Morley to Apperley Bridge 29/07/23

11.7 miles, via Morley Bottoms, Morley Hole, Dean Wood, Gildersome, Andrew Hill,

 Lumb Bottom, Manor Golf Course, Doles Wood, Tong, Daffels Wood, Bankhouse (Bottom),

  Pudsey (Greenside & Cemetery), Owlcotes Centre, Farsley, The Green, Calverley,

   West Wood, and Calverley Cutting.

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. 

Syston to Humberstone 19/07/23

11.1 miles, via Lewin Bridge, Shipley Hill, Ratcliffe Mill, Ratcliffe on the Wreake,

 Thrussington, Rearsby, East Goscote, Queniborough, Syson Grange, Barkby, Barkby Thorpe,

  'Thorpebury in the Limes', Hamilton, Nether Hall, and Humberstone Garden Suburb. 

After our Three Day Weekend, we immediately shift over into our Nine Day Weekend, or early Summer break, which I'm spending Down Country with the intent of getting into the gradual tidy-up and clear-out at Mum's house, which has now entered its fifth year and continues its minimal progress as me get into more yard work than planned, as there are hedges and trees to be trimmed, a lawn to be mown and a lot of weeding and pruning to be done, all of which turn out to be major tasks when we both have only about 90 minutes of active stamina to be working with, and she at least has the excuse of being north of 80, while I'm still trying to toil through the post-Covid experience. The legs can still go though, as seemingly the most enduring power source in my body, and when Mum has a day of church synod business in Nottingham, I have the opportunity to walk in the Old Country again, getting dropped off somewhere that's convenient for her whilst en route, and that transpires to be at The Gate Hangs Well inn, on the old Fosse Way to the north of Syston village on the banks of the river Wreake, where we won't be tilting any further up the Roman Road and up the ridge towards Six Hills among the traffic on the A46, but will instead take a bit of a tour around the other major river valley in Leicestershire before tilting for home, to see how greater Leicester is swelling outwards, far beyond the city's boundaries. So we alight at 9.30, at the northernmost extremity of Syston's parish, and set off north, immediately crossing the river Wreake via Lewin's bridge, and strike into the riverside meadows, where the local cattle are only too happy to usher me on my way away from them, over a drainage ditch and under the A607 via the flood relief passages and into the fields beyond, where big birds in the raptor fashion are disturbed and the ridged and furrowed fields make for some heavy going as we press on to re-join the riverbank, passing below the wooded tumulus of Shipley Hill as we push south of the Soar - Wreake watershed ridge. Heading upstream, we enter the woods along the tightening riverside, which gets us into some dense vegetation and undergrowth as the walkable space diminishes, which gets out boots and trews dampened up nicely while the route finding starts to get a bit speculative, having us feeling rather lost when a fallen tree blocks the path, despite being directly across the reedy channel from Beedles Lake golf course, and it's a fight to get back on track before we find the ROW pulling us away from the river and alongside a concealed farmstead as we are drawn on to Broome Lane, ending our off-roading exploits a step or two away from Ratcliffe corn mill, its cottages and phantom canal bridge.

