The first weekend of October drops us our next long weekend, thanks to extra days of leave purchased from work, falling neatly between my late Summer and end of season breaks, which had been intended to be a few days to relax and stroll a bit, but turned into a four day spell of activity when I found a steam rail tour for the Thursday, the last of the West Coast Railways season, which travelled up the Settle & Carlisle line and neatly dovetailed with the occasion of my Mum's 81st birthday, which allowed me to fulfil a promise that I made the previous year to take her out for a steam train ride for her 80th, so I've got her company for the period, with us taking each other out to celebrate our birthdays. Riding out from Wakefield Westgate, it's not needing a early start despite the descent of Autumn, though our travel window does tighten somewhat thanks to the service running out of York some 45 minutes late, at 10.25am bringing us our rake of vintage BR Mark 1 coaches and topped 'n' tailed diesels that will take us to Leeds for a reversal and then a merry pound up the Aire Valley to gain our steam traction from Hellifield to take us non-stop over the watershed and up the Long Drag of Northern England's premier scenic line, which we haven't seen in far too long, up the Ribble Valley and among the Three Peaks, to Dentdale, over Ais Gill summit and on down the Eden Valley. Somehow, all the time lost early is regained as we reach Carlisle, at 2.15pm, where we can find that it's been the line-appropriate LMS Jubilee 45627 Sierra Leone hauling us (actually 45699 Galatea in disguise, and oddly wearing the number of 45662 Alberta on its cab sides), and there's locomotive manoeuvres to be watched at both ends of the break, which is otherwise only long enough for a stroll from the Citadel to Tullie House museum and back, where we can have brews and cake, and purchase that Hadrian's Wall Path t-shirt that I've been promising myself since failing to find one in 2014. Departing at 4.30pm, with the daylight still strong and the changeable and rather poor weather not really spoiling the trip we re-ride the path homewards, breaking for water and photographs at Appleby before lamenting the lack of audible chuffing from the locomotive and clickety-clacking of the rails as we ascend to Ais Gill again, gradually losing the landscape in the gloom as we come down the Ribble valley and finally finding ourselves in darkness as engines are swapped again at Hellifield, a long break that coincides usefully with teatime, before we run back to homewards in a surprisingly familiar 1980s train fashion, with the jaunt concluding at 9.15pm, a round trip of nearly 11 hours that we both enjoyed immensely, thankfully.
Sunday, 8 October 2023
Morley to Bretton Park 07/10/23
Sunday, 1 October 2023
Morley to Harewood 30/09/23
The first weekend of Autumn is spent away from the trail, as we've got a reunion to do celebrating (almost) 30 years since we first came to Leeds to attend University, reuniting five of the original ten members of our first student residence, seven (7!) years after our last meetup and feeling a lot more like a reunion of old guys this time around, as we ate and drank an afternoon and evening together, also presenting pretty nice day for it as well as we trolled ourselves from town to Hyde Park and back along the way of it, and experience that I'll probably have more to say about at the year's summation, but for now it's just good to take a break and catch up with some old heads before we resume another push into the Late Season. When that does come around, the weather hasn't travelled and we've got both a tight window ahead of rain and a total lack of trains to play with as our route chooses itself, having intended to approach if for much f the Summer, and as we descend to Morley Station for our 9am jump off, noting proper construction finally having started around the lift towers at the new station, we find our early going is all very familiar, down Valley Road past the old gasworks and mills, and onto the muddy avoiding path and thence down the railway-side, mostly undercover of overgrown foliage as we travel towards the White Rose Centre and its own woodland walk. This leads us out to the Dewsury Roads, amidst the tangling of the main road with the access way and the petrol stations, crossing over by the island in sight of the culverting Millshaw Beck and hitting the surprisingly long drag uphill on the A653 Dewsbury Road towards the greater city, with the railway bridge at the urban edge, beyond Stank Hall always being further along than expected, and running into Beeston Park Side, you become very much aware that we've already set two tracks in this direction, as we merge in with Ring Road Middleton, past the old St David's church and up to the Tommy Wass junction. The Dewsbury Road will be our obvious red route into the city, taking the left-side pavements along the dual carriageway to mix things up from our last trek this way in 2014, passing the long stretches of terraced ends of South Beeston around the shopping parade, across from the suburban semis that run down to the Broadway Inn and the Harrison Sparks plant, before we touch base with Cross Flatts Park, astonishingly less than an hour away from home, and pass the Dewsbury Road social club and the corner where we dwelled very briefly back in 1998, carrying on as industry bumps up to the lane, as the terraces return to the roadside, displaying a fine ghost sign before we pass the former cinema (and 'health club') on the Parkside Lane corner.
