Salter Fell Road to south of Hornby
Rationale - a bit boring put here for the record.
BC, my companion and instigator for walking W's Way has already walked the section between Dunsop Bridge and Hornby - I needed to catch-up.
The total distance is too much for one day, and even if it was contemplated car logistics are not practical.
Dunsop Bridge to the start of Salter Fell Road as a there and back is ok parking at Dunsop Bridge and that will now be my final section - I have previously walked the length of Salter Fell Road recently with BC when we were completing The Lancashire Witches Way - CLICK HERE - it happened to be Saturday 25th June 2016, the day after The Referendum.
That leaves the section from the north end of Salter Fell road to Hornby and today my plan was to walk part of that to reduce the total distance which will need to be double as a there and back.
W's Way by Nick Burton uses the road continuing from the end of Salter Fell but BC had discovered a new permissive path following the River Roeburn for a couple of kilometres before rejoining with Burton's route at Beck Farm.
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Sunday morning and I had done various household chores by about eleven and on impulse decided to go and walk the bit of Tarmac from a known parking spot where BC's permissive path started up to the start of Salter Fell Road. As this was all on Tarmac and no rain was forecast I couldn't be bothered changing and jumped in the car already wearing approach shoes and a decent pair of M and S chinos.
A quick glance at the map had me thinking that would be easy walking but I ascended about five hundred feet in one and a half kilometres, sorry about mixing metres and feet but that's they way I think. All was quite pleasant as I passed Lower Salter, Middle Salter and Higher Salter farms. At the end of the Tarmac I saw the footpath we had followed on the Witches Walk. At Higher Salter Farm there was more than usual noise from farm dogs and I looked over the wall to see a large cage structure with half a dozen or so collie sheep dogs all giving voice - all looked clean and tidy and I assumed the farmer breeds these as potential One Man and his Dog competitors, or just for daily farming work - it is one of the joys of walking in the country to see these working dogs perform.
Back at the car I was now tempted to reduce the rest of this section more by walking part of the newly discovered permissive path so it was over a ladder stile and onto squelchy muddy field walking - those M and S chinos will never be the same again. The path was fine and eventually dropped down steeply to run alongside the R. Roeburn through autumn tinted woods. I came to a bridge and as no paths are marked on the map this seemed to take me to the wrong side of the river as far as I could tell so I stayed this side and exited up steep banking through the woods to a gate and then fields to arrive back on the road and AW's route proper at the track to Thornbush Farm. That now leaves a comfortable there and back trek from Hornby. I walked back down the road to my car and finished this little trip at The Hornby Tea Rooms for a pot of tea and a jam scone.
The chinos went into the wash and then the dryer - I am now going to the garage to assess the result - my Mountain Warehouse trail shoes had kept my feet dry. What a lot of writing for such a mini walk.
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| Salter Fell Road 1.5 km ahead - the start of the permissive path is just behind the camera |
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| Just round the corner from the car - pleasant autumn walking |
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| Not rare - just sad |
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| High Salter Farm - gate in wall is footpath we took on Lancashire Witches Walk |
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| Doesn't look familiar to me but Alan R may classify it as not rare? |
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| Want to buy a collie to round up your sheep? |
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| Lower Salter Farm on the way back - looks like a new wing built on with solar panels |
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| On the permissive path not marked on OS map - just before misleading bridge. The path had been well marked up to that point but no markers on the bridge or beyond on my side |
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| Hornby Tea Rooms - a bit quiet on this dingy Sunday afternoon |
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| Green is official AW's Way. I have shown my day as two separate sections |
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Overall view of this logistically difficult section of AW's WAy.
My final completion will be there and back from Dunsop Bridge to Salter Fell Road (halfway up right side of map where it says Croasdale. We previously walked over Salter Fell Road on the Lancashire Witches Walk. I will now have to do a there and back from Hornby top edge of map) to the northern limit of my blue walk today. Ignore trig point markers - the red flag on the "o" of "Forest" is claimed to be the "Centre of England" (or British Isles or whatever) - a subject leading to intense complexity by mathematical and geo-happy nerds - Google if you want.
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You are indeed correct Conrad. Neither of these 2 Leyland tractors are rare but they were not around for too long. The blue one was only built for 3 yrs from 1969 and the mustard coloured one only had a 12 months life from 1981.
ReplyDeleteAlan R - So the mustard one is nearly forty years old with presumably not many made in twelve months so there can't be many around still working even though I know tractors can have a very long life. The search for rarity will continue.
ReplyDeleteI’m sure it was well worth wrecking a pair of chinos. A fortuitous discovery of a permissive footpath, and love the tractor photos 😄
ReplyDeletePleased you found that permissive path, not sure what happened at the bridge but from the map it goes all the way down Roeburndale.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to smarten up my trousers when we next walk.
Ruth - The chinos have come through the wash to live another day. I'm not sure if you are up to speed but I and others take tractor photos for the benefit of Alan R our fellow blogger whose working life was spent in the world of tractors. For me I only take photos of those that I think may be rare and some kind of a test for Alan, but with my limited knowledge it is a lottery whether I have found something interesting or not.
