Outdoor Discoveries

Reminders of past outings

My first two major walking outings of this year have been in parts of England and they share one thing in common: they are reminders of past excursions. The second of these happened over the weekend and took me to Northumberland where I walked along the coast from Alnmouth to Embleton and took in  Dunstanburgh Castle along the way. That recalled a trot of a cloudy day over six years ago that also started from Alnmouth but went as far as Craster before I turned towards Alnmouth train station again. Last Saturday had me hiking in far sunnier if more blustery conditions so I could make more of my surroundings in the photographic sense. Having been delighted by what I have revisited, thoughts of continuing north from Embleton as far as Bamburgh are coming to mind along with those proposing a visit to Alnwick Castle.

January’s stroll from the Cat and Fiddle Inn to Buxton reminded me of an earlier outing in November 2004 (not a great year from the weather point of view so the ground was very unsound in places) that took me from the same starting point but finished at Rushton Spencer in the dark. Again, more cloud abounded on that day it was a release to have gotten out of doors even if a careless step landed me up to my shin in brown Staffordshire clay. It was with very muddy feet that I caught the bus home from Rushton Spencer that evening though there was no comment from driver or passengers.

Those two returns of a kind have me wondering if there might be more of that this year. However, I have unspent ideas from exploring other parts of Staffordshire and Derbyshire that may come in handy yet. After all, lurking on Twitter is revealing more of the delights that lie not so far away from me and that has me asking if this could be a year of Peak District walking trips. Only time will answer that question.