NOW HEAR THIS, NOW HEAR THIS!!!

DUE TO SIZE AND LOADING TIMES, I HAVE STARTED A NEW BLOG.
PLEASE GO TO;
WWW.WALKPEAKS.BLOGSPOT.COM
(and, if you want to, become a follower)

THERE WILL BE NO FURTHER POSTS ON THIS BLOG.
THANKS TO ALL MY READERS - I HOPE YOU CONTINUE TO ENJOY MY PHOTOS ON THE NEW BLOG,
AND IT WILL LOAD UP A LOT FASTER.
CHEERS,
LES

Eight miles of loveliness

A lovely morning dawned for our day off. I said to Sue; "where would you like to go today". Her one word answer was; "high". So, with Kinder Scout on our minds, we set off on this glorious morning, passing this tree just outside our cottage. It's only like this for a few days every year, then it loses its blossom.

My plan was to park at Fairholmes visitors centre, next to Ladybower reservoir, and do a route from there. I couldn't resist this arty-farty shot though, as I noticed the view in my door mirror.
My planned walk was just under eight miles, but in this terrain, and on the route I'd chosen, that also meant we'd be doing more than 2,500 feet of ascent. A hard but rewarding day lay ahead.
Show me a wood in the morning, and I'll show you heaven!
We both LOVE woods at this time of the year. The light is really great on the stark trunks, but there's a promise of life. A few tiny shoots or buds, a lift in the greenery. Whatever, it certainly lifts us!
Already we were being treated to a great variety of birdsong. Only a few hundred yards from the car, and we'd heard many, many varieties.

Also, just a little further on, I saw a little lizard scurry away in the undergrowth. I whipped out the camera, but the morning sun made him much too fast to catch.

This wood sorrel wasn't going anywhere though, and it looked so lovely, leaning against the step.

Lockerbrook outdoor centre.

One of the things they teach at Lockerbrook is drystone walling.
Here's a fine example of before, and after.

We passed Lockerbrook and pressed on up the track, heading S/SW.
When we topped out, we got this super view of the Lose hill to Mam tor ridge.
Now, after all that climbing, we were going to drop right down to Hagg farm, another outdoor centre.

This is a bad picture of a Willow Warbler, but his melodious song deserved a shot. Just after I took this picture, Sue excitedly said; "LOOK, LOOK!". When I looked, there was a deer in the undergrowth. I didn't get time for a shot before it bounded away.

I wonder if they also teach 'observance' at Lockerbrook?
It would be a crime not to see things like this wood violet, which are all over the place, if you just look.

The rocky track, through the dappled shadows, up to Crookstone.

At the top, we were again treated to a lovely view.

So Sue stood awhile to admire it.

Me too.

In the middle of this picture is Jaggers clough, which leads up onto the Kinder Scout plateau.
THAT was where we were heading next, but not before dropping DOWN into the valley in front of us. NOW can you see why there is so much climbing involved today?

Lots of little lambs about this week.

There were lots of these green beetles about as well, but they weren't annoying, preferring to fly away from you, rather than into your face etc.

Quite a pretty thing, with iridescent green wings.

After a while, and after a stop to eat, we reached the top of Jaggers clough.
A look back saw where we had come from. See that U shape? That was where we left the track to start the climb up. The big hill is Win hill.

We skirted around Kinders Eastern edge, then followed round to the Northern edge to see the Alport valley come into view. What had been the perfect day was now turning very cloudy and cooler. Great walking temperature, but would we get wet?
The path lay down into the valley, and yes, you guessed it, UP again over that ridge, and back to Ladybower.

Come the 'glorious 12th', this will be the killing fields.
For anyone who's never seen one, this is a grouse butt, where the shooters lay in wait.

And this is Jubilee shooting hut, where the shooters and beaters gather.

We reached the point where it was all downhill to the car. As you can see, it was getting really cloudy now, and although we felt the odd spit of rain, it came to nothing and we remained dry.
All we had to do now was get back to Bakewell and light the barbie!
A great end to another perfect day.

