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Old Wed, Aug-17-16, 06:46
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Ambulo Ambulo is online now
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Posts: 3,171
 
Plan: LerC, TRE, IF
Stats: 150/120/120 Female 64 inches
BF:
Progress: 100%
Location: the North, England
Default 16/08/2016

Glorious summer day (well, realistically a bit hot for walking) so ran out of excuses to tick off the next leg of the Isaac Tea Trail.

Officially 8 miles and just under 1000' ascent, the book estimated 5 hours. I thought this was generous, but when I was a few hours in I knew why - it was tough. Rough pasture, rampant weeds. They produce a wonderful thistle crop round here. Some navigation uncertainty. The problem with marking gates and stiles and even providing direction poles in some fields is that the absence of these at any point induces the feeling one has lost one's way. There is no useful guide either.

Near the end a landslide had closed part of a riverside section. Annoyingly the council put a sign up about this not on the roadside but hundreds of yards down (and I mean down) a track. I was losing the will to live by this point anyway and could not face toiling back up to the road, so worked out a detour using other footpaths. I was also annoyed that the council had not created an official diversion.

I had though finally discovered what lay on the other side of the valley from the A686, and walked through the woods near Whitfield. I had also walked an additional 1.5 miles because DH balked at driving me down the steep narrow lane to Ninebanks youth hostel.

This little video focuses more on the moorland sections of the trail: Isaac Tea Trail, YouTube
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