Sunday, 17 September 2023
Morley to Baildon 16/09/23
The warm week away that we had already feels like a distant memory as gloom and chill return to the atmosphere of West Yorkshire for the last weekend of the Summer, ensuring that there will be no long pushes across the county as we get into the Late Season, with the impetus that we gained already feeling squandered as we start pulling up the shorter treks that we had in mind for the dwindling days of the year, not that I feeling in anything like the condition that would be needed for tilting at a trail in excess of 14 miles now, as getting back into work and the midst of a physical task that we we all seem to feel the need to get to the end of as quickly as possible has burnt off a whole bunch of energy. So the modest treks from home will start as we aim at the Aire valley again, meeting the start line at Morley station at 9.20am, with our north-westerly path rising above the station site to observe the completion(?) of the drainage works that had left a deep, flooded hole in the car park, and passing on into the empire of bungalows again, passing over Daisy Hill and up King George Avenue to trail out to the A643 Victoria Road to observe that the Laneside housing development is coming on at a pace as houses spread out over the once green fields to the south, already looking like some might be plausibly liveable by the end of the year. Across the main road, we enter the suburban hinterland of Morley and Churwell, keeping things green as we drop down among the urban woods along Westwood Side before we join the track that leads into Daffil Woods and wander on among the local nature preserve before joining the field path that leads us under the M621 and on to the view towards Leeds that casts it in a dense pall, before arriving on the track that services the farmsteads of Rooms, before we come down to pass under the old bridge on the New Leeds Line and emerge beyond onto the A62 between the trailer park and the Jewish Cemeteries. Over Gelderd Road and we rise again, up the track to and onto the field paths around Spring End farm, elevating ourselves onto the Farnley Wood hillside, to join the high path across its top, still admirable for its lack of suburban growth, and also being the namesake of the (unsuccessful) 1663 plot against the Restoration government of Charles II which I learned about on one of my many wiki-crawls, getting little of a projected horizon abounds due to the low cloud, before we meet the path that leads us over to New Farnley, over the hillcrest and away from the flocks of gulls and crows that are supervising the ploughing, and tracking downhill to the yard of the house with a concrete alligator in it.
Sunday, 10 September 2023
Morley to Guiseley 09/09/23
After an immensely satisfying week away, our long week off, and holiday, continues as we return to West Yorkshire, bringing the bright and warm spell with us, which guarantees I'll be getting our for another trek despite still having Mum around the place, as she stays on for a Sunday dinner date, but as she's in the position of having some writing of her own to catch up that she didn't get done whilst away, it gives me freedom to get back into the business of Shuffling the Tiers by pulling up the first trail that I'd slated for this scheme, plotted quite a while back when I though there really weren't all that many original trajectories left to walk away from Morley, somewhat naively, it would seem. We start at Morley station, at 9.20am in the already gathering warmth of a late Summer morning, to observe the works at the new station where they've gotten very good at assembling scaffolding around the lift towers without actually building anything, before we set off up the steps to King George Croft and New Bank Street to find another original path through this town, this time tracing a pavement through the empire of bungalows on the Croft House estate, negotiating multiple corners to emerge onto Church Street and to cut a corner to cross the A643 Victoria Road and renew the theme by pacing the pavements of Springfield Road and Avenue through the suburban estate east of the Ingles, with its namesake house concealed within. Also note that The Arkle inn didn't survive the pandemic era closure before the way is found out via Woodland Drive and Horsfall Street to land us on the very familiar side of Asquith Avenue to bet onto our north-westerly trajectory, passing through Dean Wood and rising to the A62 by the Gildersome Arms to cross into the village and deliberately shift onto the right-side pavement to vary things up as we descend Branch End Road to pass the Old Griffin Head and come down Harthill Parade to the Green and the War Memorial, ahead of passing the Village hall and Library and the curious wood carved sculptures that grace the sides of Town Street.
Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Morley to Wakefield (Westgate) 28/08/23
If August Bank Holiday Weekend had failed to provide a walkable weekend, we might have rioted, but we are pared the consequences of that, despite the fact of both Saturday and Sunday presenting better weather than forecast, though with a few intense downpours in amongst, while Monday, when we did choose to leave the house gave us gloomier coverage than projected, albeit with no rain, so altogether a mixed bag of a Long Weekend, where the additional days of inactivity at the start felt like a bit of a bonus, having had a rough week at work, delving into the latest project that will certainly wear us out, physically moving half of the hospital libraries files around in order to condense our workspace. I'm recovered enough to go once our mandated extra day off comes along, with four more orphaned destinations in our locality targeted as we arrive at Morley Station at 9.55am, having a fresh-ish route to the south figured out as we rise up the steps from Valley Road to Albert Road and trot out past the old Morley Main colliery site to the merger with Peel Street, in order to find the ginnel that sneaks its way between the houses on Denshaw Drive and Crescent and across to Wide Lane opposite the Gillroyd terrace, before another passage leads us into the site of Gillroyd Mill, and the pavements of Millside Walk and Millbeck Approach can lead us down to Magpie Lane. Rise beyond along Peacock Green into the suburban knot on Burn Knolls where every road has a bird's name, with this lane seeming to set off with purpose before petering out by the playing fields that are home to Morley Town FC, which are crossed to meet Ingleborough Drive, which in turn leads us to the secret passage into the back of the Topcliffe Grove close, itself built on the site of Glen Mills, through which we pass to meet Topcliffe Lane, ending our novel trek in sight of the enduring mills on this hillside as we join the old railway path that leads over to Capitol business park, between to West Ardley Colliery site and the Ardsley railway triangle, hone now to the yards of AvailableCar.com and the Tradeteam distribution depot.
Sunday, 20 August 2023
Morley to Oakenshaw 19/08/23
The first pair of weekends in August are lost to poor weather, not catastrophically wet but fundamentally uninspiring when energy levels are low, having endured two busy weeks at work in the LGI, launching a new collection routine after finally closing down our mostly empty library in the Clarendon Wing and concentrating service into a single office, which would have proved hard work for me come the weekends regardless of our current conditions, which has me feeling that the 2020-esque second half of the season which we might have hoped for is most likely going to be replaced by a 2021 styled Summer of disappointment and junked plans. Honestly, though, the inertia de to reduced stamina is more troubling to this August than the weather has been so far, as both weekends promoted activity that I could have engaged in, but didn't, with engineering possessions on the railway prompting the belief that the new footbridge spans at White Rose station were finally due to be installed, and the BBC Proms bringing a concert, albeit one of chamber music, to Dewsbury Town Hall, about as ever as we'll get to home, but the lack of trains to use on a Sunday, coupled to the busing shenanigans that would have been otherwise necessary to get there, meant that it might as well have been on the Moon for how accessible it would have been for me. So August is well on its way, and almost on its way out once we can get to our first trip of the month, pulling up the shortest available on on the slate to get busy with the other season specific trend for 2023, as Shuffling the Tiers has also revealed a whole bunch of Tier 2 destinations, now abandoned far from its outer perimeter and now looking lost among the extensive reaches of the trails of Tier 1, where to my tidy mind feels they ought to be, and that's why we will be 'Gathering The Orphans' in Season 12 as well, and we've got three of them to aim for today, scattered across North Kirklees, and in the Spen Valley.
