Ravensthorpe to Bramley 29/02/20

14.5 miles, via Thornhill Lees, Dewsbury Mills, Crow Nest Park, Dewsbury Moor,  

 Heckmondwike, Westfield, Popely Fields, Gomersal, Swincliffe, Birkenshaw, Tong Street, 

  Pit Hill, Holme, Black Carr wood, The Bank, Tyersal embankment, Greenside tunnel, 

   Pudsey (Windmill Hill, Chapeltown & Lowtown), and Swinnow Moor.

After a few weekends away, we get back on Saturday walking and just as well, as it's the fifth one in February as our Leap Year day makes itself available for the first time during my walking career, and I ought to have an ambitious trip planned for such an auspicious occasion, but the weather projections have proved so wildly inconsistent, I not feeling brave at all, indeed, I'm only getting out because this opportunity won't be repeated until 2048, when I'll be 73 and will probably have run short of walking ambition and available paths. So to Ravensthorpe we ride, departing the station at 10.15am, using the line of the Calder for another jump off, setting off down Ravensthorpe Road again, among the parades of semis and industrial plants, spotting a rare appearance of a 144 Pacer unit in the wild as it passes on the Wakefield line before we touch the corner of Thornhill Lees and find our fresh course northwards for the day, joining Forge Lane by the Filltex factory and spot a bridge to nowhere as we pass over it, which once allowed rail access to the Thornhill Ironworks which once filled the derelict sit to the east. Cross the channel of the C&HN and move to pass under the railway where a mass of metalwork carries the lines overhead, at a remarkable width as we land between the former Thornhill station and junction, moving on towards Dewsbury in the direction of Ratcliffe Mills and Holy Innocents church, before we take a sharp left to cross the Calder with the B6117 via Cleggford Bridge, with the river looking about as high as its capacity allows, and head along Thornhill Road past the imposing bulk of Dewbury Mills. There's rather a lot of suburban growth on this low patch in the loop of the Calder, ahead of the river's runoff channel, which we first met in 2012 and definitely looks like it had floodwaters flowing though it in the last month, which used to be a canal in its original incarnation, and we'll spy its house before passing though the industrial band beyond where we rise to pass under the mainline railway, where TPE's 802 Nova units provide new spotting opportunities, and Fall Lane rises further beyond to land us on the A644 Huddersfield Road by Ravens Lodge house. Cross to ascend Temple Road, between St Paulinus RC school and the Boothroyd Primary academy, arriving on Cemetery Road above the graveyard and mortuary chapels, and just across from Crow Nest Park, Dewsbury's best green space, with trees boldly surrounding its perimeter and the imposing, and eponymous, house dominating its centre, and after a glum looking opening to the trip, as we arrive above the Spen Valley, I allow myself to speculate that we might actually have a nice day on our hands as we continue to press north.

Mirfield to Sowerby Bridge 23/02/20

11.6 miles. via Battyeford, Cooper Bridge, Nun Bank Wood, Clifton Wood, Brighouse, 
 Brookfoot, Freeman's Wood, Cromwell Bottom, Binns, Elland Park Wood, Elland Bridge, 
  Elland Wood, Salterhebble, Copley. Long Wood, and Bolton Brow. 

