Halifax to Apperley Bridge 29/05/21

12.7 miles, via North Bridge, Claremount, Stump Cross, Northowram, Stone Cross, 

 Shelf Hall, Shelf, Beck Hill, Buttershaw, Wibsey Park, Wibsey, Brown Royd Hill, 

  Little Horton (Chapel Green, Holme Top, & Little Horton Green), Bradford city centre, 

   Wapping, Park End, Undercliffe, Eccleshill, Greengates and Dyehouse Fold. 

Out with the old Boots #7,
and in with the new Boots #8!

As my Spring Jollies at Home week ends, but my Ten Day Weekend concludes, there are some feelings of frustration to be had as we shift back into the regular scope of walking from home, firstly, is that fact that the 20+ miles of walking time lost due to horrid weather conditions over two days at the start of the month have resulted in my missing the opportunity to breach my first 5,000 mile target of my walking career this weekend, standing at only 33 miles distant as we open out today, meaning the chance to gather the family, or at least have Mum stick around at mine for another day, to force a celebration of sorts, is gone. Equally annoying is the fact that Pair of Boots #7 have given up the ghost quite spectacularly, with the extensive gluing applied to their uppers in the late portion of last year having failed to prevent their demise in the face of the all the mud and wetness that they have encountered since being revived a month ago, when I'd hoped that they too would see me past 5,000 miles, and thus Boots #8 has to be purchased, going back to the suede and mesh styles of my initial pairs, after encountering the poor wear of the uppers on Mountain Warehouse's all leather styles, as well as being put off by their suddenly increased cost. I've no idea at all if these Storm boots will endure like their 5,000 mile sole guarantee suggests they ought, or whether I'll have bust them up by the end of 2022, but they're £40 less expensive than a like-for-like replacement and are going to need a breaking in walk as my feet have gotten used to rigid uppers and heavier soles over the last few years, and thus we'll have to adapt our walking plans around the risk of blistering or other foot trauma, meaning urban walking is the order of the day, allowing us a more limited route mileage and multiple opportunities to bolt from the trail, if needs be.

Bronte Way #3: Wycoller to Gawthorpe Hall 27/05/21

15.8 miles, via Turnhole Clough, Saucer Hill Clough, Boulsworth Dyke, Will Moor, 

 Thursden Wood, Thursden Brook, Park Wood, Pike Lowe, Holden Clough, 

  Swinden Reservoirs, Lee Green Reservoir, Swinden Water, Houghton Hagg Wood, 

   Brun Valley Country Park, Bank Hall  Park, Leeds & Liverpool Canal (Burnley), 

    Reedley, New in Pendle bridge, Spurn Clough, Moor Isles Clough, Pendle Hall bridge, 

     Ightenhill, Habergham, and Pit Plantation. 

Long Distance Trail means Selfies!
#3 at Wycoller Country Park

Two rest days are taken from the trail in the midweek period of 2021's Spring Jollies at Home, to allow time for other activities like shopping, spring cleaning and generally getting our house in order before The Way is rejoined at its most awkward extremity, but not putting Mum too far out of the way on another day out for her while performing Parental Taxi duties, dropping us off at 9.50am under much brighter conditions than we saw three days back above Wycoller's valley, at the country Park's Haworth Road car park, where we can both regard The Atom in a much more positive light than we did on Monday, as sunshine really elevates the views from the Panopticon. Looking forward to a whole day of walking into the previously unknown in Lancashire, our first in a long while, The Way needs to be returned to by the descending path down to the hamlet, giving us restored views over Pendle Hill and its borough downstream as we return to Wycoller Hall's ruins where we can poke around the remains of this late 16th century hall, dismantled in the early 19th century, meaning we have the same sort of edifice to regard as Charlotte Bronte supposedly did, as we wander among its rooms and around to the aisled barn, and that's going to be about it for the Bronte connections as The Way seems to have fallen like the Hadrian's Wall Path, having crammed most of its points of interest into its middle portion. We'll need to trip around the hamlet before we go, tracing the track to its northwestern end by Lowlands Farm, and the pricey new cottages that have been added in here, then coming back up the main street, crossing over the beck as we go and quietly marveling at how expensive and Cotswolds-ish it all feels, ahead of us meeting the Packhorse and Clapper bridges again and heading on upstream along the metaled path on the southern bank, through some willow tunnels and across a small wetland reserve as the settlement falls away behind us. 