Sunday, 30 July 2023
Morley to Apperley Bridge 29/07/23
It transpires that hurrying back Up Country after my jaunt down to Leicestershire proved to be a complete waste if time as the fourth week of July got lost under an almost constant dousing of rain, keeping me at home to settle into domestic tasks and characteristic bursts of lethargy, as I pondered how we could be experiencing so much gloom, wetness and air temperatures that rarely breach 20C in the UK, when southern Europe is baking, and indeed burning, as a heatwave in excess of 40C has settled in, with us sat protected by the jet stream ensuring that we have the apparently miserable summer while Spain, Italy and especially Greece suffer something much, much worse. July's fifth weekend thus presents us with the first opportunity to drop feet in West Yorkshire for the first time in a literal month, while an almost nice day of weather settles in on Saturday morning as we drop in at Morley station for a 9.30am launch, noting that the new development below has moved on a bit in the last week, gaining steel frame towers to accommodate the new lifts, after building work went rather quiet after the soft opening of a month ago, and the route forward sends us up Station Road again, where the re-roofing of Dartmouth Mill continues at a snails pace still, and the factory-mill opposite the rec seems to have new foundations laid where the demolished lean-to annex once stood. Travel proper gets underway past Morley Bottoms as we rise from Brunswick Street sharply up Bank Street for bit of route variation to find that Victoria Road work is up, opposite the primary school, for some roadworks which are sure to cause come bus shenanigans in the coming days, before we keep things varied with a trot up Nepshaw Lane, the old road that leads to the new suburban enclave at Farm Hill Road, which leads us back to the trail of Asquith Avenue, our unavoidable route over the M621 and through Dean Wood before we shift onto Gilhusum Road to pass again through the industrial estate dominated by the Sainsbury's-Argos depot and Johnson's Hotel Laundry complex.
Sunday, 25 June 2023
Morley to Deighton 24/06/23
This past week certainly has been a busy one, with no trains to ride on my working days due to the engineering possession, and all my comings and goings to three hospital sites across the cities having to be on a variety of buses, with the potentially unlimited strike by Firstbus drivers only lasting two days in amongst to keep things manageable, which allowed me plenty of oppotrubites to stroll locally after work to see exaxtly what was going on at Morley station, and at the ongoing development at White Rose, tales which will probably ned to be recounted at another time as all that chatter could easliy derail the account of wandering for this weekend otherwise. We're hardly feeling full of beans as Summer arrives, rising late and strolling to our start line rather casually, turning our back on the developments at the station before we start out at 9.55am, with our eyes on the trail to the Colne valley that we imagined into existence after our failure of two weeks ago, heading west along station road, by Dartmouth Mill and the Rec, and noting that the factory redevelopment on the south side is indeed becoming residential as dormer windows emerge from its roof, ahead of the roll up to Morley Bottoms, where the closed off stub of Queen Street has been reopened to wreak havoc on the block paving, where we rise up to Scatcherd Park, passing below the Cenotaph and through Hopkins gardens to our way away up Queensway. It's all familiar going beyond too, past Morrisons and the Leisure centre, and up to the civic complex of fire station, police station and health centre on Corporation Street, which is passed as we join Scatcherd Lane, to take us past the Cricket and Rugby Union clubs and on to Dartmouth Park, which is shadowed as St Andrew Avenue leads up to its eponymous church and the A650 Bruntcliffe Road, which is crossed to finally make a new path, into the Lego house estate of St Andrews View, where Perry Way leads us over the crest to the reveal of the views to Emley Moor mast and the Calder catchment, ahead of the footbridge over the M62 and our winter astronomy spot.
Sunday, 18 June 2023
Morley to Low Moor 17/06/23
Another 9-day engineering possession lands on the railway line through Morley as we arrive at the weekend bracketing the Top of the Year (already!), not that it will have that much impact on our plans, as we’re going to be walking from home for most of this year, and the difficulties will only become apparent on our return legs if we were to pick route that needed a pathway back via Leeds, Huddersfield or Calderdale, which we’re not up for today as energy levels are low while the days are at their longest, and we’ll be pulling the shortest possible trip up from our slate of plans. We might be planning to head west for today, but we need to linger at Morley station when we arrive, just ahead of 9am as there’s a whole lot to observe going on here, not least the fact that the line closure hasn’t been a factor in the installation of the new station footbridge which has had its support stanchions and deck installed while the line was still open last week, and removal of the old footbridge is going to be a primary objective over the next week, as well as track re-laying, as rails and sleepers are being removed on the ‘Up’ side toward Manchester, apparently only a few months after they were renewed. We’ll also visit our other vantage point while we are here, below the green space off Seven Hills Way, where the new station can be over-viewed, at least on the ‘Up’ side where it’s all fully surfaced, edged and fenced, with signage installed too and looking almost complete aside from the fact that it’s inaccessible due to a lack of steps on the footbridge, and no exits apparently existing to the Valley Road side, and it’s altogether difficult getting the looks that we had some months back from up here, as Spring growth of the vegetation atop the bank has gotten so thick and tall as to pose quite the obstacle to a short-arse like myself.
