Scout Scar, Hall Bank and Hoo Hole.
& 1.9 miles, from Cragg Road, via Scar Bottom, Caldene Bridge, the Rochdale canal,
Hawksclough Bridge, Caldene Bridge (again), and Mytholmroyd bridge.
Wednesday evening brings a surprise, a pleasant one for a change, as an announcement from HM Government is made, which from the following Saturday allows single adult households to form a 'support bubble' with another household without any social distancing rules applying, and within half an hour of this being made public, I get an e-mail invite from my good friends in Calderdale, suggesting that I might travel out to stay with them in Mytholmroyd for the benefit of renewed sociability and the mental health of those that enforced isolation has taken a toll on. I seize this opportunity with joy, and would probably have been ready to jump on a train on Friday evening after another frustrating working week, but we'll stay within the official rules for now, and claim my travel as essential, by heading over on Saturday morning, to land with IH & AK in time for a brew for elevenses and for a lunch of locally sourced bacon and egg rolls, and just being able to chew the fat in a domestic setting, and to sit down with friends for a meal feels like the most enormous of releases, having not done either since February. We need to exercise ourselves too, of course, as Calderdale offers many paths, and it's unpredictable weathers ensure that when we head out from our base on Cragg Road at 12.45pm, we've all donned light waterproofs in anticipation of coming rain, while the clouds hang hazily above the sides of the valley as we amble down into the village, along the downstream flow of Cragg Brook, past the Shoulder of Mutton and under the railway viaduct to note which stores on New Road have endured or suffered before we meet Mytholmroyd bridge, over the Calder and just upstream from St Michael's church. Here we pause to examine the building work that is still ongoing after the boxing day floods of 2015, having widened and heightened the river channel to create a pool below the Cragg Brook confluence, a plan which didn't pan out with the heavy rains of earlier this year as it had failed to consider the potential amount of water ingress on the dry side of the wall, and thus remedial work is ongoing, to be examined as we progress on along the A646 Burnley Road, past the Russell Dean furniture store, the business that completely rebuilt its premises after the flooding in order to stay local, in the direction of the other Mytholmroyd bridge, by which the Red Lion inn still stands disused and sadly derelict.
 |
| A familiar sort of pall hangs over Calderdale. |
 |
| St Michael's and the deepened and widened Calder. |
Join the Rochdale Canal path to head down stream with the valley, among the less than pretty surroundings of the Moderna Business park before we pop out of the east side of the village, finding that the young geese are roosting beyond Moderna bridge and that the towpath is relatively bereft of walkers and riders, after several weeks of Calderdale having had everyone from the towns downstream who wanted to enjoy a bit of the outdoors seemingly decanted into it, and we note more building work down here, creating a new canal runoff to prevent flooding in the village, which additionally sacrifices a portion of the local playing fields to create a new wild riverside wetland. Jump off the towpath at Brearley bridge, and pace among the hamlet that straddles the canal and the river, passing to the south side of the Calder, where new containment walls to protect the workshops on the mill site above the weir are still ongoing, and after a low level start to our stroll we need to now experience some of the proper local terrain, and that means splitting off up Brearley Lane to pass over the deep cutting of the railway on uphill, above the proud farmsteads of Green Field and Sunderland House, and rising with Hob Lane up to Little Scout farm. A field walk then continues at that familiar local pitch, getting the lungs going hard just as the cloud starts to burn off, meaning that we are now all wildly overdressed as we emerge onto Scout Road, rewarded with the fine view downstream to Luddenden Dean and across the valley to Midgeley Moor, and having refreshed ourselves and note the large number of bold farmsteads in the valley, we resume the route, uphill at a gentler pitch above the edge of Scout Wood, where the crags of Scout Scar linger just below our site range, obscured by foliage. It's again quiet after a run of busy days on the local paths, and the elevating route below the fields of Stakes farm eventually rewards with views upstream, over Mytholmroyd, and between the high flanks of Calderdale's moorlands all the way up to the hill which Heptonstall sits atop, with us rising to the path crest to get the reveal of Cragg Vale and the bulk of Erringden Moor beyond, reaching the path's apex by the Millennium beacon, where the north westerly view up the valley makes me feel so glad to have been allowed out of my my locality to see some terrain like this.
 |
| The new Rochdale canal run-off under construction. |
 |
| Upstream Calderdale from Little Scout farm. |
 |
| Downstream Calderdale from above Scout Wood. |
 |
| Upper Calderdale from the Mytholmroyd Millennium Beacon. |
Inbound we thus head, following the rough path down to meet Stake lane, just as the local travelers start to emerge onto the hills as the day rapidly warms up, joining the steep and sometimes slippery path as it heads down the flank of Hall Bank, on of the local pair of local ascent tests, across from the other on Daisy Hill, and even up here there's flood prevention work going on, having culverted a local stream into a new drain with a cistern attached, just up from the tarmacked road top, where the routes up the side valley or down to the village offer themselves, and we opt for the Long Lane path, as the most direct route downhill. This leads us to the Top Land business park, which could easily be mistaken for a chicken farm, perched above the lowest reach of the valley, which we follow the path down as it hairpins its way through the woods above Cragg Brook to land us by the Hoo Hole Dye Works, landing us on Cragg Road by the Royd's Ices factory, whose ice cream vans have been doing way more business than you might have expected during lockdown, and all that remains from there is to admire the impressive pair of metal cockerels by the Old Bolt shop as we head down Cragg Road to seal the loop at 2.25pm, under conditions quite unlike the ones we departed in. Done with stretching, it's then nice to sit out on the terrace of my friends' house enjoying the quiet of the valley and the burbling of the stream, observing the local fauna as we enjoy cold drinks and and talk our worlds of the last few months around, comparing the experiences of their teaching professions to all the shenanigans I've been party to in the hospital, with us all feeling the relief of being able to have a good vent in person, and keeping this up until the day cools off with the passing of the sun. When the promised thunderstorms do arrive, we've already retreated inside, to attack the cocktails and 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle with equal enthusiasm, ahead of our dinner of barbecue ribs, Boston beans and mac'n'cheese, and raspberry pavlova for dessert, before we settle into a long evening of consuming about a bottle of red wine each as we chat about all this and that into the wee small hours (or actually concluding well before midnight as we don't have any of our youthful stamina anymore), but it's nonetheless grand to do something that feels normal after three months of abnormality.