ReplyDeletehttp://alanrayneroutdoors.blogspot.com
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BC - When I came to the bridge I suspected your new path continued over but it was going to take me further than I wanted to walk with the time available whereas I saw I could fairly certainly bail out up the banking and back to the road fairly easily from there. I was given to some uncertainty because the bridge would have placed me on the wrong side of the river. When I go back to resume at Thornbush I will be able to walk a short distance north up the road to pick up Burton's path going off to the right which appears to go back into Roeburndale, but I will consult with you beforehand so that I am sure of making the best of the rest of the permissive path if it does not coincide with Burton.
Hi Conrad, yes I can understand where you are coming from on the mustard coloured tractor with it’s short life but it’s not rare.
ReplyDeleteI find it hard to believe the phrase, "A quick glance at the map..." I know you'll find a way of misunderstanding this but I'm now committed to ever-shorter comments and this is one.
ReplyDeleteI try to envisage "...whose working life was spent in the world of tractors." but fail. No, I tell a lie. I always felt I could have a serious conversation with John Deere. A good chap, John. With Claes there'd be language difficulties and it's news to me he's also "best known for his public art installations."
Oh dear. I already sense the bafflement.
RR - I think you refer to Claas tractors - the founder August Claas died in 1982 The following snippet may have lead to a contentious conversation if the opportunity had ever arisen, that is for me. Even though I believe you have some basic German I think you would have struggled, as you surmise, with the Westphalian dialect.
ReplyDelete"Hunting was one of his hobbies: meeting and chatting with his hunting friends was just as much part of his leisure schedule as exchanging news and opinions with friends from the world of agriculture, in Westphalian dialect, or in the evening over a glass of “Korn” (corn schnapps). His family and circle of friends jokingly called him “De Buer” (the farmer)"
Do you have "leisure schedule?"
With my experience and to glean the simple information all I needed was a "quick glance."
As I think you have sometimes suggested some things are best left to the imagination of the reader.
Claes is an industrial manufacturer: they make the Model 30 Large Bobbin Shoe Patcher, among other things. I must have encountered the company in the USA long before I saw Claas tractors squeezing their way between Hereford's narrow hedges. I was struck by the odd juxtaposition of vowels in Claes, wondering how the name was pronounced, thinking it had to be Dutch. Time after time I'd meet a Claas tractor here in Hereford, note that the spelling differed from what I was expecting and allow my stronger memory to dominate reality. Even now I want those tractors to be Claes not Claas. Which is one reason why I incautiously sidled into print. Amazing how powerful "wrong" memories can be.
ReplyDeleteAs to German you will remember that during our holiday in what we must still laboriously call "the former Jugoslavia/Yugoslavia" I was the only one with a common means of communication. Astonishing, given the way the Nazis treated the Jugs during the war, 1965 Jugs tended to be more familiar with German than with English. You paid me a compliment - unintended I think - when that young German lad lent me a snorkel and you observed him and me "screaming at each other in German". Those days of moderate fluency (remember me trying to arrive at an appropriate payment with our landlady, Mrs Bulkovich) are long gone, as French supplanted German. Now I regret the switch. Seeing German movies at the Borderline Film Festival, learning songs with predominantly German lyrics, and - most important - visiting German Christmas markets have uncovered a greater emotional warmth for Germans than I ever realised. This warmth is at the heart of my despair over Brexit; indefensible of course.
I still contest "quick glance". You're in love with maps (as I once was). Once the map had been unfolded you'd have been reluctant to refold it. It isn't in your nature.
RR - I needed a quick check to make sure it wasn't the First of April when I read about your Model 30 Large Bobbin Shoe Patcher. When I looked at the Claes website I was invited to put one of their stitchers onto my Wish List (I do have a Wish List with Amazon) but after much deliberation I decided to decline (in case somebody actually bought one for me.)
ReplyDeleteSince an experience with Tony on Halls Fell ridge on Blencathra I exercise caution when unfolding maps. The wind was so strong we aborted our summit attempt explicitly in the interests of safety. As I unfolded my map it was whipped from my hands narrowly avoiding my conversion from fell walker to paraglider. I often pondered with a kind of smugness, and with memories of the dentists chair*, imagining some naive pedestrian walking the streets of Penrith ten miles away having the map blown into his face and wondering from whence it came.
*A reference to a story in a book called The Complete Practical Joker which RR will remember.
"a quick check to make sure it wasn't the First of April". Now this I can believe. No more than thirty seconds, I'd say, provided you were sure that the wind was southerly and you were absolutely certain you could tell a hawk from a handsaw. I hope you need no more than thirty seconds to check out the provenance of this.
ReplyDeleteA lousy day (yesterday) for those who are enlightened by popular culture: Clive James, Jonathan Miller and Gary Rhodes in one fell swoop. And I mean "fell".
RR - "thirty seconds" is often seen used to illustrate a short period of time. In many instances thirty seconds is woefully more than brevity. The first three on the F1 grid are generally separated by about three hundredths of a second, and the whole grid by around half of thirty seconds. Many television programmes work to a format and as one watches the clock wondering how they are going to fit n the denouement when there are only two minutes to go one is surprised to see how much can be crammed into that "short" space, and even into the last thirty seconds.
ReplyDeleteRE - that should have been three tenths not hubredths
ReplyDelete