Sunday, 11 June 2023
Morley to Mirfield 10/06/23
We seem to have arrived on the first hot spell of the year, in mid June, as we reach the end of my first worked five day week in a while, and there's no telling if the energy levels are going to keep up for regular walking days as we attempt to push on towards the Summer, as my body has gotten used to working shorter weeks through May, though we're not getting too ambitious with our planning yet as there are at least 14 destinations around West Yorkshire that could be plausibly walked from home and added to the local Tier of Relative Proximity, and we've sights set on three of them for today as we set out, aiming ourselves towards Kirklees district for the first time in a while. There's no morning chill to be had as we arrive at our start line, at Morley station naturally, at 9.05am, and thus attempts to stay ahead of the swell of warmth count for nought, despite getting out an hour earlier than usual, and I can already feel like I'm getting a work out as we set off away up Station Road, noting Dartmouth Mills getting reconstructive works after suffering a fire last year, and rise up the angled path that leads up to Albert Road, where we join Troy Road and pass over Troy Hill by the still derelict St Mary in the Wood, around to Commercial Street, which we quit via Little Lane by the library and the the unity hall, down the ginnel that leads to Queen Street and the looming presence of the Town Hall. Pass behind that pile via Wellington Street and up through the Windsor Court shopping centre and on through Morrisons car park up to the civic complex on Corporation Street, where we hang a left past St Francis of Assisi RC church and the Fountain centre, as well as the WMC and the GNR goods shed, to join Fountain Street to lead us off to the southwest, pacing the sunny side of the street for a change in an attempt to get a different perspective on a local landscape that we've observed up close a good many times already as we track a way down from the Morley Academy to the Fountain Primary school, with all the terraced fronts and ends lying between, down to the former chapels on the A650 corner.
Sunday, 4 June 2023
Morley to Normanton 03/06/23
We were very fortunate through the whole month of May to have not worked a single five day week across the whole width of it, and as we find ourselves at the first weekend of June, that five week run comes to an end, and thus we'll have to start worrying if the stamina is going to hold up after a very testing four day burst in the hospital libraries, followed by no scheduled time off until mid-July, so hopefully a return to sunny days will give me a mental lift to propel me on through the High Season, rather than proving physically draining as my body has yet to get itself into the early Spring mindset, as we veer dangerously close to your actual Summer. So, sunshine abounds as we head out, from Morley station once again, at 10am, and setting a course to the southeast as our quest to add new destinations to the local tiers, and to shuffle the routes beyond continues, rising from Valley Road up the long step flight again and feeling like we're soon going to be at a total loss for new routes away from this town as we join Clough Street again, ahead of visiting Denshaw Drive and Grove in our ongoing attempt to Watchperson every pavement hereabouts on our way towards Newlands Academy and the Gardeners Arms, where Wide Lane is joined to push us east, beyond the suburban reach and into the fields of Owlers. Meet and cross Dewsbury Road, and join the West Wood Road track for the n-th time as it drops down beyond the A653, passing over Millshaw Beck and rising under the railway lines current and former, before meeting West Wood and the intermittent shade that comes with paths along the periphery of the Middleton hillside, a route which I'm really glad that I haven't tired of having seen so much of it in recent years, and one which we surprisingly have to ourselves as the heat starts to bear down already, especially on the exposed stretch uphill to meet Sissons Wood, where the views back west across Morley, and northwest to Rombalds Moor, always entertain my brain, despite their familiarity to me.
Monday, 29 May 2023
Morley to Sandal 28/05/23
Three rest days later, and after some extra fortification thanks to a whole family get together lunch at the Booth Wood inn on the Ripponden & Oldham Road (which looks like it could become a regular tradition), we ought to be ready to go again as we find ourselves back at home on the middle day of the Spring Bank Holiday weekend, with the prospect of a filled slate for the month for the first time this year, and the marker of 100 miles on the year finally falling into view, which prompts us to Sunday walking despite the gloom gathering once again, to reveal that all those bright days still haven't heated the aits all that much. Left to my own devices once more, there's no impetus to get going at a hurry, as we return to the business of finding new trajectories out of Morley towards every railway station within reasonable walking distance, not getting going until we've seen what's happening at our own local development, where work continues on the new platforms and footbridge, with new lampposts being added to the mix, before our trail starts, southbound for a change at 10.30am, rising up the steps flight to Albert Road, noting that some recent tree felling has revealed a new angle on the Miners Arms that hadn't been seen previously, before we strike off, along Clough Street, between terraces and semis down to Middleton Terrace. We seek the path among the local green spaces among the developments on the Gilroyd Mills site and among the closes around Magpie Lane, passing in leafy seclusion across Peacock Green and down to Topcliffe Beck before we start the sharp rise up Topcliffe Lane, towards Topcliffe farm, where much heavy agricultural machinery is arriving, and on around the West Ardsley colliery site, with its tramway embankments still visible, before we pass through the Capitol Park office complex again, dropping down to meet the A653 Dewsbury Road which is crossed by the Highway Agency maintenance depot and the site of the lost Tingley station.