RHB Part two, the South cliffs

A week in Robin Hoods Bay

I've been in Robin Hoods Bay for a week, helping to run a friends B&B while they went to Portugal. The weather was awful, both here and there. The only two days I got free, were lovely! Over the weekend, I saw a steady procession of wet, bedraggled and disillusioned walkers file into the B&B. I got the Monday off, so I went on the NYMR (North Yorkshire moors railway). I was lucky it was a STEAM DAY!

When it's 'chuffing' like this, leaning out of the window and taking pics is very hard as you get a faceful of soot to remind you of why the coal & steam age was responsible for the 'pea-soupers' we used to get.

I only went as far as Goathland - one stop, but it didn't stop them charging me £4:50 for the ten minute ride! No WONDER we went electric/diesel! (Nice station though)

Ready to go.

You can see by the sky what a lovely day it was.
I have a nice video of the train pulling out of Goathland station, if anyone wants me to send it, just email back, and I will. This is the last view I got of the track before setting off across the moors. The heather is JUST starting to bloom purple, which surprised me, as I KNOW the moors will be that wonderful purple sea when I come to Whitby in August, so June I didn't expect to see any of the flowers? Is this global warming, I wonder?

This little bridge had some lovely foxgloves growing at the side of it. Most of the stone walls are hugged by this plant at this time of the year (Latin - Digitalis) which, by the way, is the most poisonous plant in the UK.
EVERY part of the plant is poisonous!

....and yet - SO pretty!

I looked across the moors to Fylingdales. There used to be a collection of huge 'golf balls' on the moors, but a few years ago, they disappeared and were replaced by this strange wall-like structure.

Nice shot of a wall leading you up to the blue sky.

I was JUST coming back into Grosmont, and I dropped into a wooded glade. My attention was drawn to the most amazing thing, a young doe! I've walked across Scotland a few times, but THIS was the best and closest encounter with a deer I've ever had. I really felt privileged to stand so close, looking at this beautiful wild animal. She watched me, chewed a bit, and suddenly, was gone in a few bounds. I stood there quite a while, baking in the situation.

That was the end of my first walk. I did a second to Whitby, then up to Boggle hole, but I'll post those pics in another entry later. I hope you enjoy these.

France, next pictures - THE CAVES!

The next instalment - which features the cave pictures. As I think I've said, we were really lucky with the weather. Although a lot of days were somewhat overcast, it was always great walking weather and we got 10 mountain walks in, in the 11 available days (day 12 we had to be at the airport for 10:00AM,). The one day it DID rain, and rain quite steadily all day, we decided to visit the Grottes de grande canalettes. I am SO glad we did, as you'll see. These pictures don't even come CLOSE to doing the place justice, it really was that good! You can't hear the music on here, or see the fantastic light show, etc etc. I wish I could bring it to you all, but I can't, only as these pictures. I hope you enjoy them anyway.

Carrying on from where I left off, Mannes & Brenda took us to the bottom of a very steep climb that rose from a col. They decided to stop at this point, as it was unsafe for the dogs on the rocks, plus the snow was deep. We went almost vertically up to this frozen lake. At one point I got Colin to video me as I pressed my walking pole into the snow under my feet. I went right up to the handle! We were searching for a plane wreck, but as you can see, the snow was getting deeper, the higher we went. The weather also started to close in, so we did the sensible thing and came down. If it had come on bad, we really could have been in danger. The lake was at twice the height of Snowdon!

We reckoned that ridge above was where the wreckage we were looking for was. The sky looks lovely and blue, doesn't it?


But when we turned around, THIS is what was approaching, hence the decision to abandon the search and come down.

As usual, this is how the evening started. Brenda put out 'nibbles', and we all had a beer (or two) as an aperitif.
After the nibbles, a more serious course was brought forth.

Always the spiv, Colin decided to do his hair specially for the occasion.

And Mannes was the waiter - note, the bottle has COLIN'S name on it!

The next morning we woke to rain, and I am tempted to say; 'HOORAAAYYYYY!'. Off we went in Mannes' car, and he dropped us off at the caves. We'd seen these caves each time we'd visited this area of France (in the village of Villefranche de Conflente), and often said we ought to visit them. Well, today it was on the cards, so the Grottes de Grand Canalettes had the pleasure of our company at LAST.