Another weekend in February brings another Atlantic Storm, and thus walking plans get shuffled to the Sunday, which presents a better sort of day weather-wise, which is fortunate as I need to make an early morning trip to the opticians to collect my new specs, and the day also has My Sister and Nieces making the trip over the Pennines for a visit, as their day had been cleared for a mountain biking event that they really didn't fancy in the windy conditions, so we are instead able to burn the day off with a trip around the town and dinner at Trinity Kitchen while having more of the catch up that we didn't complete at Christmas. A day off is also useful for starting to get used to the vari-focal lens in my new glasses, and the art of learning to focus at three different distances, not that I'll be taking them out for a walking trip the following day, as I need the familiarity of my old specs as we seek to trace a route to the edge of Upper Calderdale, in keeping with the proposed theme for the year, and matching a trajectory from 2012 to test the theory that a difference of a mere half mile from a previous path can reveal the world in a completely new way. So to Mirfield we ride, starting late to allow most of the day's rain pass early on, and giving us a short window before the heat loss of winter starts, so we are wrapped up in thermal and windcheater as we alight at 11.20am, setting our course under the railway and along Station Road up to Bull Bridge, to make our base-tough with the Calder & Hebble Navigation before rising to meet the main road up Calderdale, turning onto the A644 Huddersfield Road at the town's heart and setting off west, past the library, the Co-op and St Paul's church. Past the wholly intact buildings of Fold Head mills, and war memorial in Ings Grove park, we are soon slipping out of this most urbane of villages, with a band of industry filling up the strip of land between the road and the River Calder, in the middle of which we find the remains of the L&NWR's Battyeford viaducts on the Leeds New Lines, with a runs of blue brick arches running up to the roadside, and a string of stone arches sitting by the riverbank, easily the most interesting thing to my eyes at this edge of the town, so naturally this is where the last rain cloud of the day passes over to spoil my photography opportunities. The damp gloom doesn't last though, as the sunshine breaks out as we pass on through Battyeford among its roadside cottages below the rising bank to the north, coming upon the side of the Calder beyond the Pear Tree inn, and it's high and thundering after the overnight rains, looking ominous below Wood Lane bridge and keeping its volume up as we pass the band of playing fields on the low bank, with the river showing the most of its agitation as it runs over the weir by the former West Riding flour mills site.

Halifax to Batley 14/02/20

12.3 miles, via North Bridge, Claremount, Stump Cross, Hipperholme, Lightcliffe, 

 Bailiff Bridge, Hartshead Moor (Top & Side), West End, Cleckheaton, Spen Lower, 

  Spen Upper, Gomersal (Hill Top), Birstall Smithies, Wilton Park, Bankfoot, and The Mill.

Boots #7b are ready to enter service.

The small benefit of a long trip home from the trail is a chance to score some more cheap walking togs, in the most recent case being finding a new pair of intermediate boots for pavement walking, #7b if we're keeping score, a pair of Regatta Samaris located at TK Maxx in Leeds for £40, hopefully a good replacement for pair #6b from Cotton Traders, which really absorbed the abusage over the last two years, and they'll be put to immediate use today, as we head out for a third consecutive day on the trail, starting out early on the rides to Halifax in hope of staying ahead of the next wave of bad weather. So to our start line, for a 9.50am start, emerging from the station and wondering just how long the early sunshine is going to last, setting a course to the east, which isn't the easiest of route once you consider the bowl in which the town centre is located, tracing a route that seems awfully familiar, up the single street with four names past the Woolshops Shopping centre, the Royal Mail depot and the Bus Station, to meet Northgate by the Halifax Vue, which leads us to North Bridge, which spans the gap below, in which Hebble Brook roars away, by the car parks on the old GNR good yard and station sites. Away from the Dean Clough valley, we will follow the flyovers of Burdock way as we press uphill out of town, rising with New Bank road to the side of the A58, above the apartment blocks on Charlestown Road to the footbridge to the north side of the turnpike, below St Thomas's church and school in Claremount, where a fine view panoramic over the town to the south can be gained, even with the gloom gathering so early in the day. The main road to Leeds will be our route for the initial going, rising with Godley Road to pass out of the Hebble valley, under the ornately styled Godley Bridge at the crest and passing into the deep rock cutting beyond, proving that heavily engineered roads did not come with the motorways, not feeling like a road that particularly apt to being walked, despite the footway as it drops away into the lower reaches of Shibden Dale with Halifax's town soon behind us, hardly surprisingly as surely 90% of its reach and suburbia lies to the west of its ancient centre.

Huddersfield to Halifax 13/02/20

8 miles, via Highfields, Edgerton, Prince Royd, Birchencliffe, Ainley Top, Storth, Elland, 

 Elland Wood, Salterhebble, Skircoat, and the Piece Hall.