July's Three Day Weekend 07-09/07/23

Alighting on the second weekend of July, we find that it's a long one, with an extra day booked off so that I might be able to have a weekend at My Sister's place without having to run the gauntlet of Friday commuter traffic, but as they have a situation with My Elder Niece having finished her GCSEs and My Younger Niece having a strike day which coincides with one of the warmest and brightest days in a short while, the opportunity is there for a whole family day out, giving them a plan to travel out from Bolton to Brimham Rocks in their new van, with me meeting them midway along by hopping the train to Skipton as the most practical and least time-consuming of the meet up options. It's relatively shocking to realise than almost 6 years have elapsed since I was last out here on the high north side of Nidderdale, though the landscape abounding on the upper limit of my Field of Walking Experience still seem totally familiar as My Sis ad I take a rather languid stroll around the rock formations and among the wild semi-moorland, while Dr G and the Girls get on with some bouldering in the sunshine, which could barely be counted as a proper walk as we amble about for the better part of three hours, wandering well past the limits of the National Trust site and regularly finding places in the shade to sit and contemplate the landscape and our place in it. I think we might be both feeling our age, as I continue to toil with my Post-Covid Experience and the struggles of balancing it with working life, while she contemplates her daughters on the cusp on actual adulthood and reflects on where she was at a similar time in her life, aided by the rediscovery of her old journals and diaries of the period and her desire to revisit the music and style choices of the very late 1980s, which carries us on a nostalgic wave as we wander and then travel away in the late afternoon, back over the Pennines via the East Lancs valley, at least while we're not trying to talk around the problems of the world that have expanded over the last 7 years. This weekend could easily be counted as an extension of the hiatus in my walking year when Saturday's plans fall apart thanks to a rum turn in the weather, with much more cloud and rain, and much less heat, passing over to prevent our planned jaunt down the green path of the Irwell valley coming to naught, so our travel to the city has four of us travelling to the Manchester Museum instead (without Younger Niece who's already becoming a social firefly), and I'm always going to be game for some natural history presented in an interesting way to fill my afternoon, before we pass another evening with takeout Mexican food, beers and a session in fron of the TV, catching up on the Tour de France and watching 'This is Spinal Tap' and 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' (and if you wish to see me act like a total normie, just observe my reactions to the latter of those, because What is Going On in that Movie!?).

Rumination: Morley Gets A New Station

New Station means Selfies!
at Morley 'New' Station.

After a rough start to the year, we finally managed to get a good turn on the walking year as passed through May and June, but as the midway point on the year arrives, we need to have a rest from the regular weekends on the trail, as we already feel like we've been spreading ourselves rather thin with the efforts of keeping myself going through working and walking in the midst of the post-covid experience and having put a decent wad of miles downs so far, a rest feels overdue, before we refocus ourselves on the task in hand, namely getting a whole 300 (Three Hundred!) miles down on the year, a triumphant sounding amount that's still less than half of what I achieved in 2022. It doesn't mean that we don't have things to talk about though, as there's not been a shortage of things going on locally, even if we're going to have to cast our minds back a bit, which shouldn't be too much of problem considering the usual condition of this blog, to two weekends ago, when the engineering possession through Morley station was only on its second day, and I decided to stay in to dedicate myself to writing and housework on Sunday 18th June, with full anticipation that redevelopment progress was going to be slow and the main activity of the long week would be tidily spread out and thus easily observable on the casual. This turned out to be a poor choice, as when I rose on the early morning on the Monday and progressed down to the station to await the rail replacement bus, we found that a lot of activity had gone on since my passing by on Saturday morning, with the footbridge span removed and the 'up' platform completely dug out, with the rails and ballast on the Manchester-bound side also removed and the alignment partially flooded, (due to rain or the spill out from the concealed stream below) with drainage being apparently installed, which pretty definitively drops the curtain on the old L&NWR Morley Low station after almost 175 years, marking my arrival there on the Friday as the last of the in excess of 6,000 journeys that I must have made via it since arriving in town in 2007.

Morley to Deighton 24/06/23

10.6 miles, via Morley Bottoms, Scatcherd Park, Dartmouth Park, St Andrews View,

 Birkby Brow Wood, Howden Clough,  Copley Hill, Birstall Smithies, White Lee, Westfield,

  Lower Popeley, Liversedge (Mill Bridge), Headland, Low Fold, Upper Row, Lower Row,

   Cooper Bridge, Bradley, Colne Bridge, Bradley Viaduct, and Whitacre Mill.

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.

Morley to Low Moor 17/06/23

8.6 miles, via Daisy Hill. Chapel Hill, Morley Hole, Bruntcliffe, Gildersome Street,

 Adwalton, Moorside, Drighlington, Birkenshaw, Lodge Beck, Copley House, Chatts Wood,

  Lower Woodlands, Dyehouse Fold, and Toad Holes.  

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. 

Morley to Mirfield 10/06/23

10.4 miles, via Troy Hill, Fountain Street, Scotchman Lane, Howley Mill, Lady Anne Crossing,

 Upper Batley, Batley, Clerk Green, Mount Pleasant,  Batley Carr, Boothroyd, Moor Bottom,

  Dewsbury Country Park, Ravensthorpe, Calder Bridge, Sands, The Beck, Hopton Bottom,

   Lower Hopton, and Ledgard Bridge.

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.