 |
| Cragg Vale awaits a future explore. |
 |
| Mythholmroyd has an Ice Cream factory. |
 |
| Calderdale's Local Fauna. |
 |
| I also travel for my dinner, which is most appreciated. |
~~~
Having slept off our consumption rather well, the following Sunday morning demands another stretch after we've fortified ourselves with brews and we aim at another short circuit around the village ahead of lunchtime, setting off down Cragg Road at 10.45 to the old fire station and up to Scar Bottom to follow Thrush Hall Road under the narrow railway bridge and between the Working Men's Club and the Calderdale Search and Rescue HQ to see the building work that has gone on to build a new Caldene bridge over the Calder, thus enabling a widening of the channel, as well as removing the old one, another engineering project that's been ongoing for years now. We take a turn to hit the Rochdale canal path again, from Burnley road via Westfield Terrace, and progress west from Bridge 12 to Broadbottom Lock, noting the quantity of teen-aged goslings on the bank by the sewage works and the complete lack of boating on the channel, before we merge out onto the main road by the wildflower meadow that has been established to both grow flowers, propagate insects and reduce mowing costs, before we slip across the A646 to recross the river at Hawksclough bridge, to again look at the widened channel of the Calder and the extended flood walls to prevent inundation in the village below. Head back into the village down Caldene Avenue, that local suburban lane that always seems to see our footfalls, which has a distinctly Harry Potter themed house at its heart, before we cross the new Caldene bridge again, and trot along Burnley road past the Dusty Miller inn, which has hatched an ingenuous scheme to flog off its unused beer supply, before we return to Mytholmroyd bridge again, to have the incomplete flood wall issue pointed out to me, as well as the new works that have stared to repair the old retaining wall at the Cragg Brook - Calder confluence, which has experienced severe cracking in recent months. Then we head back in towards base, up New Road and under the railway viaduct again, to slip over the new footbridge behind the Shoulder, linking Steamside Fold and Elphaborough Court directly to the village, where the long stretch work on the flood walls has been mostly completed, aside from one length of protective fence that the builders seem to have forgotten about, and that thus completes our tour of what briefly made Mytholmroyd nationally famous, as we return to base at 11.45am, in good time for a quick Sunday lunch of soup and large croutons (ie toast) before heading off for my ride homewards.
 |
| The new Caldene Bridge. |
 |
| New Flood Walls below Hawksclough Bridge. |
 |
| The meeting of Cragg Brook and the River Calder. |
 |
| Cragg Brook's flood walls are finally (almost) finished. |
Naturally, Big Gratitude has to go the way of IH &AK for this giving me this weekend break, as their hospitality is always gratefully received and well-appreciated, and assuming things don't take a turn for the disastrous with regards our national situation, let's hope a few trips away to my Calderdale 'Support Bubble' might go some way to reviving my spirits and make the coming Summer of our strange 'new normal' just that little bit more tolerable.
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 4439.3 miles
2020 Total: 172.8 miles
Up Country Total: 3976.3 miles
Solo Total: 4120 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3033.1 miles
Next Up: Back to Keeping My Walking Local for Another Few Weeks.
~~~
Lockdown: Day 83 - The End(?)
Having gone out to do something sociable with friends, well beyond my local area, I cannot honestly think that our national lockdown has any practical meaning anymore, and any attempt the believe that it is continuing is merely an exercise in fooling yourself, as while many will remain shielding or working from home in the coming weeks, the 12 week period of enforced isolation that was put in place before lockdown started has now come to an end, and there's no indication at all that it is going to formally continue. Thus we find ourselves at the latest strange place in this whole process, with many restrictions still in place but with many others being lifted by HM Government, or scheduled to come to an end over the next few weeks, and I can fully understand the necessity of getting the regular cycle of activity going again, when so many have spent three months with reduced wages or without any at all, but it all seems awfully hasty to me when the COVID-19 death rate stands at 41,000, or roughly one thousand per week, with an infection rate that has leveled off but certainly hasn't flat-lined, meaning the possibility of infection spreading remains very present, rather than having slipped deep in to the background, despite the millions of people who have been kept out of circulation. Indeed, next week will see the re-opening of many parts of the retail sector, and the resumption of competitive sports, which for many will indicate the return to normal service, as they're surely feeling deprived of their trip to Primark or being able to see their sports team kick a ball around, and if they've been cooped up at home for an extensive period, I get it, I honestly understand but having been out there and working for the entire duration of national lockdown, it all seems like trying to get everything going in a short period might make people dangerously unaware of, or complacent to, the risks that are still present. That's going to be the start of the 'new normal' for us all I guess, released from a confinement of sorts and placed into an entirely different kind of it as we seek to maintain social distance in our regular business and avoid crowds in general, with the added precautions of mask wearing now being compulsory on public transport and while working at the hospital, but while the informal restriction of the use of public transport stay in place, I won't be throwing myself back into the planned 2020 walking season just yet, as I'm still going to stand off and see where this all leads for the next few weeks, keeping my paths local and not wishing to be part of the problem just so I can pretend to feel like everything is 'normal' once again.
No comments:
Post a Comment