I was in awe from the moment we stepped inside the entrance. These pictures aren't bad, but you can't BEGIN to appreciate just how fantastic the place is. It was seven euros to go in (about a fiver), but I would have GLADLY paid twice, even three times that. We were in there for almost three hours, and we were all wonderstruck! All the time, gentle, but exciting music accompanied the walk, our way lit by subtle LED lights (blue on the way in, red on the way out). At the innermost cavern, a HUGE affair, there was a gallery that could seat about 150 people. At that point, there was a fantastic light show spectacle, accompanied in voice by the likes of Pavarotti. I wish I could show you some of it, but it's not possible in email to do so, you will just have to imagine - or visit the place.

These 'straw stalactite's' were fragile, but beautiful.

You can see how sympathetic the walkways are in this shot.

This one is called le chevaux (the horse). It's about two feet long, but SO delicate.
Caused, it said, by magnetic forces and draught.

After being totally blown away by all this, we decided to see if the other caves were open. The 'Grottes de Petite Canalettes' was closed, but the 'Grottes de Prehistorique' were open, so off we went.
WHAT a let-down after the grandeur of the Grand Canalettes. THIS cave looked to be mostly for children, and was tacky to the MAX! Instead of Pavarotti, in this one, we got 'Jurassic Park' music, along with plastic dinosaurs and unconvincing bats in the roof. See what I mean?

Oh, oh - I'm FRIGHTENED (not!).

The rain finally abated, so we took the little yellow train back to Nyer station. As you can see, the skies stayed angry all that night, but we weren't bothered - we'd had a super day!

France 2007 - next 20 pictures

Well, here's the second instalment of pictures. I'm not sure I could pick a favourite day, as they were ALL fantastic! Maybe I should have a vote at the end LOL? Anyway, today we wanted to climb this mountain, called 'Bugarach'. There's a really good site with loads of information on the mountain, and area, here; http://www.perillos.com/bugarach1.html

We were driven, as always, by Brenda & Mannes, to a gite. A gite is like a hostel, some are good, some are not so good. The one at Bugarach (also the name of the village), is superb! It's run by ONE young woman, and unfortunately, she was suffering from a VERY bad case of sciatica. I could well empathise with her, as the same thing afflicted me two years previously just before I went to France, and it is EXCRUCIATING!

Before any mountain assault, it's VERY important to relax.
To some people, this simple act comes naturally........


Others seem to find it extremely difficult (and amusing).

Before we started the walk, B&M decided we had to see the most remote village in France. I'ts called Montet! More to the point, this is typical of B&M, their patience and time seems of no regard to themselves, if it means taking us somewhere new, or showing us something interesting.

The village was a picture postcard, really lovely. The drive TO the place was amazing, let alone anything else.

This was the village cat, a lovely tortoiseshell.
Just LOOK at the backdrop to this photo.

A stiff climb marked the start of the walk. It looks a hard climb, but it wasn't too bad, and the weather was lovely, with a soft breeze to keep us cool. At one point, I put my glasses on a rock to wipe my brow. BIG mistake, as I forgot to pick them up and had to return for them after I realised 15 minutes further up the mountain.

At the first col, we came upon these mountain horses. Aren't they LOVELY?
They really remind me of that Guylian chocolate seashells stuff, JUST the same colour! You would think they had been groomed all day to look at their coats, just perfect.

LOOK at that view, just another day in the Pyrenees.

My brother Colin and I, at the top of Tres Estelle - 6,000 feet.

Look, you KNOW you expect it - so here it is - the 'me on a rock' picture.

Beautiful pine cones. All this wild magnificence around us, but I always take time to look near as well, as there is so much else to see. They were very sticky if you touched them.

I call this picture; 'driving towards heaven'

These are Mannes' favourite mountains, because they look like a pair of breasts.
TYPICAL bloke!

We met up with B&M's friends, a French couple. We then went up another 6,000 foot mountain. We WERE in search of a plane wreck from the year I was born, but unfortunately, as we got higher, the snow became very deep, and the wreckage was probably covered, so we gave up. The walk was great though.

You can see the snow getting deeper here.

We DID find a nice bare patch, with some sun-warmed rock, to have lunch though.