Sunday, 14 May 2023
Morley to Horsforth 13/05/23
It's not really related to what we're doing today, as we already lack trains going through Morley due to another engineering possession and there's another train strike happening this weekend too, but on 11th May it was announced that Trans Pennine Express were not getting their franchise renewed, which is a rare bit of good news for us travellers to hear after many months (and years?) of their failure to maintain services and self induced industrial strife, which means we might have a competent operator taking on the North Country's premier express services once the mainline upgrade is finally completed in the 2036-41 window. Anyway, the good start to May continues as we rise to another Saturday trail, hopeful that the early gloom will shift before too long as we target a new trail from home to my local Old Country and beyond, starting out from Morley station at 10.15 am and heading down the Valley Road path with only the most cursory of glances being given to the deliveries of aggregate as I'm actually growing bored of spotting local freight trains now, heading on down by the Gasworks and Valley Mills site to strike for the fields beyond, rising over the false ridge and equestrian fields that have Cotton Mill beck concealed beneath it, and down again on the Millshaw Beck side. Land by the gas plant and exposed stream ahead of the staff car park at the south end of the White Rose centre, where we pass across the access road, and the A6110 Ring Road carefully, to progress up the side of Dewbury Road as to comes down the hill, rising up towards the railway bridge and the path to Stank Hall farm, passing up by the side of the former GNR Hunslet Goods line and soon enough find ourselves in the exact same part of Beeston Park Side that we visited last weekend, by old St David's and coming up to the Tommy Wass corner, where we'll swap sides to progress north rather than east (or in reality, South).
Monday, 8 May 2023
Morley to Woodlesford 07/05/23
The long Coronation bonus bank holiday weekend is a most welcome arrival, not that I'm at all engaged with the on-going shenanigans for KC3, aside from the Musicks, but more so that it gives me an extra day to rest up and get busy housework-wise, before we get back to the business of walking on Sunday, having had three whole weeks off the trail since last my last venture, and it's just as well that my scheming for the next phase of season 12 is to feature walking from home on previously unseen trajectories, as we've got two whole weekends of engineering possessions on the Leeds - Huddersfield line, which means there's no quick way to get out of (or back to) Morley, even if I wanted one. So we start from Morley station in a familiar fashion, departing at 10.15am and rising with the path above the cliff above the carpark to observe how the platforms have been built up on the new station site and to see that the support columns for the new footbridge have been installed, sure to arrive during the line closure in June, I'd figure, while there's more aggregate being delivered by rail which does get you wondering where it's all going, and this all needs to be observed from the green space on Seven Hills Way too, just to get the reverse angles from the rock cliff above the new station. We get going properly by rising up to Daisy Hill and setting off to the northwest, to find that a new rough track has been gouged out beside the path from the A643 down to Gasworks Crossing, though its not apparent of this is for railway work or future suburban development reaching down from Laneside, but the feeling is we'll have to enjoy the fields of Broad Oaks while they still endure, heading up through the farm to observe the growth at White Rose station on the other side of the hill, where the lift shaft tower on the south side has started to be assembled, to be seen from the footbridge path as a Kestrel buzzes the local wildlife.
