Day 75 A Day with a Confession

We had a good evening with Karen yesterday. She had been having trouble uploading to YouTube so was glad of the hotel WiFi while she ate with us. We were all quite sleepy though, so after our meal we headed our separate ways at 9pm and I was sound asleep by 9.30.

Today we were heading back to Langdon Beck where we were dropping off Karen who was headed to Dufton on the Pennine Way while Graham and I walked to Alston along the South Tyne Trail. Graham was leaving today and had to catch a taxi from Alston to Hawes. We knew we needed a slightly shorter day to reduce our stress levels-would we get there in time etc, there is a long backstory to this with which I won’t bore you-so guess what we did? Yes, we drove. We knew this two miles would save us an hour and so we started light of heart, and in my case, light of bag, as Graham was again carrying my camping kit.

We headed off down a small road leading us into Upper Teesdale. It got more remote as we moved further up the dale. There were a couple of ruined farmhouses, and a bull who ran away from us (result) but the highlight was the Hoary Whitlow-Grass. Graham had acquired a leaflet about the rare Upper Teesdale plant assemblage, so we were on the lookout for some of the plants. (One of the plants was A Dandelion, we weren’t quite sure what to make of that.) Graham’s phone app suggested Hoary Whitlow Grass, mine, later, thought it might be eyebright. We’ll be sticking with Hoary Whitlow Grass, because it’s more fun.

Our small road turned into a track and deposited us back onto the main road. Main being a relative term. We climbed gradually up and up and into the cloud, before heading down, out of Teesdale and County Durham, into Cumbria

As the cloud receded we saw a couple of people coming down from the hillside (hillside which had ski-ing drag lifts, what’s that about? Anyone been skiing in Cumbria?) When we reached them they were back at their car wringing out their socks. They are collecting County Tops. That is, visiting the highest point in each county. Today they had done Burnhope Seat 747m (Co Durham). They did offer us a lift which we declined, and they also told us to be on the lookout for melancholy thistles, as they had seen some.

The other major feature of today was the mining remains. Pretty much the whole of Teesdale was worked for lead. There are the remains of lead mines and spoil heaps everywhere. Grassed over now but still clearly spoil heaps. There were far fewer once we crossed over from Teesdale to Tynedale and started to follow the River South Tyne

We thought the South Tyne was a lovely river, and the path was very straightforward, even the stiles were, on the whole, easier than on previous days. We stopped for lunch on a bench, and then, for a rest on another bench (well done ST trail planners) before strolling through fields then a wood into Alston.

Graham caught his taxi, and I spent the rest of the day shopping (anti-midge spray, head net, and dinner from the Co-op) and trying to make the TV work.