicycle. Even the thought of a cycle through to Chester has come to me though I'd be catching a train back if i was to do something like that; the prospect of doing the most of a hundred miles in a single day sounds excessive. Nevertheless, there are places around the likes of Northwich and Delamere that I wouldn't mind savouring from a saddle rather than a train like what happened one Sunday last November. With that in mind, I acquired a copy of Cycling in the UK from SUSTRANS. As a sample of what the U.K. has to offer, it's good appetiser to have on a coffee table but I fancy having something more relevant to Cheshire. Nevertheless, it has caused me to ponder escapades like cycling from Barmouth to Porthmadog, all in Wales and all within sight of hills too. What really seals the deal for this one is that it would mean shadowing a railway line, a more than acceptable fallback if something went awry with the bike. While on the thread of dafter schemes, acquiring a Brompton folding bicycle is another that has entered an untethered head. After all, who knows what that might cause? Even with all these mental escapades, I am not planning to stop walking though hill country at all (I know that it is tales of those exploits that draw so many of you here) though I do need to admit some excitement at the prospect of exploring more places by bike too. Is this what could make 2010 different from other years?

Last weekend's greyness did nothing to coax me out of doors and other things took up whatever spare time was available. With a promising forecast for the coming one, I am minded to make use of what goodness comes the way though it will mean preparation for colder temperatures and mindfulness of the threat of snow showers too. The shadow of winter hasn't left us just yet but the thought of crossing frozen moorland does sound tempting. It's too soon to say where the first full hillwalking trip of 2010 will take me but I hope to make a get away soon, even if only for a day.

On of the things that I got to doing last weekend was to see what more sympathetic processing would do for older photos brought away after outings among the hills of Kerry over in Ireland. Apart from the now customary thoughts about returning to see more or to do better photographic justice to the place, I got to being amazed by how proud of their surroundings and shapely even low sized hills can appear. Taking a look in the photo below might show you what I mean because the more obvious summits barely break above 300 or 400 metres above sea level.

That observation propels my brain to another point: that steeper flanked humps can deceive. Well, they certainly can tire as I discovered along a stretch of the West Highland Way between Balmaha and Rowardennan. None of the humps rose much above 100 metres in height but the constant up and down action wasn't kind either. Hillocks don't just possess the party trick of feeling higher than they are but they can look it too. That observation takes me to Loch Seaforth (Loch Shìphoirt) on Harris where Seaforth Island (Eileann Shìphoirt) has a high point not exceeding 200 metres in height but it doesn't rise out of the water by half when seen from Ardvourlie (Aird a' Mhulaidh). I suppose that everything looks higher when seen from next to sea level and you have to wonder how Ben More on Mull presents itself to someone walking in from the coast to reach its summit too.

Those smaller isolated hills might have their uses though, especially when they offer vistas featuring summits. It is for that reason that Diamond Hill near Letterfrack in Connemara has taken my fancy after seeing it featured in a Walking World Ireland route. If I ever manage to make to that part of County Galway, I'd have in mind for that first ever visit. Ben Tianavaig on the Isle of Skye fulfilled a similar role with views of the Red Hills, the Cuillin, Raasay and the Trotternish all on offer in a 360º panorama on an evening that mixed bright sunshine with spells of rain. Orrest Head in Cumbria is another such delectable picking and illustrates that being deceived into expending energy to reach a lesser top is not foolishness at all. There are enough of the same kind that I risk making a big long list when only a few examples will do. The steep sides to any of these is a hint that any panoramas need work but who can complain with the rewards on offer?

I was out earlier this evening on an A to B trip on my bike when a shower of sleet came upon me, not a problem with my being appropriately attired. Even if I got snow, the lugs on my mountain bike's tyres would have coped; yes, they are staying inflated so far. Speaking of the fluffy while stuff, there is a plentiful supply of that emanating from the sky right now and it is coating everywhere in white. Getting about on foot now looks like a job for my North Face Hedgehogs and any wondering about a pre-Christmas outdoors outing could have snow-covered countryside on the agenda. Methinks that I need to decide where to go, a task that may or may not be made easier by my adding an at a glance collection of Met Office mountain weather forecast summaries on here. After all, there is a need for preparation for the prevailing conditions as last Friday in Cheshire proved by its feeling like being in a chest freezer with fans turned on. Without any wind, daytime temperatures were around freezing in the lowlands anyway and below that (-2.5° C) in Buxton and Leek. With temperatures like those, it's best not to be rushing out to become a mountain rescue statistic.

