Category: Cheshire
One last escape before an onslaught
11th June 2024 After my trip to Canada in 2019, hill wandering just about ground to a halt. The August bank holiday weekend did come sunny, yet other preoccupations kept me indoors. Otherwise, day trips to cities like Bath and Oxford made use of any sunny days that came my way. Of these, it was the first that saw a stroll outside the city into nearby hills for a time.
The, there was an existential threat to my freelancing business that needed attention. That lay on my mind throughout the autumn and into the following winter. A changeover was needed, and that process took until early 2020 to complete. The result was that there was no New Year getaway like the previous year. Whatever brighter days did not get used for incursions into hill country because of what lay on my mind, even if I did get to exploring North American trip ideas.
While my freelancing was set on former ground after all this, it did mean that I was otherwise unprepared for the travails of a pandemic that I might have been. The weather had not been so enticing, and was not to turn out that way until our lives became very restricted.
All the while, I was watching the approach of a new infectious disease with some trepidation. The stories in the news were serious and brought home the fragility of life. The way that the pandemic arrived so soon into Europe was not how influenza spread. Anyone should see that we could not escape the strictures, even if many were hoping for the best; it was a matter of when, not if.
This was the shadow that was cast over Mother's Day in 2020. The restrictions were beginning, with places for usual celebrations not being available. With nowhere else to go, many headed for the outdoors and some locations were left crowded, to the disdain of political leaders and the authorities. This affected the Wicklow Mountains in Ireland as well as Snowdonia in Wales. Umbrage was expressed publicly, and further restrictions followed that would test the mental health of many of us. Everyone was learning to deal with something that remains infrequent, not that anyone should be complacent.
In some ways, the day felt like one last hurrah before the doom-laden weeks that lay ahead. The prospects ruled out the use of public transport, and I already was avoiding large assemblies of people anyway. There were no regulations barring the former, apart from my sense of prudence. That would change.
If I had hoped that staying local, and frequenting spots that I previously had found to be quiet, would allow a spacious expanse for the spirit, I was about to be very surprised. The initial signs were there when I spotted a family trying to figure out which way to go near Higher Swanscoe Farm. By then, my route already had me along part of the Macclesfield Canal before following a public footpath that passed Jenny's Farm. Later, passing Higher Swanscoe Farm got me onto Well Lane.
Tarmac tramping got me onto Kerridge Road before I left the road to pass by both Lower Swanscoe Farm and Swanscoe Farm on another right of way. In time, I was to reach the Saddle of Kerridge to gain my first sightings of the village of Rainow for that year. Picking up the Gritstone Trail drew me near there before I followed the road leading to Lamaload Reservoir. This part of my route was as quiet as it usually was, with no sign of the upheaval that was facing us in the coming weeks. The scenery was timeless, allowing a momentary escape from all threatening portents.
When near the pumping station below the reservoir dam, I opted to turn right to follow a path passing a Larch plantation. That took me uphill towards Brock Low, testing the strength and resilience of my legs in the process. In time, the gradients relented and views of the reservoir opened out beside me. They were lost behind more trees for a while before I left the track that I was following.
The uneasy sense of normality continued, and an instructor was seen with a group working on their navigation skills. Such activities were to be interrupted within days in the spirit of containment and confinement that was to envelop us. My own route finding was a test too as I headed toward Higher Ballgreave Farm, which I passed on the way towards Buxton New Road. That provided yet another test for the climbing capacity of my legs before I could look back on the reservoir, enjoying the views.
Going onto Buxton Old Road meant that I needed to find a public footpath that would take me towards Forest Chapel. There were a few options. The one passing Whitehills possibly is better than any passing Greenways Farm. Recollections are foggy now, yet it may have been one from the latter that landed me where I wanted to go. More uphill progress was needed regardless of the route followed, further testing out unacclimatised legs.
What remains in my mind now is that sense of quietude, and not the amount of traffic or the presence of others. There must have been nothing remarkable at this point in the hike because that was to change once I began to approach Macclesfield Forest, which was more mobbed than I had seen it before then. There was even a bit of bother between cars because of the amount of traffic. The single track roads could not take up the slack that the usual locations for celebrating Mother's Day would.
Though there was a certain unease at having so many people around, I nevertheless continued as planned. That unease unfortunately intruded when anyone asked for directions (there was one family that perhaps needed more than they got from me, and that weighs on my mind a little now; hopefully, they worked things out as they needed to do). Another intrusion was the effect of the long stroll on me as I passed Shutlingsloe, went over Nessit Hill and descended to Ridgegate Reservoir.
