Nicky Nook circuit and new walk plans

Thursday 30th March '17 - Thursday walk with Pete.

Pete prefers to stay on Tarmac these days, but I persuaded him to take on the track which forms a significant proportion of this circuit of Nicky Nook. We had experienced heavy rain during the night, but the track was pretty well founded with only a few negotiable puddles. It follows the pleasantly wooded Grizedale valley accompanied by the clear lively waters of Grizedale Beck to arrive at Grizedale Reservoir. Although that is a man made affair it is attractive, providing a good focal point for this walk.

Onto the Grizedale path from the road.
 The OS map shows this track joining the road about fifty yards further north than it really does.
If you joined where the map shows you would have to descend a very steep, wooded, overgrown banking which can be seen on the left of this photo.

The rooks are getting busy

Grizedale Resrvoir

Fell End Farm sprawling below Grizedale Fell

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On Tuesday this week I met up with friends from the past for a very pleasant lunch at the Old Hall Inn at Threshfield in the Yorkshire Dales. Mike Dickson kindly gave me this photo for my "Signs" collection. I have had to crop it and enlarge from a low resolution photo to start with, and the actual sign is blurred so I have interpreted with the caption. I am not sure exactly where it was taken, except that Mike said it was in Yorkshire - well you might have guessed ( I do hail from Yorkshire, so I'm entitled to that comment.)

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On Monday 10th April I am off on another long walk. 

I catch the 5:00 am train from Arnside to Berwick-upon-Tweed via Lancaster, Carlisle and Newcastle. From Berwick I intend to walk to Castle Cary in south Somerset assuming my rickety frame and health hold out.That is about a month's walking and around 470 miles. I hope to post here daily.

The rationale was to find a varied walk down the country, avoiding as much as possible previously trodden terrain and to fit within a month, give or take. There are three Macmillan ways: Boston to Abbotsbury, Boston to Barmouth, and Boston to Barnstaple. I have walked the first two passing through Castle Cary on the Abbotsbury walk, and the Barnstaple one branches off from Castle Cary on its way to its destination, so that seemed like a location with personal resonance, at the appropriate distance, as well as being serviced with a railway station to facilitate my return.

Last year I walked the Northumberland Coast Path, but due to an error in accommodation booking I missed out the four mile stretch between NU 073 434 (sluice) and NU 038 468 near Cheswick and my start at Berwick will enable me to fill in that gap.

I have plotted my route on Memory Map and if anybody wants a copy of the GPX file I would be pleased to email it if you send me your email address to conrob@me.com. You would of course need to have the appropriate OS mapping on your computer to download the GPX route onto. Because the route was really only intended for my own use it is a bit broad brush in places but fairly obvious which paths, canals, and the like I intend to follow. There will of course be diversions, but that is part of the attraction for me instead of having to slavishly follow a proprietary named LDP (long distance path.)