Brighouse to Morley 07/11/20

10.6 miles, via Brighouse Bridge, Clifton, Hartshead Moortop, Hartshead Moorside, Hightown, 

 Knowler Hill, Liversedge, Littletown, Westfield, White Lee, Smithies, Birstall, Copley Hill, 

  Howden Clough, Bruntcliffe, and Leeds 27 Ind Est.

So, as of November 5th were into our second National Covid Lockdown, but it already looks like it's going to be a different beast from the first, as much greater flexibility and mobility is permitted, and indeed expected, this time around, and despite inessential travel being discouraged, I'm figuring that a single half-hour trip out of the region at the end of my walking season to complete the second leg of my homeward bound trip is going to be way down the risk list as we speak, and that the British Transport Police are going to have better things to do that track down solo-walking miscreants like myself. Thus my revived season concludes by heading out from Brighouse, just like it started back in July, alighting my train at 8.50am having travelled out through fog and mist that looks like it's going to linger over the whole day, and again starting out by not taking the most obvious route forwards, by heading west from the station via Railway Street to Gooder Lane, so we might pass the church of St John the Divine, which claims to be in Raistrick, to further confuse the geography of the area, ahead of pacing John Street to meet the long flight of steps that drops us down to Bridge End by the Star inn. Joining up with the A643m, it takes us under Brighouse viaduct and over the Calder at Brighouse bridge, before snaking around to meet Briggate once again, passing over the Canal and completing one of my most fatuous detours designed to keep my paths fresh, only getting properly on track as we join Bethel Street as the local shops are opening up, and barely showing the indications of the lockdown situation that exists at present, while getting the feeling that we've really done a number on this town centre during my many passages across it this year. Lawson Road leads us to the tangling of the local bypass roads, where we cross over to get on track with the A643 Clifton Road again, passing though the industrial band that sits around the lower reach of Clifton Beck, which is crossed over ahead of passing over the Calderdale Way route and meeting the remains of the railway embankments of the L&YR's Pickle Bridge line, with the station remnants of Clifton Road station being seen to the south of the main road. The climb of Clifton Common beyond is one we've paced before, and continues our theme of serious rises and falls on the year's paths, rising past the strings of terraces that rise up the hillside from the hillside up to the suburban infill, before we reach the open fields ahead of Clifton village, where we'd expect our views back into the valley, but there's just fog blanketing the scene instead, meaning all our attention will settle onto our pace in the absence of views as we run past the Armytage Arms and rise to Highmoor Lane beyond.

Wakefield to Morley 15/02/19

8.6 miles, via Kirkgate, St John's, Wrenthorpe, Carr Gate, East Ardsley, Black Gates, 
 Tingley, Birks, Morley Top, and Morley Hole.

Take a day out of my schedule when Thursday of my bonus week comes along, because there's a lot of housework that needs attention after too many days of it getting neglected whilst I was elsewhere, and during my rest day, the weather seems to have settled into another of those sessions of unseasonal warmth that a friend of mine calls 'False Spring', giving you the impression that winter has ended early when it will soon return as a month or more of it still remains to go. Nonetheless, sunshine and blue skies abound as we return to Wakefield to complete the final leg of the local triangle that I'd planned for this week, arriving later than planned as my train needed a repair job before it set off for Kirkgate station, and we don't get off the platforms until after 10.20 am, because this place still suffers the problem of having to walk an ungodly distance to get off it when arriving on a southbound train. So north-westwards and homeward will be the order of the day, pacing off up Monk Street among the many flats blocks on a course for the town centre, still noting that the building that we have to walk under by the A61 island is still derelict, but the subway down through the roundabout to Kirkgate proper has gone and we can now burn across it at street level, a welcome development to make the station seem that bit less isolated and unfriendly. The east end of the town centre arrives as we pace up Kirkgate, among some of the more low rent stores of the town, in that shadow of that trio of residential tower blocks with their stepped sides and pitched roofs that are a bit of a local design classic, shifting away from the parades of eateries and taverns as we join Westmorland Street and head up towards the open public square at the junction of Union Street and Bull Ring, pacing along with the spire of the cathedral looming large over the rooftops to the south. Northgate itself will be our route out of town, just to the north of the Town and County Halls, which both peek above the roofs of the diminishing shops and offices along this lane, which gradually turn to runs of imposing townhouses as the city centre ends and we settle onto the A61 as we shift through the Victorian suburbia and meet the rather upscale district of St John's.

Kirkstall Forge to Morley 10/11/18

9.4 miles, via Newlay Locks, Bramley Fall Park, Bramley Moorside, Upper Armley, 

 Armley, Lower Wortley, Far Royds, Farnley Junction, Cottingley Station, Churwell, 

  and the Urban Woods.

The 2018 season finale weekend is here, and my Eighth year of walking is going to have a concluding trip, one that I was pretty sure wouldn't happen when I was looking forward back in the difficult days of September, and after all this exercise, which has taken us past the 500 mile mark by quite a stretch, it makes sense to have a trip to the Chip Shop for my celebratory lunch of F'n'C. This route won't be from my front door as a trip longer than a quarter hour is in order, and I set course for another look at the oddly neglected quarter of West Leeds before I go for my food, but when Northern Trains have been marking their cards badly with weekend strikes that have lasted since August Bank Holiday, I don't need Trans Pennine Express cancelling their stopping services through Morley as that puts me an hour back before I can get to Kirkstall Forge for a start just short of 9.50am, with only a three hour window of decent weather ahead of us. Thus we go from where the 2018 season started, where the developemnts alongside the Aire don't seem to have grown at all since February, as we head south this time, along the hard path into the woods that surely leads on towards Newlay and the site of the WW1-era munitions works that used to sit upstream from the Forge, not that we will see much of what endures there as we'll seek the stepped route up to the side of the Leeds & Liverpool canal, where exercisers and a trio of flying swans are already out and about along the towpath. We'll follow the path west to Newlay Locks, not the shortest route but the only way to go to see the side of Bramley Fall park that hasn't been visited so far, and we cross over the double lock to meet the signage that indicates us into Bramley Fall woods, which immediately form a dense Autumnal canopy above us, and despite the paths being relatively clear and open, route-finding still feels challenging as we rise away from the river and canal among the terracing and quarry remnants. Instinct and elevation eventually brings us out at whereabouts I expected we should, about halfway through the park, above the open stretch that bisects the woods and just below the lodge house, where we depart onto Leeds & Bradford Road, to process east in front of the Bramley Moorside estates, with the Fall Park providing a wooded flank for a stretch until we get to the opening out view down the Aire Valley, with Headingley stadium rising on the horizon, and Kirkstall Abbey hiding among the late season colours of the valleys woods below.