Teesdale Way to Whorlton

After rain in the night, we set out on a clearing morning from Barnard Castle, following the River Tees downstream to Abbey Bridge and then following the Teesdale Way. A strong scent of wild garlic as we wandered down the river bank. A very pleasant stretch of woodland walking, then out on to more open

The Case of the Vanishing Waterfall

No, this is not another plug for one of my mystery novels, but a notice that – at present – the lovely little waterfall by the old mill at Rutter Force no longer exists. Where the waters used to tumble there is now just bare and very dry rock. The reason, of course, is the

Penrith Beacon, Barbed Wire and hemmed out of the woods

For some reason we’d never walked up to Penrith Beacon (937 feet) until last Sunday, when our little ramble – a short distance after our recent expedition to Cross Fell – was accompanied by the sound of church bells. This was the place where beacon fires were lit throughout history, to warn of the possibility

On Cross Fell – and the Fiends Fell was friendly…

For a walk including the three highest summits in the Pennines you need a good clear day. Because the long ridge of tops on the western edge of the north Pennines offer magnificent views across the Eden Valley to the Lake District in one direction, and over the wild fells of the Pennines in the

Walking the Tees at Barnard Castle

When I was a boy, growing up in the industrial Black Country of the English Midlands, I remember school geography lessons which presented the River Tees in the North of England only as a river flowing through similarly industrial towns and cities. And so it still does – though callous governments have destroyed much of