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.

Cottingley to Garforth 03/11/18

13.7 miles, via Millshaw, White Rose, Middleton, Thorpe on the Hill, Robin Hood, Rothwell, 

 Oulton, Swillington, West Garforth, and East Garforth.

November and Greenwich Mean Time arrive, and I'm still ready to walk, even with my five must-do trips for late 2018 completed, which shows that my wavering resolve can still stiffen when this close to the year's finish line, and thus we have two weekends to fill, so a route plot needs to be pulled up from a trip that got misplaced back in March with the long tail of the early season's Winter weather twitching hard. It makes little sense to bring this excursion across the Leeds south and eastern fringe up now, but I don't have any other routes that are closer to home planned, and I'm going to approach it in the reverse direction to that which I'd originally intended as the train strikes are still going to make choosing my finishing points that bit more complicated and the weather isn't showing much chance of being decent past Midday so it makes most sense to not waste a clear hour travelling out to Garforth, with the sole train that stops at Cottingley dropping me off at a shade after 8.20am. So away from the station in the slightly dim light of morning, passing the plant that has been brought in the extend the platforms, joining the footpath that meanders along the side of Cottingley Drive, past the raked terraces of brown houses and down the hillside that largely obscures the Cottingley Towers as we make the-longer-than-you'd-anticipate walk down to the A643 Elland Road, which we cross by that stray terrace of Victorian Houses. Join Millshaw and pace on through the industrial park, still wondering if its sole old building, now the city council's environmental services offices, used to be a school or not before we join the side of the A6110 Ring Road Beeston, where we trace the dual carriageway around to the White Rose Office Park, that presents a rather space-age frontage to the main road and then advance on below the entrance to the similarly named Shopping Centre, crossing the road to meet the path before the very outer edge of Beeston's council estates. Follow the path up to the A653 Dewsbury Road, crossing over to meet the path up to Stanks Hall farm and barn, still not home to the urban farm that they deserve to be, but still hanging on in their space between the main road and the railway line to Wakefield, which we cross over for the third time via the footbridge to meet the rough path-cum-cycleway that skirts around the south-western perimeter of the Middleton estate, which is well hidden away up the hillside above. So too is the notional right of way that I once failed to find that crosses the golf course, which we leave in our wake as we press south on an undulating route that sits mostly concealed by over and undergrowth on the sloping hillside by the railway, which occasionally opens up more views over towards Morley, which are nice new perspectives to gain, before we rise to meet the open pasture below Bodmin Road where a number of Traveller's shire horses seem to be making best use of the common land for their grazing and recumbence.