Thanks to the weather it looks like my schedule isn't going to have much space for recovery time between trips, so it's just a well that I'd only planned a short excursion for today, the sort of distance that's too short to dedicate a whole day to, not that Northern Fail are doing anything to help me along, with their services delaying my arrival into Huddersfield by a quarter hour, showing that they've really given up on their business ahead of being stripped of their franchise at the end of the month. So we alight at 10.25am, with the day's sunshine already retreating from view as we get off to an inauspicious start, finding the favoured route from St George's Square blocked by roadworks, and thus a detour take us along Railway Street and West Gate to pass over the station throat and then set a course along New North Parade, the southernmost stub of the turnpike that has been severed by the Castlegate ring road, and this doesn't present a direct way forward until we've gone under the Trinity Street underpass and emerged by the old town infirmary. Once we've passed St Patrick's RC church, New North Road finally gets us going, with the A629 finally taking us towards Halifax, leading us on among the most attractive sort of early 19th century suburbia, showing up the sort of vintage suburban front that doesn't immediately having you thinking of what Huddersfield looks like, finding the castellated Highfields Centre in its midst across the way from Holy Trinity church, and adjacent to the overstated Congregational chapel and Sunday school, as we press on through Victorian townhouse to the Blacker Road corner. Beyond, things get a whole lot leafier as Edgerton Road settles into a landscape of villas with extensive grounds and gardens along the valley edge on which it runs, taking us past the sole surviving tram stand in the town as the houses retreat away from the roadside and behind their banks of trees, which give the whole of the Halifax road a feeling of being ahistorical as none of what you might expect to see along a major town road appears in suburban Edgerton as we pass our next previous contact point at Daisy Lea Lane. It seems that nearby Lindley must provide the facilities for this part of town, and we don't meet a pub until we encounter the Cavalry Arms at the East Street corner, just across from the Mormon temple, meeting some actual vintage cottages and terraces once we hit the urban hamlet of Prince Royd, where a brewery and a brickworks once brought some industry to this lane, beyond which Huddersfield's outer suburban band can be found as we pass into Birchencliffe.

Bradford to Dewsbury 12/02/20

11.4 miles, via Adolphus Street, East Bowling, Bowling Hall & Park, West Bowling, 

 Staygate, Odsal, Low Moor, Oakenshaw, Chain Bar, Cleckheaton, Royds Park, 

  Liversedge, Heckmondwike, Staincliffe and Batley Carr.

The first few weeks of 2020 proved to be pretty dry by recent standards, so once I chose to take a break from work, the weather found it to be an excellent time to come on strong, with Atlantic Storm Ciara bringing on all the rain, causing flooding issues again over Sunday, causing major headaches for my friends in Calderdale, with rains following to blight all of Monday and Tuesday, where the only outdoors time I'll be spending involves going to the optician to see about new specs for my failing eyes. It's not until Wednesday that things look better and the early season roaming can resume, to pick up the trail that returns us in the direction of the River Calder, emerging at 10.15am under sunny skies again, setting a course south along Bridge Street and past the Leisure Exchange complex to the tangle of the A647 and A650, as beyond these lies the site of Bradford's original station on the GNR lines, Adolphus Street, which only served as a passenger terminal between 1854-67, but endured as a goods complex until 1972, and while its main buildings have long gone, where Wakefield Road now runs, a large section of its plinth endures. We follow this along Dryden Street, passing the bricked up entrance, the platform level access ramp and the retaining walls to the coal drops where small industrial units now dwell, accessing the high level by a flight of steps and passing on through the Essex Street Industrial Estate, where the St James's Wholesale Market resides on the station site, following the access lane out to the A650, which we cross via the subways to emerge by the Gurdwara on the Usher Street corner, where we progress on past the Bowling Park primary school, and elevate among the industrial units on Barnard Road to pass under the Bowling - Laisterdyke line, under one of the many bridges on the alignment Bradford avoiding that's been closed since 1964. We then ascend through what could be the confusing rabbit warren of terraces and semis of East Bowling, but we've prepped a route to lead us up and along Paley, Brassey and Flockton Roads to land us at the top on Brompton Avenue, which leads us to Bolling Hall, one of the definitively oldest houses in Bradford, of medieval, 17th and 18th century vintages having endured on site since the 11th century,  famously featuring as a Royalist base during the English Civil War and the siege of Bradford in 1643, and now in City ownership as a museum and library. A fine place for a bit of historic transportation away from the contemporary surroundings as you pace around the gardens, and then continue the trip into the greenery of the past as our route leads us into Bowling Park, Bradford's green lung, high to its south, where we pace through the wild gardens and playing fields on the way over to Parkside Road on the eastern edge of West Bowling.

Huddersfield to Bradford 08/02/20

10.9 miles, via Hillhouse, Fartown, Fell Greave Woods, Bradley Bar, Toothill, Brighouse, 

 Bonegate, Bailiff Bridge, Lower Wyke, Wyke, Moorside, Hilltop, Odsal, Bankfoot, 

  and West Bowling.