Bronte Way #2: Thornton to Wycoller 24/05/21

16 miles, via Thornton Cemetery, Well Heads, Denholme Clough, Black Edge, Thornton Moor, 

 Stony Hill Clough, Leeming Reservoir, Back Leeming, Oxenhope (Lower Town), 

  Old Oxenhope hall, Haworth, Penistone Hill, The Slack, Bronte Bridge, The Height, 

   Buckley Green, Ponden Reservoir & Hall,  Whitestone Clough, Silver Hill Bank, Jarnel,

    Watersheddles Reservoir, Cross Bent, Smithy Clough, and The Atom.

Long Distance Trail means Selfies!
#2 at Bronte House, Thornton.

For leg #2 of this trip across a Chunk of West Yorkshire's literary history, I've got my Parental Taxi in attendance, so there's no need to make the frustratingly long bus ride via Bradford Interchange to get out to Thornton, as Mum can drive me out here, getting in behind the rush hour traffic, and not putting her out of her way at all as she can continue on to visit friends of hers in Skipton without having to put much more than a dozen miles on the round trip from Morley along the way of acting as my shuttle, like she would normally have done if we were having normal Spring Jollies. So alight on Thornton Road at 9.45am, and scurry back up Ball Street to mick up the trail once again at the Bronte House, where Rev. Bronte recalled as having spent the happiest years of his life (mainly because all the members of his family were alive whilst residing there), before we set off with the trail up Market Street, taking in more of this pleasingly rural vintage village, as we roll up to the Black Horse inn on the West Lane corner and rise up to meet the suburban spread of the village above, taking us past the Thornton Mill redevelopment and up to the chapel and Sunday school on the James Street Corner. Cross here and rise to the path on Reservoir View, the last terrace in the village at this altitude, and enter the equestrian fields and meadow beyond, perched up the valley side above the tapering west end of the village, affording come fine views up and down the valley, as well as to Thornton viaduct as it descibes it less than straightforwards passage up from the south, before we enter Thornton cemetery and trace its wide promenade path across its width, between the raked terraces of graves up and down the hillside. A rough track and field path guide us on, from Bottom of the Row farm, and up to Close Head farm, as we look down to the passge of Well Heads tunnel, its portal hidden in the wooded pit below, and still no closer to being revived than int was in 2013, and we'll start on that year's route again as we rise up to Well Heads hamlet, with its stone terraces stretching down from the White Horse inn, atop the rather blasted feeling ridge that rises between Thornton's valley and the next one over to the north.

Bronte Way #1: Birstall to Thornton 22/05/21

15.8 miles, via Nova, Oakwell Hall, Gomersal, Little Gomersal, Rawfolds, Hightown, 

 Upper House, Sepulchre Hill, Hartshead, Willow Valley Golf Course, Ox Pit, Birkhouse, 

  Bailiff Bridge, Norwood Green, North Wood, Shelf Hall, Coal Pits Hill, Low House, 

   Clayton Heights, Sheep Hill, Clayton, Fall Bottom, and Thornton Hall.

Long Distance Trail means Selfies!
#1 at Oakwell Hall.

Even with the ever changing landscape of this ongoing Covid pandemic, having Spring Jollies away from home in 2021 never quite seemed like a plausible idea, even from the perspective of several months back, but having a break of some kind, attached to long- distance and cross-country trail, accessible from Morley seemed like it would work, allowing us to start out from home and allow My Mum an extended break away from Leicester, while usefully utilizing her as my Parental Taxi service as we made our Trans-Pennine traversal, along the path of the Bronte Way. It's a trail we've had on our radar for a while, along with the route guide on my shelf, but didn't seek to approach as its early going traces a few too many previously seen trails, which is no longer an issue after the last year of regularly retracing steps both locally and further afield, and the fact that the back half isn't really remote enough to warrant a holiday away, but sits at a desperately awkward collection of locations if it were to be traced wholly under my own steam, and issue which our keen planning has already overcome. The name also links it to the lives of the Bronte Sisters, and the wider family, to hopefully illustrate that there was more to their short lives as novelists and writers at the parsonage at Haworth than might be otherwise known, a history which I knew little of until picking up another book, with walks, that placed their personal histories all over the North Country, though I'm not going to start with their actual literature, as that's really not my bag (aside from knowing that Heathcliff and Mr Rochester are garbage fictional heroes, essentially, and that the eminently ridiculous Kate Bush song 'Wuthering Heights' has virtually replaced the original novel in my mental landscape). Enough of my ignorance though, as that's never a good light to stand beneath, there's walking to be done...