In the next set of picture, you will see just HOW deep the snow was as we got higher. B&M decided to wait lower down, and WE took the high road. There's a super frozen lake, and snow at over a metre in depth - I know, because I decided to stick my walking pole in it - and it went RIGHT up to the handle, and still didn't bottom out!
Les

France trip, 2007

Hi all,
I have to say, it's really hard to sort through the hundreds of pics I took in France. I'm getting there, but thought you'd like the first 'instalment' to be going on with. I am up to the day we went into some fantastic caves, the grottes de grand canalettes. This was an incredible experience, and I think there are some really good photo's. Of course, NOTHING can do it justice like being there. Those are to come, but for now here's from day one.

These are the people that made it all possible, Brenda and Mannes. We are eternally grateful to them for everything. You just could not buy a holiday like they gave us. They ran us everywhere in the car, knew all the very best places, fed us like kings, had patience when we wanted to take pictures, go further, stay longer, climb higher, and never ONE sigh or cross word. Saints, the pair of them! The dog is Robi, he belongs to Mannes. Robi found the leg of an Izzard (an antelope) on a day walk. God KNOWS where he got it, but within only three hours, the three dogs (Brenda has two Samoyedes) had devoured it, fur, toes, the LOT. Again, those pics later.

This is Brenda's lovely house, 'Les Samoyedes in a little village called 'Nyer' (pronounced knee-air). The balcony on the left is right outside my bedroom, bliss, whatever the weather.


"Make sure you have your boots on - you are walking straight off the plane".
They were the instructions from Brenda. We did a lovely walk through the vineyards, then it turned into quite serious climb to a tower on top of a hill. A good warm-up for what was to come in the following days.

That was where we were making for, that tower. As you can see, it was a lovely, warm day.
You may also deduce that the hill it sits atop looks VERY steep.
It WAS!

I went to France last August, with the sole objective of getting to the top of 'Le Canigou'. At a tad under 10,000 feet, it's the highest I've been on foot. I can tell you now, it is HELLISH cold at that height! No chance of going up there this time of the year though. As you can see, there is a lot of snow

I love this picture. It's got it all, the mountains, the snow, and the flowers.

On the walk down, we passed through a lovely village. There was a ruin on top of a hill, so of course, we climbed up to it for pictures. Brenda & Mannes, as usual, waited patiently for us.

Aren't these little villages just too nice for words?
(But what do the people all DO for a living????)

What a lovely vista.

The ever-present vineyards. The vines had tiny grapes on them, we were FAR too early!

Another view of Canigou.

Mannes' house has a wonderful view of this mountain, which he loves dearly.

Looking across the valley to the mountains.

We were sent out on our own this day, to go up the Caranca gorge. Brenda wouldn't take the dogs, as it's far too dangerous.
You'll see why soon. I actually was drawn off the path by what we could see above us, so we had to go back again later in the holiday, led by Brenda, to do it again, and it was WELL worth it.

Once I saw THIS above us - I made a bee-line for them! If only I'd known, these are good, but the BEST balconies were further up the gorge, where Brenda told us to go. I am too impulsive!

As we climbed higher up the gorge, the views got better and better.

After taking the shot above, I just turned around, and this was behind me.

How's your head for heights? This path just drops away to the gorge floor, a LONG way down.
Not so bad, IF the path looked stable!
Does this look stable to you? No - me neither.

View over the edge - you need a steady hand and foot up here.

See the path we came up on below?

Some sections were quite a breeze though.

I do the French speaking, cooking and wine pouring and Colin, my brother, does the navigation (very well too, I might add).

You don't have to speak French to know this is telling you to be VERY careful up here!

Just a kid at heart, there was a carpet of fallen leaves. Well, we couldn't just leave them LYING there - could we?

That's the first 20 done. I hope you like them.

I am really looking forward to posting the cave ones - oh go on then, ONE sneak preview..........

My fifteen minutes of fame

www.lunasa.ie

If you haven't heard of them, you have no interest at all in Irish folk music. Lunasa are a world famous band, selling out most of their venues. They travel extensively, but when they are within 150 miles of me, I get a ticket to see them. Last Wednesday they appeared at Nottingham University (a sell out), and I was in the second row.