Sunday, 16 April 2023
Headingley to Menston 15/04/23
Having had three rest days over the Easter weekend, and only worked four days of the following week, we feel good enough to go again as the next weekend rolls around, giving us a seemingly rare occasion for a bit of Saturday walking, not that we seem to have schemed out 2023 yet, aside from having an idea of targeting a number of railway station that haven't been used as destinations over the last 11 years, and maybe threading all my trails for the season into a single continuous line that reaches all over Leeds district, an idea that's as fanciful as it is ridiculous, one that would be sure to tie me in mental knots. Regardless, we ride out to Headingley on this gloomy morning, alighting at 10.05am and feeling none of the warmth in the air that we might be anticipating this year as we target a long stretch of road that we haven't approached in full along the days of our walking trails, to be found down the drop of Kirkstall Lane and beyond the Morris Lane crossing, where new development emerge on our left on the way down to Kirkstall Lights, where we take a right turn by the leisure centre to immediately join our trajectory for the day, north-westerly on the A65 where Abbey Road has had it Beatles connection noted as it leads us on between the Abbey Mills and West End Inn, and below the drop of the terrace ends. Just around the corner lies Kirkstall Abbey, the most enduring historical pile in the city which we haven't seen from the main road side on the course of my travels on foot, so a different aspect is presented as we go by its north face, passing the crowds that have already gathered in it parkland and progressing on pat the Abbey House museum and the fields of Burley RUFC on the way on past the Vesper Gate inn and on along the roadside to the Kirkstall Forge milestone marker and the observation that hardly any further development has occurred on the forge site itself since we first passed this way in 2017, judging by what we can see over the high perimeter wall that we pass around.
Saturday, 8 April 2023
Burley Park to Headingley via the Meanwood Valley 07/04/23
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| My N-th pair of Boots is ready to hit the trail! |
Sunday, 19 March 2023
Cottingley to Burley Park 19/03/23
No walking occurs on the weekend of 11-12th as there's a ice risk to deal with after the only significant snowfall of this persistently chilly winter coming at the end of the preceding week, and I value my ankles to much to be testing out some challenging going, and thus I can't be inspired to get going again until some actual sunshine arrives, to not be seen until the following Sunday, which means we are yet to get into a routine of Saturdays when starting from home, as we finally travel away from Morley to start from Cottingley station instead, as we need to make use for it now that notice for its formal closure has been posted. Get away ahead of 10.20pm, and pass over the footbridge to pass away from our local paths by taking the route across the Cottingley Hall estate, via the Dulverton Grove paths to pass north of the towers and over the Cottingley Drive orbital route to descend through Cottingley Cemetery as a path exists to take us past the crematorium and chapels before we dropped out at the point where the A6110 Ring Road Beeston and A643 entangle themselves, where we cross by the builders yard and cement plant to follow the latter as it leads up to, and under, the railway line to reveal the Planet Ice rink, which has finally opened after an extremely prolonged construction. We'll move toward the city, and our planned targets as we join Bobby Collins Way as it leads though the lots of the Elland Road Park & Ride, where the Covid vaccination centre loitered for most of 2021-2, taking us round the side of Leeds United's ground that regular traffic doesn't normally see, before we split under the M621 to the Lowfields industrial estate, and move with the footpath down to Junction 2 where all sorts of heavy engineering work is going on the remodel the traffic island, which looks certain to be ongoing for a while, before we shadow the A643 once more as it heads off to form the Leeds inner loop road.
Sunday, 19 February 2023
Morley to Cottingley 19/02/23
Having spent my entire week of being NIW walking in circles from home, we need to actually travel somewhere as the month progresses, but not too far as the legs aren't feeling like jaunting too far from home, especially as a pervasive chill remains in the air and there's still going on occurring down by the railways even after the engineering possession has ended and the trains resumed, and thus we set out on the Sunday morning to recommence our strolling from Morley station, arriving at 9.45am to find no one at all on site after all that business before. We can descend to the platforms to take a gander up the line towards Leeds, and see that the rail-facing edges of the new platforms have been installed up to their apparent full length between the wire-retained rock face of the cutting and the site of the old town gasworks, and also wander back along the old site to regard the new electrical junction boxes that have been installed, as an initial measure before full scale electrification works start I'd assume, trying to not look like weirdo to the early morning travellers or the couple of security guards watching over the construction site. Our wander can then follow Valley Road down past the works that have encroached over the Valley Mills site with a lot of stored plant and aggregate, coming around to Gasworks crossing, where the first stopping train of the day can be observed departing for the city, with its six carriage length being measured against the new platforms from a reverse angle, illustrating that hey could indeed be long enough to accommodate lengthier trains, and that's a service improvement to ponder as we move on, along the dirt path towards the White Rose centre, where more new electrical workings can be seen, at the entrance to the cutting to its rear, by the lost foot-crossing site.
