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Days Like This, No 1: The Aonach Eagach Ridge
THE Aonach Eagach is one of the most exhilarating high-level walks on the British mainland. The ridge forms the northern wall of Glencoe and stretches in a line of imposing crags from the foot of the...
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Wild Winds and the Wain Stones
FOR many years I lived under the misguided impression that Ewan MacColl’s iconic mountain song The Manchester Rambler included a mention of the Wain Stones in the Cleveland Hills. Only recently did I...
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Days Like This, No 2: In the Tatra With Bears and Nuns
ZAKOPANE is a resort in the foothills of the Polish Tatra. Many people warned us about coming here, saying Zakopane is the unacceptable face of commercialism in an otherwise pristine mountain...
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Going to California . . . Via Teesdale
HISTORY has not been kind to the Pennine valley of Hudes Hope. On a sunny morning in March its lesser scars can be mistaken for natural wounds and warts on the landscape. But there is no disguising the...
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Feet of Cley on the Norfolk Coast Path
SHINGLE banks are not the easiest terrain to walk across. And between the north Norfolk village of Cley and the town of Sheringham they stretch for miles. It’s a matter of steer your prow into the wind...
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Scaud Hill and Beyond – At My Leisure
An angry walk between Teesdale and Weardale . . . Continue reading →
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Old Roads, a Fallen Lady, St Jude and Thoughts for the Day
A walk through the lead mines of the North Pennines . . . Continue reading →
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Cross Fell – Fiends, Rivers, Paths and Poets
A walk up Cross Fell and down the Tees and Tyne . . . Continue reading →
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Lindisfarne – A Pilgrim’s Progress
THERE are not many walks in Britain best undertaken barefoot – but crossing the two-and-a-half miles of mudflats to the island of Lindisfarne is one of them. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do and...
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Green Hurth: Where the Big Wheel Turns
TODAY I have a mission. This is no ordinary walk into the Pennine hills. This is a voyage of discovery to a lonely place where ingenious and industrious men built wondrous machines. And ingenious men...
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In Between One England and Another
I’M in between mountains at the moment. And I’m in between jobs. I’m in between a lot of stuff. If I wrote a book I’d call it The Inbetweener but I’d probably get sued. Today I’m going for a walk …...
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Humber. Southeasterly Four. Moderate or Good. Rain later.
SPURN Head is one of those places everyone has heard of but few can pinpoint on a map. When you’ve got your bearings it’s easy to find – but that could also be said of Kafia Kingi and Amelia Earhart. …...
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Black Gold, Tan Hill Tea
THERE was a loose plan fluttering about this morning like a threadbare flag above a roadside burger bar. But the wind changed and the plan got blown across fields and was last seen snagged on a fence...
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High Street and Fusedale – War and Pieces
HIGH Street is a great mountain with a rubbish name. When someone asks where you’re going walking and you say High Street, they glance at your boots and backpack and wonder why you need all that stuff...
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A Cook’s Tour of the Cleveland Hills
CAPTAIN James Cook is one of Britain’s most celebrated maritime heroes. Born to lowly farming folk in the Teesside village of Marton, his destiny lay not in farming – or shopkeeping, to which he was...
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Faggergill: Out of the Fryingpan into the Mire
BETWEEN Reeth and Tan Hill lies a land of strange names. It’s a country where wild open moors and grassy dales are neatly partitioned by walls built seemingly randomly, and generations of people have...
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Sweet Tees Flow Softly (Black Friday Aftermath)
IN this land of eternal gloom, where fog hangs in grey air and moisture drips from autumn berries and bedraggled sheep, Romans once marched to distant outposts on a cold northern frontier. They crossed...
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A Christmas Walk: With Ghosts on Baysdale Moor
I AM wary of the North York Moors because they are more than a little bit sinister. They are wild and empty, peppered with the scratchings of forgotten people, laced with legends, and punctuated with...
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It’s the Poor What Gets the Blame
WE’RE going to try something different today. I’m off for a short run across the hills above Richmond, North Yorkshire, because it’s time I knocked myself back into a semblance of fitness – but this...
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Done on Great Dun Fell
THERE are certain things in this world on which you should never depend and one of them is the weather forecast. I’ll think of a few more before I’m through, but the weather forecast will suffice for...
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