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Sunday 26 December 2010

Blackie and The Naxie – Howden le Wear

red lion at Bitchburn
And so, with a nagging dawg, we drag ourselves out from a Yuleish stupor of roast beef, red wine and various liquors and stumble off through the snow to Howden le Wear.
bouncy dawg
The purpose, apart from exercising superdawg’s latent powers of bouncing around in the snow, was to have a look at the prosaically-named Walk 1 in a small collection of leaflet walks produced by the Council. The remit is to have a look at the route descriptions and the paths.
plantation.....
This one is just two and a half miles long, has one bit of a pull up a hill, and a selection of refreshment stops – just the kind of walk you might want to do in an evening, in fact. If you’re not fully refreshed after doing this walk, then you’r enot trying very hard.
hill 60
The walk description is quite good, and has lots of local information such as the  long-gone whereabouts of railway stations, coal mines, brick works and that kind of thing. The Naxie and Blackie are, in fact, the names of the local pastures. Hill 60, pictured here, is the spoil heap from a long-defunct coal adit, named Hill 60 by soldiers returning from The Great War for Civilisation (aka WW1)
green tree
There’s a lot packed into the walk, in fact, and its all the better for it.  I enjoyed it, and so did superdawg. there’s no problems with the paths – they’re all well used by locals by the evidence of lots of footprints in the snow.
the australian hotel
The walk is two and a half miles – I did six, cos I walked there and back.
Two more Howden le Wear walks to do…
howden 1

5 comments:

J_on_tour said...

Sounds like a nice little stroll for walking off the turkey as opposed to the associated alcohol consumed with it!

Alan Sloman said...

I was always led to believe that it was grim up north. I must change my advisors - you seem to have a plethora of public houses - in fact far more than is decent. Could you send a few down here please?

Congratulations must got your liver - a sterling effort.

Word = "Comier"

Mike Knipe said...

It is a very nice little stravaig, J - and, it would seem that Alan approves of it too. Four pubs in two and a half miles isn't bad going. There's also a Spar shop, a chip shop a petrol station, two chapels, a mighty wurlitzer museum and a funeral parlour.
Everything to keep body and soul together, in fact.

AlanR said...

I thought 2 1/2 miles x 2 = 5. Did retracing your steps take a little longer on the return journey and end up at 6.
This usually happens in my case after visiting a hostelry.

Mike Knipe said...

Your maths are impeccable, Alan.
I did, indeed, walk back to Knipe Towers by a different route.
Also - the walk may not be exactly 2.5 miles
And I may have rounded up a bit.
Then there was the beer.....
And an element of exaggeration although, this is definately not the Long Distance Walkers association.
Ok, I lied. I'll slit me wrists...