West Yorkshire: Eccup Reservoir (6.3 miles)

Saturday, 17th February 2018

I decided today was going to be my "out of county" walk day and I chose Eccup Reservoir on the (retrospectively, stupid) assumption that Yorkshire Water usually provide pretty good "easy access" tracks around their reservoirs and it wouldn't be too muddy.... Pahh!

To be fair, the route that hugged the reservoir was, indeed, okay.  But, the walk up to it from Stair Foot Car Park following The Dales Way ..... MY GOD .... MudFest.  Slippery, slide-y, goo.  Some of which had been well squished about by sheep and cattle and was ankle deep.  Delightful!

Aaaaand, to add insult to injury, my ViewRanger track didn't record properly.  I set it going at the start of my walk (obviously) and it managed to track 0.02 miles before it switched itself off.  I don't know why.  Anyway, lesson learned - sometimes it's not a good thing to follow a paper map and have electronic gadgets as back up - because that way round, you don't check the gadget as often (at all) as you should which means you don't spot things like it stopping recording your track.  I'm miffed because that's about 3.5 miles it hasn't recorded for my Challenge365 

Aaaanyway, despite all of that, the weather was lovely and thankfully not like the weather I'd left back home.  My legs got a bluddi good workout, slip-sliding around and, in Summer, this would be a lovely walk.

So here's some pictures (strangely enough, I didn't take any during my MudFest as I was too busy flailing my arms around trying to stay upright ):

Just amused me - sheep and geese grazing!

Looking towards Harewood House

Looking down to a bridge spanning the reservoir dam intake river

Eccup Reservoir

Valve pumps ... apparently

The higher trail around the reservoir

.. plus better views of it from up here ..

... than from down here on the "official" path

A zoom-y in of a comms mast in Horsforth

I would have walked through here back to the car if it was less muddy

All in all, this would have been a lovely walk if it wasn't for the mud and maybe one for a re-visit in summer.

So here are the fairly pointless ViewRanger Tracks ... 

The Start and The End

Thanks for looking

East Yorkshire: Beverley Westwood (3 miles)

Sunday, 11th February 2018

I don't know about anyone else but I'm getting sick of drab, muddy, rainy days where every walk I do involves squelching through boot-sucking mud, so, I had a lovely little wander around Beverley Westwood in today's glorious sunshine in the hope that I could avoid the worst of the mud by going "off piste" and just wandered to whatever I fancied visiting in my line of sight by whichever meandering path I felt like taking.

I'm no stranger to the Westwood (and it's cattle in summer ) but today's walk had me discovering things I never knew was there and had me pondering on what the Westwood had been in a past life.  Turns out it's been a quarrying area and a burial site, amongst other things and is, to date, used for the grazing of sheep and cattle.  I've never seen sheep on it though.  Cows, yes.  They come and lick the road salt off your car Oh, yes, parking's free for up to 4 hours and you might even come back to a clean car!

Anyway, despite the bitterly cold wind and the short hail shower it was great to be out in the sunshine.  Despite it being rough grassland, the fact you can walk where you like means you can avoid the mud.  It did amuse me that people were following the tracks across the Westwood, which were quite brown and squelchy when all they needed to do was walk next to the tracks and stay mud free.

Some pictures...

Heading to a small plantation,
with the Racecourse stands to the right

I never knew this was here

On towards another stand of trees
(can you spot what I can spot in them?)

Yep, one of these
(I didn't know this was here either)

Lovely, gnarly old tree
looks like it's maybe lost a few limbs though

At first, I thought this was Cobbler Well
but it turned out to be just a big puddle!

In there's Cobbler Well

And that's it - Cobbler Well
bit of a letdown to be honest!

Sheltered bench with Gorse in full bloom

Black Mill

The tiny dot in the middle of the screen is a Skylark!

Rubbish attempt at an arty-farty picture

Views over to the high wolds- Staxton Hill direction

Beverley Minster rising above the town

Newbegin Pits.  A nice walk when it's not muddy

Final destination - the butty shack!

For whatever strange reason, my achilles tendon was playing up today.  It's weird how some days it's absolutely fine and others it's not.  

I'm adding this walk to my meagre list of minimal-mud local Winter Walks

ViewRanger Track

Thanks for looking

WI Walk - Brandesburton (3.5 miles)

Saturday, 3rd February 2018

It was our monthly WI Walking Group walk today and seven of us met up at the hall and scratched our heads as to doing a walk that didn't involve too much mud.  We plumped for Brandesburton, a walk I've done before at a similar time of year, and knew it was on good, compacted hardcore tracks and quiet road walking.

After parking up outside the Dacre Arms (free roadside parking) we set off in the mizzle:

The Bridleway behind Plantation Cottages

The mud really isn't bad at all

One of the ponds at Burshill
(I was actually taking a pic of the ducks on it!!)

Snowdrops braving the weather

Winter Aconite

It never quite rained but we had soggy hats by the end of the walk!  

This still remains an easy walk to do when all the fields are waterlogged and the mud round here (clay) is unbelievably awful to walk on.

One day I'll do it in summer and maybe explore a footbridge across a field we spotted (definitely not a task for the mud and the rain of winter, that's for sure!)

As an aside, I'm up to 31.8 miles on my Challenge365 Mile A Day For A Year project... a little bit behind target but I have a walk lined up for tomorrow as well (weather permitting!) which should get me back in mileage credit, so to speak.

ViewRanger Track

Thanks for looking 😊