Ravensthorpe to Bradford 15/05/21

12.7 miles, via the Greenwood Cut, the Calder Valley Greenway, Northorpe, Crossley, 

 Finching Dike, Norristhorpe, Liversedge Hall, Lands Beck, Hightown, West End, Scholes, 

  Stubs Beck, Oakenshaw, Victoria Park, Toad Holes Beck nature reserve, Woodhouse Hill, 

   Staygate, West Bowling, Ripleyville and Broomfields. 

It's immensely frustrating to lose a weekend's walking in May, especially when it's due to foul weather, with a double-raindrop sort of day completely blanketing Saturday, and brain fog coming on to completely discourage me from the idea of aiming at 16+ miles on a Sunday, or any other distance for that matter thanks to the issues with Sunday train services hereabouts, and thus hopes for a tilt at my first 5,000 career walked miles target before the end of the month fade from view, having just entered the final 100 miles on our last excursion out. It's already looking like this might be the worst May of all my walking years so far, barely able to string two nice, or even warm, days together, and I'm immediately feeling anxious that we might be looking at 2021 turning into a repeat of a garbage year like 2007, when it rained from June right through to its conclusion, as we ride the train out to Ravensthorpe, to alight at 9.10am under glum skies and a persistent light drizzle, taking in our spartan surroundings for plausibly our last visit to the station on its current site before we set off properly. The day's plan is to make my second trip from Calder to Aire via the city of Bradford, and our initial steps take  us out over the former river, and onto the north bank if it, having finally located the accessible path that slips down a cobbled hairpin slope to find the way upstream that I completely failed to locate when tracing the length of the C&H Navigation in 2012, and as we pace along the riverside, below Ravensthorpe's industrial band, it's clear that someone has recently been down here to keep the grassy track mown, keeping the damp leaves from soaking my legs in the early going. It's positively damp with atmosphere down here, with the path coming around to Greenwood Lock, at the start of the Navigation's Greenwood Cut, slicing off a corner of the river above Shepley Weir, forming another quite green strip along the waterway that conceals the industrial buildings on both sides as it lead us up to and under the Low Mill bridge and flood lock, and on around the long curve of the sweeping Calder before we rise away to join the side of the A644 by the sole riverside house in the area. 

Batley to Baildon 01/05/21

17 miles, via Healey, The Crofts, Heckmondwike, Littletown, Lane Ends, Gomersal, Birdacre, 

 Field Head, Lodge Beck, Hunsworth (sorta), Chatts Wood, Woodlands, Mill Carr Hill, Bierley,

  Goose Hill, Bowling Park, East Bowling, New Leeds, Barkerend, Beech Grove, Undercliffe, 

   Bolton Outlanes, Five Lane Ends, High Field, Idle, Thackley, and Buck Mill Bridge. 

It's taken a while to get here, but our arrival in May finally has it feeling like we are safe to declare 'Serious Business' on the year, as we're three weeks out from my second Covid vaccine dose and this country is now equally far out of its tightened lockdown restrictions which means our local bubble can be escaped and the season pushed further afield, not that I've got a mass of pre-prepared routes readied, as my cautious nature knows how these pandemic conditions have played out already and where the best laid plans often end up. Thus we look to travelling from the Calder valley to the Aire valley, by as many paths as we can find, as it's the major trajectory across West Yorkshire that we've been ignoring for the longest, and our first of these has us alighting at Batley, at a remove from the actual Calder because Dewsbury lacks obvious fresh routes north, for a 9am start, with a generally westwards path to initially trace, downhill along Station Road among the proud Victorian warehouses, and across Mill Lane and Bradford Road with a surprising amount of ease. The rise out of the valley of Batley Beck then starts as we hit Hick Lane, rising up below the imposing former Methodist chapel and then taking a turn away from the town's main street by the Union Rooms to follow Wellington Street as it passes its eponymous pub and a whole lot of not much else, until we meet the old public baths and technical school, across the way from the Fox's Biscuits factory, which along with the Variety Club is one of the main reasons for the town's national profile, The Pleasures of Batley indeed. It's uphill still beyond there, up to the Healey Lane corner and on along the path previously traveled past Jessop park and into the landscape of suburbia that has crept up the hillside, passing through the estate ahead of taking the turn off West Park Road to follow the old road alignment as it wanders into the concealed village of Healey, where some of its rustic flavour still endure around the George Inn and its own version of Healey Mills, just like it namesake down by the Calder to the southeast of here.