Leaving the multitude after me, quiet road walking was what returned me home again. Macclesfield felt like a much quieter place than some of the spots that I had traipsed. Since a corner shop was open, I popped in for some much-needed refreshments. They sustained me the rest of the way until I could rest after the day's exertions. In some ways, I may have overdone things, which added some disquiet given all the reported symptoms in the news at the time. What was ahead was a period that would much test my patterns of thought, changes to which remain with me to this day.
Slaughter
29th February 2024 Network Rail has been busy cutting down trees beside the Macclesfield stretch of the West Coast Mainline. The result is not pretty and affects a nearby walking route that I often use; death is everywhere to be seen. Many tree trunks have been denuded and left to look lifeless; others have been cut away to the top of their rootstock as if to finish them off. If life restarts on the former, the devastation may be softened, but that is not within sight just yet. It perhaps is too early in the year for that.
While I can understand that windthrow is a problem for trees next to a railway line during stormy weather (my recollection of the aftermath of Storm Gerrit makes me appreciate that), the devastating aftermath of the ongoing cutting looked sad to my eyes. It is one thing to trim back overgrown vegetation, but this is something else.
Shelter was removed, and it may be that walkers do not need such a clear view of the railway anyway; most of us are not train enthusiasts or spotters in any case. It all caused a trail that has something of a bucolic aspect to appear more industrial than it used to do. One wonders what that does to the attractiveness of the amenity in the long run.
The time of year hardly helps, with all the leafless trees and bare ground after the winter. When you hear any birdsong, it all sounds all the more poignant when you realise that bird nesting sites are being toppled. Maybe things will look less brutal during the coming growing season.
For now, though, there is a lot of carnage that needs healing. At times during my life, I have had my misgivings about tree cover when seeking photos of scenic spots, yet that is not how I feel about this ongoing aftermath. Anytime that I hear chainsaws working is sickening to my sensibility at the moment; it heralds destruction for me.
Into nighttime
14th February 2022 Over the last few months, I have gone walking in hours of darkness by design rather than accidentally as often has been the case. Much of this has been in urban areas in the name of remaining active after a day of working from home, but some have taken me away from hard surfaces as well. It all helps with getting through these more uncertain times.
The first time that I ever tried this was during a much-needed career break at the end of 2017. Then, I chose a nearby route that I knew well, and I relished the quietude once I had over some initial nervousness. The same route was plied by night several times during the winter of 2020/21 and the reduction in the chances of encountering others was as much an attraction as being out on moonlit ones and ones that were not so bright. Naturally, a head torch was put to good use in the process.
The same sense of peace and solitude drew me out again, and other routes were chosen. Most were near at hand and with better starting points as well. Each time, I was reminded of the reduction in the amount of information from what we have by day, and I was always on familiar ground. It was not just one's whereabouts that demonstrated this, but the placement of one's feet and one's sense of balance, especially when crossing a steep slope with a significant drop should one fall.
This traipsing reached its zenith on New Year's Eve at the end of a long day out that added an extreme elbow to two places that are not that far apart. Mostly, I try to keep away from where people live because having unexpected lights around a home in the countryside could feel unsettling and intrusive. Nevertheless, the countryside feels very different at night and being out there feels more adventurous than it might during the hours of daylight.
Curtailed adventuring
19th August 2021 Despite the pandemic, 2020 turned out to be something of a vintage outdoor activity year, though most of that was local, and I never got to Scotland, let alone overseas. If anything, 2021 has turned out to be more restricted even if I have been fully vaccinated for a while now.
During late May and early June, I was starting to get out and about, though numbers of others doing likewise meant that it did feel uncomfortable at times. The Spring Bank Holiday weekend showed me both quiet countryside and busy places. A reprise of a walk between Disley and Macclesfield proved to be a quieter affair, though the same could not be said for one from Monyash to Bakewell. With few places to go and the onset of warm sunny weather, places like Bakewell or even Youlgreave meant that these were not places to linger. The same could have been said of the Hope Valley the following weekend, but I still walked from Hayfield to Hope while keeping to quieter parts of the Great Ridge. Again, warm sunshine had drawn many outside, and there were busy trains to bear as well. Nevertheless, there were no longer-term effects even if I was not fully vaccinated at that stage.
From then on though, it looked as if things were reopening too quickly given the case numbers. Even delaying the full withdrawal of restrictions was insufficient for my sense of safety. In many ways, a more gradual reduction would have been better since so-called "Freedom Day" was in fact "Anxiety Day" for anyone was nervous in their disposition. To be fair, many have been sensible and much continues as it was with the use of face coverings and social distancing.