In recent days, Mapyx has brought out OSNI 1:50000 Discoverer mapping data for Quo with 1:25000 due to follow. Having found some free time, I got a quick chance to metaphorically kick some tyres. As with OSi maps, you cannot have OS maps and OSNI maps open at once but there is no bar to shuttling over and back across the Irish border in the digital world. Tiles for either provider are £1.99 each with the entire OSNI set going for a not unreasonable £39.99.

However, there are no grid lines on the NI maps that I have in my sample. That surprised me and makes rough and ready estimations of distance a non-starter; you need to use Quo's route planning tools to get a handle on distances and to determine grid references. However, you'll be glad to know that the OSNI's paper maps do not have the same feature as my copy of Sheet 29 (covering the Mourne Mountains and published in 2008) is well crossed with those ever useful lines and feeling very like an equivalent OSi specimen, albeit with townlands superimposed on the back of the sheet. The digital counterpart to the same looks bleached in comparison but it may have been decided that all those greens and browns obscured the contour lines anyway. In contrast, the OSi have gone for faithful reproduction instead but there's merit in both approaches.

Because Quo's overview map for Britain and Ireland is only available with the OS coordinates system, you could find OSi and OSNI tiles lying on a white background. Adding the OSi's 1:600000 overview map of the island of Ireland to your collection for £4.99 does help to bring together an incomplete tile collection and get around it. Also available for £4.99 is a copy of the OSNI gazetteer that allows to search for places on NI like you'd do for mainland Britain with the OS Landranger gazetteer database.

All this perusal of Northern Ireland maps sits uneasily with the lack of attention that I have given the province. The Mourne Mountains certainly look promising and there are the Glens of Antrim too along with the Sperrin Mountains; lack of choice clearly isn't a problem then. Now, when might there be a visit?

Spending a weekend in Scotland just before the arrival of a sustained spell of settled weather sounds like unfortunate luck but stuff like that just happens. Still, it is the sort of thing that makes for wistful thinking and the only thing for it is to get out among well lit hills and that's what I plan on doing. Imaginings of how wonderful Ardgour and Loch Linnhe could have appeared can only drive one to snatch opportunities when they come the way. Then, there are visions like those of Glenfinnan, Loch Shiel, Loch Eilt, Morar and much more that cause the making of mental notes on the staging of returns. It may be ironic to see good coming of what should be an annoyance but it's thoughts like these that drive you out of any indoors bound rut into which you have fallen and make your way into the outdoors again, no bad thing at all.

There is another way of looking at my luck with the weather. On a near perfect weekend, it may not have been so easy to choose where to spend the time because of nagging doubts as to whether you are in the best spot and making the most of it. That's how it felt after a Spring Bank Holiday visit to Argyll when the weather surprised me with its gorgeous side. Knowing that everywhere is cloudy and being glad of any dryness does put questions like that out of commission.

When travelling south from Fort William on my way home, the situation was that I was coming away satisfied with my lot rather than being frustrated with a lack of sun. As my coach plied the A82, Ardgour's hills were lit up by the morning sun as if it was invitation to the onlooker for either a first or a return visit. Further along, it was the turn of the Black Mount to remind me that I had passed that way too often without stopping either. The angular contrasty light that those hills were catching certainly was a feast for the eyes and etched the idea on following up a hike from Kingshouse to Bridge of Orchy with more. You could say that there was a light show going on in order to draw back whoever was leaving. If anything, it just shows that you are never in a position to say that you are done with anywhere and life would be dull if that ever were possible.

Returning to the present, I plan not to waste the weekend that seems to be coming our way. There are plans and ideas in flux but the hope is that they are turned to good use. Even if it's a matter of blooming where you are planted, something can be made of crisp clear sunny winter days other than dreaming about how those far away hills might be looking. If my efforts reward me with some pleasing photos and some quality quiet time away from the pre-Christmas rush, they'll have been worthwhile.