My traditional February break from work lands, and for the first time in five years I'll be spending it all at home, as previous years have had me away to visit My Parents, but with Dad having passed away last year and with Mum having some Winter sun in Malta this, I've got all of it to use for my own entertainment, getting my ninth season of walking going by firmly welding it to the terrain of 2019's wandering as we build an early season framework in the eastern edge of the territory that I intend to explore over the coming nine months. Thus we hit the first Saturday of the year, where sunshine still pours through ahead of Storm Ciara bringing on all the Winter weather that we haven't experienced over the last six weeks, landing ourselves at Huddersfield station at a little after 9.50am, thanks to some strange train alignments, marching ourselves boldly across St George's square with a trajectory to the north in mind, leading us past the very closed George Hotel and onto John William street, where we pace along to the old Empire cinema, and meet Viaduct Street, which leads us along the elevated railway that leads into the station from the north. It really is the hidden engineering marvel of the city, far too easy to not acknowledge properly as you travel, which we follow out behind Tesco to the inner ring road, which we cross at the Castlegate - Southgate junction to join the side of the A641 Northgate, as we strike away from the town centre, past the car dealerships and under the noticeably widened railway bridge above, where our path becomes the Bradford Road, which already announces our destination for the day as we start our rise, among the terrace parades on the way up through the urban district of Hillhouse. More stone terraces and low-rise flats fill the roadside beyond the Halifax Old Road corner, leading us on towards Fartown where the Railway Inn announces the proximity of the old MR Newtown Goods line, the contemporary Birkby - Bradley greenway in its Heckmondwike-esque cutting, all located a short way below the Fartown Green corner where we bust through my circular route around the town from last year, and hit the real rise of the road as it pushes out through Huddersfield's suburbia. Less than two miles out and the banks of woodlands that apron the hills to the north start to make themselves apparent, filling in the roadside around Ash Brow Mills and the Asda superstore on all the sections of land that have proved too steep for suburban development, where we take our last looks back into the Colne Valley, before we rise on, to meet the ancient Fell Greave woods, where the Kirklees brought us back in 2014, beyond which the suburban and literal top of Huddersfield can be found at Bradley Bar.

Out of the Dark Season and Onwards!

New Walking Duds
for the 2020 Season!

A month on in 2020, and we're all still here, which is a relief, and with another Dark Season retreating into memory and the usable weeks of the year looming large, it's time to get back into the idea of walking for fun (and profit?) in 2020, as the first year of my Five Year Plan to get all of West Yorkshire's remaining corners and trails properly explored before I turn 50 comes into focus. Still, we've got on off-season to look back on before we set off full tilt into Season #9 of this ongoing odyssey, and it hasn't proved to be as inactive a break as I might have anticipated, as my supposed sit-down role at work has proved to be much more active than was suggested, as the need to provide cover for the Medical Records distribution, and the amount of bulk materials still being delivered on site mean that I'm not sat so much that my job immediately poses too much risk of me getting under-exercised and overweight. Thus we are alighting on the new season feeling like I'm physically ready to get going, not feeling too bloated at a measurement weight of 74.8k, a good three kilos lighter than I was at the same jump off point a year ago, and feeling mentally prepared for the fresh challenges, after only three stretches of an hour plus during the past twelve weeks of relative hibernation. They all came in around the festive season, one being the annual(ish) excursion out to Birstall retail park from Morley, which came ahead of Christmas, which we did about as low key as possible, with me hosting Mum at mine over the holiday day, before tripping over to Bolton to visit My Sister and family over the following weekend, where a circuit of Entwistle Reservoir filled out the useful exercise quota, before my traditional trip to Calderdale for New Year landed, opening 2020 with a trip out to the reservoirs around the head of the Ryburn, right at the heart of the terrain that this year's wandering should be headed. It wasn't a bad season for new additions to the walking gear pile either, landing another new wicking vest to replace the medium-sized ones that I rather boldly fill out these days, scoring many more pairs of socks to replace the ones that have either worn beyond use or proved not entirely suitable, and having finally gotten a new pair of Craghoppers to replace the two pairs that have been retired to a cupboard in Leicester, which are hoped to prove as durable as my most enduring trousers, which will be bravely entering their 16th(!) year of service as we hit the trails next week.