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Green Hurth: Where the Big Wheel Turns
TODAY I have a mission. This is no ordinary walk into the Pennine hills. This is a voyage of discovery to a lonely place where ingenious and industrious men built wondrous machines. And ingenious men...
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Humber. Southeasterly Four. Moderate or Good. Rain later.
SPURN Head is one of those places everyone has heard of but few can pinpoint on a map. When you’ve got your bearings it’s easy to find – but that could also be said of Kafia Kingi and Amelia Earhart. …...
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Black Gold, Tan Hill Tea
THERE was a loose plan fluttering about this morning like a threadbare flag above a roadside burger bar. But the wind changed and the plan got blown across fields and was last seen snagged on a fence...
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High Street and Fusedale – War and Pieces
HIGH Street is a great mountain with a rubbish name. When someone asks where you’re going walking and you say High Street, they glance at your boots and backpack and wonder why you need all that stuff...
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South Gare in the Eye of the Beholder
SOMETIMES ugly landscapes can be inspiring. I was going to say beautiful, but I hesitated and typed inspiring instead. I might reconsider before the end of the post because South Gare is a landscape...
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A Cook’s Tour of the Cleveland Hills
CAPTAIN James Cook is one of Britain’s most celebrated maritime heroes. Born to lowly farming folk in the Teesside village of Marton, his destiny lay not in farming – or shopkeeping, to which he was...
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Restless at North Gare
I’VE been drawn to the sea because it’s the time of year when things migrate. The seasons change and life adapts. Birds fly south and animals hoard food for winter. People tune into their primeval...
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Faggergill: Out of the Fryingpan into the Mire
BETWEEN Reeth and Tan Hill lies a land of strange names. It’s a country where wild open moors and grassy dales are neatly partitioned by walls built seemingly randomly, and generations of people have...
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Not Everything is Black and White on Barningham Moor
I DRIVE the rattly van to the top of Barningham Moor and it gets stuck in slithery grass while I’m trying to park. I stall the engine and can’t start it again because the starter motor jams. Mist rolls...
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Sweet Tees Flow Softly (Black Friday Aftermath)
IN this land of eternal gloom, where fog hangs in grey air and moisture drips from autumn berries and bedraggled sheep, Romans once marched to distant outposts on a cold northern frontier. They crossed...
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A Christmas Walk: With Ghosts on Baysdale Moor
I AM wary of the North York Moors because they are more than a little bit sinister. They are wild and empty, peppered with the scratchings of forgotten people, laced with legends, and punctuated with...
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The 235 Steps
DURHAM is a great place for walkers. Excellent paths follow a winding riverside and fork up into the traffic-free city centre, which because of its historical significance has held Unesco World...
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Days Like This, No 11: Above Clouds on A’ Chràlaig
ABOVE the shores of Loch Cluani the slopes of A’ Chràlaig rise steeply and without respite to its 1,120m (3,674ft) summit. From the crest of its south ridge I expect to behold fine and uninterrupted...
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Days Like This, No 12: Dawn on Dove Crag
WALKING is a dangerous business. Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov has just been stabbed while walking over Waterloo Bridge. And get this: his assailant used an umbrella with a poisoned tip. We down...
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Done on Great Dun Fell
THERE are certain things in this world on which you should never depend and one of them is the weather forecast. I’ll think of a few more before I’m through, but the weather forecast will suffice for...
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Arkengarthdale Moor and the Death of Sods Law
SOMETIMES when you walk through wild and lonely countryside you experience a creeping realisation that things haven’t always been the way they seem. The heathery moors to the west of Reeth, in the...
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Days Like This, No 15: Walking From Penrith to Ravenglass
Backpacking through the Lakes on Vesta Beef Curry in 1978 . . . Continue reading →
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Gibbet Hill and Carlin Gill – That’s Entertainment
GIBBET Hill has history. Little more than a slope in the Tebay Gorge – which separates the Howgill Fells from the Lake District – it was the site where, in 1684, local villain William Smurthwaite’s...
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On a Whim to William Gill
WILLIAM GILL is an offshoot of Arkengarthdale in the northern Pennines and is the shallow valley leading to the source of Arkle Beck. It’s a place only the lonely visit because it’s right in the middle...
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Days Like This, No 21: Eternity in Borrowdale
THE closest thing to eternity is a cold night in a tent. Hope dies while hours limp slowly past. Supernovae fade and constellations shift as time distorts and clocks refuse to tick. Body heat is sucked...
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