Anyway, after the last time I'd seen them, at Litchfield, I was my usual gushing self about the performance. Mind you, it is always perfection. I jokingly sent a; 'Jim'll fix it' email to their site for me to play with them on stage (one of my hobbies is playing the bodhran, or Irish drum). It was very tongue in cheek, and I just forgot about it.
I checked my emails just before going on Wednesday, and there was one from Tracy Crawford (the lead of the band's other half, I guess), saying my email had only just been seen, then going on to apologise that there was NO WAY Lunasa could invite an unknown onto the stage without practice, knowing ability, etc etc. She was very nice about it, and I was a bit embarrassed, as I hadn't really expected them to agree to it.
Anyway, off I went to Nottingham University's Djanogly theatre. First half, fantastic, second half, just as good, then they came back for the encore, and Kevin suddenly announced they were going to dedicate this last song to Les Singleton (yours truly). I was stunned, to say the least, but what happened next was he got me up, took me to the stage, (for some bizarre reason made me put on one of those Day-Glo vests), and then the band struck up. I was given the drum, and off we went!
It was a dream come true, and I think I 'held my own'. I even got a smile & a wink from the usually dour Cillean Vallely - praise INDEED! Sean Smith looked over and winked too, and that really put me at ease. Well, after our little number, the auditorium erupted, and I was SO proud! Here I was, in such fantastic company, me - and I had actually played along with Lunasa.
Does it get any better?

Thanks lads.

On my JOLLIES!!!

Hi all, I am now on holiday in France for 12 days - more pics when I get back.

Les

A trip to see old friends

This entry describes a walk around the area near to Cerrigydruddion, about 20 miles beyond Corwen. I went to visit some friends there.

When I first started doing long distance paths (LDP's), my third one, in 1993, was the Pembrokeshire coastal path (diary of this walk can be found here; http://walkdiaries.blogspot.com/2006/07/pembrokeshire-coastal-path-diary-les.html .

About 4 days into it, I met Ron, and his wife Rhiannon, and had a couple of days walking and meeting/chatting with them. Amazingly, we have kept in touch over the years, and I finally decided it was time we had a 're-match', so at his kind invite, I went over to a little village they live in called 'Cerrigydrudion'.

Here are my friends;

I KNOW Rhiannon won't thank me for putting her picture on here (shy little flower, isn't it), but I have to say, I think I caught them just right, and it's a nice shot of them.

On the way down, I passed these lovely castle remains.
It is in Ellesmere, and it just took me to capture it.
Nice that the swan posed for me too.


This is the miners track up Cwmannog woods. It was quite a steep path, but we plodded on and up.
A short while after this was taken, a young girl in what looked like waitress garb came striding the other way - complete with white shoes and dress!
As you can see, although warm, the day was hazy. And for this reason, I'll include some of Ron's pics, taken when it was clearer, so thanks to Ron for them.

Looking down on the disused Klondyke copper mine. The walk would traverse around the hills to the left and behind the mine, and we were to visit it later in the day.

looking towards the disused slate quarry

Llyn ceirionydd from the west side. This was a bit of a honeypot, and there were quite a lot of people here. The morons were out in force too, and we saw a crowd who had put TWO disposable BBQ's directly on one of the wooden picnic tables. Rhiannon took it upon herself to tell them, and to my surprise, there wasn't a torrent of abuse in return.
I don't think they'd take any notice though, and I wouldn't bet on them taking their rubbish away either!

A fine figure of a man.

Creigiau Gleision in the gloom. Nice show of Gorse though.

Cornel Farm & Llyn Ceirionydd.

Klondyke copper mine & silt beds

May blossom and an old cart at Cymannog farm

The date on the pulpit in Llanrhychwyn Church.

The roof of the old church.

Plenty of nice little clumps of violets, lots of wood anemone too!

Ha-harrrrr - Jim lad!

If any of you out there are thinking; 'I MUST tidy that shed out this weekend',
well - here is the most UNTIDY shed in the world (alleged).

And now, courtesy of Ron, a few clear pics.

And with a sigh and a goodbye, we headed off home. My thanks go to Ron & Rhiannon for their invitation, transportation and hospitality. Oh yes, and for the sharing of food. I did a really clever trick. After making up the most DIVINE sandwiches of ham, roast beef (separate), salad, olives, blue cheese etc, I promptly left them on the back seat of the car to slowly broil in the 28C sunshine. Ah well, I like banana sandwiches Rhiannon, thanks XX