Last month, I took a break of several weeks from work, but the timing was not in many ways the best for outdoor excursions. "Freedom Day" came in the midst of it so that was one reason not to be so carefree and a scorching heatwave persisted for the entire week as well, so outdoor activities were stymied by lack of acclimatisation. After those, there was yet another reason for my persisting with a "homecation".
In some ways, this takes me back to my student days in Edinburgh when research work, lack of money, living in a wonderful city and a strong interest in computers conspired to delay the development of any interest in explorations of hill and coastal countryside. The interest in computing still remains, and I embarked on a major PC upgrade that did not run so smoothly; that took several weeks to settle everything done again. That not only kept me indoors a lot, but was the cause of my working up quite a sweat as I carried things between my work area and my home office. Also, worries about wreckage of expensive equipment entered my mind, and the heat was not helping the machinery either.
Those worries were to prove groundless and everything has settled in again though ongoing assessments regarding cooling and noise reduction continue. Usefully, the weather has cooled and become more autumnal in feel though warmer temperatures are predicted without their reaching abnormal highs. Damper weather now abounds though there are interludes for getting out and about on sunny evenings as well.
Video viewing earlier in the year became the cause of my acquiring a GoPro camera and an extension pole. Later, a magnetic mount for attaching the device to clothing and other similar materials was acquired, and all has been put to some use. However, videography is a very different activity to photography, so things are very experimental for now since there is much to learn.
After all that, it feels like a time to realise that there is a need to live with the ongoing pandemic, and I am of a cautious persuasion. Yet, I am spotting some possibilities that may help with confidence building, since case numbers have not gone as high as was predicted. They did rise dramatically in July, but it looks as if the Euro 2020(1) football tournament caused a lot of that, since they also reduced substantially afterwards. If there is a chance for some stability and the weather offers some motivation, this may become a good time to get going on longer trips again. The pace of advance will be slow and there are other things to occupy me too, since there has been a lot of self-learning of new computing tools over the last year. Life can become very full, so gaps do not always happen, and they often need to be made.
A year when an unwanted adventure arrived
31st December 2020 We live in a time when all sorts of activities are being sold as adventures. Even a day hike falls into scope for this yet I do not need such branding to make me take advantage of such a possibility. A day with good weather spent in the midst of hill country or along a scenic coastline will do the job for me equally as well. In fact, it has been sufficient sufficient for longer than I care to recall.
2020 has been full of those in spite of the threat that it brought our way. They may have been near home for much of the time so it is just as well that I can walk into nearby hills from the front door of my own house. Long circuits taking in Shining Tor, Cheshire's county top, along with Croker Hill, Bosley Reservoir and a host of other nearby landmarks saw me begin a summer of longer walks.
Some took me back home from a starting point reached by public transport. These included such places as Buxton, Knutsford, Disley and Whaley Bridge with the second entry on that list being the longest of the lot. The weather was mainly fair too apart from the occasional wetting.
Getting a little braver took me a little further afield. For instance, there were tow long hikes between Leek and Buxton, something that lay in my ideas shelf for far too long. Day trips to Church Stretton in Shropshire and Llandudno in Conway became the limits of my perambulations for the year before a cold weather walk from Hayfield to Chapel-en-le-Frith bookended things and an autumn of lockdown, less enticing weather and an indoor learning project became my lot.
Still, good memories got made in spite of the pandemic and these even included visits to Sheffield that I am not enthused about doing at the timing of writing these words. The hills may have been smaller but the wandering got me away from humanity even if more found their local countryside this year than ever before.
While 2021 lies ahead of us, it is difficult to plan ahead right now. There has been an upsurge in the number of cases of COVID that needs to abate and it does feel that vaccination cannot happen fast enough. This may may the darkest hour before a new dawn but I plan to get to a brighter future before making too many plans.
Of course, we still can dream. This time last year, I was pondering which part of the U.S. to visit during the summer months. After reading about the states of Washington, Oregon, Wyoming , Montana, Colorado, I settled on the last of these and that remains on the ideas shelf. The Azores are found on there as is the possibility of Madeira and locations nearer home appeal too.
Webinars from Wanderlust as well as the Adventure Travel Festival all fuelled my imagination though dreams of round the world motorcycle or walking trips remain out of the question. It remains good to hear the stories of other explorers' exploits though and they help to brighten what has been a dark time for many of us.
My book reading continues in much the same vein as I sit out the necessary period of time that is needed for things to settle again. Patience is much required by those of us able to stay safe while we think of those not in such a fortunate position. Adventures can take their toll and this one certainly has so we only can await the prospect of happier ones should they come out way.