Sunday, 12 February 2023
Trails around Morley's New Developments 5-6-8-12/02/23
The first Long Week of being NIW arrives and we're going to get going in the locality, as the post-Covid walking experience starts to feel a lot like the Covid Lockdown period as we stay close to home among the fields and paths to the immediate east of Morley railway station, and that turns out to be not the worst of options as there's plenty going around abouts as we see new developments on the Trans Pennine rail route unfolding, as well as suburbanism creeping into the fields in a manner that I'd noted like it seemed inevitable three years ago. I'd like to think that I've usually got my ear to the ground when it comes to local happenings, and I've been kept fully up to date on the construction of the new White Rose station thanks to mail shots from Network Rail, but the very first new that I got of development happening at Morley was when three weekends and one week of total closure of the line between Dewsbury and Leeds was announced to commence in late January, one month on from a long engineering possession for track re-laying over the New Year weekend. This turns out to be due to Morley Station being completely relocated, along the line to the east, away from the portal of Morley tunnel and onto the section of track between the old goods yard and the former gasworks site, which we've been watched being cleared of vegetation and spoil since last summer, in reasonable anticipation of catenary being installed for electrification as part of the Trans Pennine Route Upgrade, rather than having a fully accessible station built with apparent access to improved car parking in the level plots around. Being NIW when there's a full line closure in place thus allows me to go and have a good record of what's going on, which we started over the preceding weekend in January, where we tested out the waterproofing of my lightweight boots as we toured around the station site, observing the relaying of track that didn't seem to straightening out the curve of the line going into the tunnel nearly as much as was advertised, while also giving illustration of the fact that in any heavy engineering scenario, there will always be far more men in high-vis clothing on site than seem to be actually doing anything, with clearly more observing than working.
Sunday, 9 October 2022
Cross Gates to Ossett 08/10/22
Return from Down Country with my brain and legs ready to get back into the walking routine, having spent the midweek celebrating My Mum's 80th birthday by organizing an afternoon tea for her church fellowship on the day itself, no small task as it required two days of labour and another of rest before we headed back Up Country with Mum being particularly pleased with how it all unfolded for her, and with that done we can get back into the walking year, still having to work around train strikes which limits my options again, and as we've done the best park walks in Wakefield district, staying much closer to home seem the best option. So we're walking in Leeds again as my ancient Explorer 289 comes out for probably its last hurrah, bussing ourselves out on the #40 to the east of the city to alight at 9.05am on the A6120 opposite the Cross Gates shopping centre and the railway station where we can start our tilt to the southwest, under unseasonably bright skies, with a pronounced autumnal chill in the air as our path takes us away down Green Lane and Cross Green Lane through the suburban quarter of semis to meet the Victorian townlets that grew beyond the city back in the day, meeting the terraces and town houses of Gravelythorpe on the way up past the Leodis inn, and onwards Chapel Street and the transition into Halton. Beyond said chapel, and the Dial House, the prettiest in this corner, we meet the Halton High Street, all of a 1980s redevelopment style that we're thankfully not doing any more, strung along the Selby Road, which we cross to head south, down Irwin Approach behind Lidl and alongside the local recreation grounds to meet Temple Newsam Road, leading us down through the suburbia and into the spread of Temple Newsam park, with our park walk arriving at the start of the day rather than the end, shadowing the perimeter of the golf course and sticking to the shaded pavement below the canopy of autumnal leaves as we are led up to the eastward turn and the reveal of the view back across south Leeds (one of the few places where Morley can be placed in the landscape at a significant remove). Press uphill on a familiar route past the running track and on to the Sycamore Walk to pass through the shade towards the heart of the park, arriving to the north of the Jacobean house complex and meeting the track that leads us down between the stables block and the Home farm, observing just how many folk seem to be out early to make the best of this sunny Autumn morning, and find a park run going on along the track on the fringe of the east lawn, which we'll not tangle with as we press east still, down the side of Mather Wood to the revelation of the wild woods on the rise beyond, where we have a single focused target, to be found beyond the fall of the beck that feeds the Menagerie Ponds.