& 1.8 miles, from Cragg Road, via Hawksclough Bridge, the Rochdale Canal,
Mytholmroyd bridge and Cragg Brook.
It hadn't been my intention to drop out from my walking schedule this weekend, but when a call came inviting me out for another return to my Support Bubble in Calderdale, taking the opportunity seemed too good to miss, as the local lockdown restrictions don't apply to our particular type of socialising, and Barbecue is offered as a clincher by My Good Friends, and that seems like a most appealing prospect when the weather projection isn't great, far cooler and greyer than last weekend turned out, demonstrating further that this Summer has no idea at all what it's trying to do. Sadly, opportunities for major exercise aren't really forthcoming as my invitation only gets a late response due to me not seeing it until Friday evening, curtailing the chance of a two night stay, and also precluding an early start on Saturday as supplies need to be gotten in ahead of my visit, as they haven't been obtained preemptively, and so we don't land at Chez IH&AK until after Saturday lunchtime, meaning there isn't enough afternoon to head out for an uphill blast after brews and a conflab, meaning that none of us will have the chance to hit the 383m summit of Crow Hill for the first time. So we only stroll in the village instead, and I really mean stroll, as the walks we do would barely feel worthy of recording at all if it wasn't for all the potential miles lost during 2020, heading out from base on Cragg Road at 2.35pm, walking into the village , beyond the station and viaduct to see how more of the flood defence works have progressed, noting that while so much has been built anew along the sides of Cragg Brook over the last couple of years, some of the older walls retaining the gardens of Streamside Fold have started to suffer from cracking. A detour off New Road takes us through the churchyard of St Michael's, which gives us a dramatic foreground for the fine view up to the woodlands and rocks of Scout Scar above the valley, a grand backdrop to take in as we visit the public gardens around the bowling green, recently replanted after the civil engineering depot that had spent many months on the tennis courts site finally moved out, having completed most of the work deepening and widening the channel of the Calder, downstream from Mytholmroyd Bridge. The major local interest point remains the relocation of Caldene Bridge upstream, with the original span now completely removed as a pool is created upstream from the Calder-Cragg confluence, hopefully to allow water to back up safely in times of spate, and the increased width of the river is obvious as the south bank is completely rebuilt, with the piles now driven in and the construction of new retaining walls having started, allowing my friends to feel like this project is coming to a conclusion after nearly 4 years of work, as the village centre seeks its own new normal again.
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| Mytholmroyd Station buildings. |
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| Flood Defences almost completed downstream of Mytholmroyd bridge. |
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| The absent old Caldene Bridge, and the ongoing pool construction. |
We're back at base at 3.15pm (making this certainly our shortest trip of all my walking days), not least because we've all got a lot to talk about before the serious business of the weekend starts, and after they lent an ear to my venting about three months of working for the NHS through lockdown during the early days of the pandemic back in June, this time it's my turn to be the sympathetic listener as they, as teachers, endure the unfolding fiasco of this year's A-Level results, which has seen thousands of pupils having their outcomes downgraded after the DoE made an appalling late game decision. Despite having known from the outset that there was zero chance of exams being sat this year, and having had five months to plan for it, the choice was made to ignore the projections made by teachers and mock exams, they chose to use a graded algorithm, based mainly around school quality and previous results, which resulted in a more than a quarter of pupils nationally getting markedly worse outcomes than they deserved, which is massively disheartening for my friends after all the remote work that they put in, and which drops a fresh burden on them ahead of schools resuming properly in September. They probably need exercise to clear their heads as much as I do right now, with my working problems seeming small in comparison, and thus Sunday demands another stroll, another excursion in name only, heading out at 11.10 am, taking the route we know well via the not as narrow as it seems passage of Thrush Hill Road under the railway, and out up Caldene Avenue as far as Hawksclough Bridge to see that the flood containment works upstream of the village on the Calder are now apparently completed, ahead of a return down the Rochdale canal path. Local lockdown seems to have put an end to the return of barging and boating on the waterways, but it hasn't stemmed the flow of tourists into the valley, at a rate previously unseen by my friends as local campsites and caravan parks fill up with those not travelling abroad, a whole new feature to take on as we return to the village via the Midgeley Road bridge, and come down by the river in the village centre again, to see the completed work on removable barriers that has been done to render the low parapets of the historic Mytholmroyd Bridge flood proof. Thus, we head inbound again, back up the lowest reaches of Cragg Vale, and over the footbridge behind the Shoulder of Mutton and its beer garden, still unvisited since its reopening, to see that the completed works on Cragg Brook are already being refitted, inserting barriers into the elevated walls to allow flood water to drain into the stream, to hopefully prevent Elphabrough Close getting inundated when rising water levels don't behave themselves like they did earlier this year, before we rock up all done at 11.50am, in good time for both lunch and my homeward train ride.
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| The Thrush Hill Road railway bridge/passage. |
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| Peace & Quiet by the Rochdale Canal. |
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| The works by Cragg Brook might never be completed? |
So, that's really that for this weekend's walking trip, barely three miles over two days, and all done in less than 90 total minutes, but what of Saturday night's barbecue, you might ask, and worry not I say as that's not something that's going to escape the purview of this blog, as its absolutely as relevant to it as anything else that has gone on this year, initially being set up for a mid evening feeding, which end up taking rather longer as the blend of charcoal brickettes and lighter fluid take a while to get up to temperature for cooking. It's a speedy business once we get there, with IH tending the coals to cook burgers and a chunk of steak that looked far too thick to my eyes to get evenly cooked through over an open fire, but gets done so swiftly that my expectations are trumped, allowing plenty of time to rest the admirably rare sirloin as we stack up our burgers for round one with coleslaw, fried onions and an array of condiments, ahead of cutting said meat to have round two of toasted steak sandwiches with lightly singed sourdough. There's also grilled halloumi for a nicely middle class burst of cheesiness and saltiness as round three, and despite the grilling having concluded after that, there's still enough heat in the coals to cook for dozen people for another couple of hours, so my hosts' Sunday roast can have a good session of getting sealed and smoked ahead of time, and we've even got a Burnt Basque Cheesecake to come as dessert, not barbecued though its appearance could easily be interpreted as such, which isn't as rich and sweet as anticipated but nicely offset by the tartness of strawberries and compote. Of course, we need our fix of gin based cocktail, and we settle into our bottles of wine as the night settles in, be they from California or Rioja, and as the hours get later a game of Cards Against Humanity is broken out, which I've somehow never played, despite of knowing many who would, and there's something immensely satisfying about having three naturally polite people composing and expressing some of the most outrageous statements as is possible, and laughing a lot as our terrible sides are kept private from the wider world. It's probably what we need most in this garbage year of 2020, a secure release from everything else that is still unfolding around us, and I'm certainly starting to get used to having My Good Friends around, and having the opportunity to socialise with them with some regularity, as my usual freedom to walk usually gets in the way and they're normally spending a good chunk of the Summer out of the country, and it's only taken a global pandemic to get us together more often, and in the circumstances, my continued gratitude to them for their hospitality cannot be understated.
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| Food Outcomes #1: Burger and Slaw. |
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| Food Outcomes #2 Steak Sandwich with Sourdough. |
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| Food Outcomes #3: Basque Burnt Cheesecake and Strawberries. |
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 4563.4 miles
2020 Total: 296.9 miles
Up Country Total: 4100.4 miles
Solo Total: 4236.8 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3157.2 miles
Next Up: The High Moors route to the 69th and final station visit in West Yorkshire, for reals.
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