This road goes to the Crook o' Lune, and it's a road that's very well travelled by us. You know this because you've read about our walks there during lockdown. Well, there's a little lay-by here, and I've never really paid attention to it, but Matthew and I noticed it the other day when we were on our way to the beck that we paddled in.
Here's why we've never paid it any attention – because it looks like a private road. I can see clearly now that there's a blue sign pointing over the cattle grid, and blue signs mean public footpaths (or something like that – I can't remember my Highway Code, but I have got the gist of roadsigns after twenty-four years of driving). But as you see, this looks like someone's fancy drive that you'd think leads to a big stately home. Well, it isn't. It's actually a park, and its name is Halton Park. Now, Lancaster people, tell me, did you know this place was here? Did you even know there was such a place as Halton Park? Because I tell you, I didn't. And my dad was at my house a few days ago and he said he'd never heard of it either, and he's also travelled this road thousands of times. Talk about hiding in plain sight, eh?
So, Matthew and I got out of the car, armed with my giant pink water bottle and nothing else. It was the first time in roughly ten years that I'd worn shorts, which I did because the BBC weather app told me it was going to be very warm. I'll never trust that app again. It was bloody freezing. And when I say shorts, that's not quite right – it was a tiny little halter-neck jumpsuit type thing. But I was not deterred. I figured I'd warm up quickly if we walked briskly.
We crossed over the cattle grid – which I always hold my breath to do because I have visions of accidentally slipping my toes through the gaps, getting my foot stuck and breaking a leg – and we could tell immediately that this was a lovely place. We knew we were going to get to walk in at least one field today because we were already in one. Also, there were these lovely groves up on the hills.
There was an ancient horse trough just inside the gate. I say ancient, but I've no way of knowing how old it is because it isn't dated. It could have been built last year for all I know.
Off in the distance we had those breathtaking views of Clougha and the other fells, the patchwork fields and the wind farm. This is a very pretty valley, isn't it? I just love it.
Ah, there, look – that's Clougha in the distance. You can tell it easily by that sharp drop right at the peak. (Clougha is properly on my list of walks to do soon, by the way – it all depends on how fit I feel and whether we get a quiet day at work when I can go awol for a few hours. We'll see.)
Look at the trees flanking this field ... aren't they goooooorgeous? That one near the middle is particularly lovely. I don't really know how anyone could not love trees. They're among my top favourites things of all things in the world. Yes, I know, you're quite right – for a person who loves them, I have a funny way of showing it when I know virtually nothing about them. But that's me, I'm afraid. Very superficial in a lot of ways.
Oh, let me just show you the drive. It's lined by young oak trees. This will be so impressive eventually, when the trees are giants. It's already very pretty and these are only just established – they're not even old enough to have acorns. In fact they're babies. Yes, you've guessed it, I've just Googled 'how to estimate the age of a tree'. At a guess because I can't measure these just now, these are around ten years old. Man, oaks grow slowly, don't they? Is that why their wood is so strong? I reckon it must be, because conifers grow fast and their wood is soft.
The drive felt longer than it looked, and as we walked, the valley opened up and we could see the river down there, and our lamb and geese field, and also the drive-in movie screen. In fact, we could see pretty much the whole of the five-mile walk that we did a couple of months ago, and we looked down on it all very fondly and started to share our memories. We've noticed this before and chatted about it, that one of the completely wonderful bits of deciding to do these walks is that we have many, many, many, MANY brilliant memories now. We do this all the time: 'Awwww, Matthew, do you remember when we saw that weird duck?' and 'Ha! Mother, that's like when you nearly fell on your face going down that hill.' How precious is that? Dare I say it, it's like we're making the most of our lives.
We tore our eyes away from the splendid view and instead turned our gaze on the grove at the top of this hill. Does it look steep to you, that slope? Well, let me tell from my now painful experience that it is definitely steep. 'Matthew, shall we go up there?' says I. 'Oh yes, Mother,' says he, 'do let's.' 'Okay, but, the rule is that we're not allowed to stop at all until we reach the trees,' says I. 'Okay, Mother, deal.'
So that's what we did. We set off and we didn't stop. Now, it's not far, but it's considerably and noticeably steeper than any part of Hare Appletree Fell, which you'll recall did for my lungs and my calves quite a bit. This little slope didn't make me wish I'd stayed at the bottom or anything, but I did wonder whether I might pop a lung because I was wheezing so loudly. There was a nice bit of lactic acid in the old calves as well, but I knew we'd feel good about ourselves for reaching the summit without stopping, so we pressed on. Matthew suffered a bit more than I did because he'd set off at a run, but, to his credit, he didn't stop either. Also, neither of us stood in any of the sheep poo, and there was a lot.
We sat on the grass to catch our breath and cool down a bit – as predicted, I had warmed up nicely and was now glad of my tiny jumpsuit. The view was even more stupendous from this very high altitude of 304ft (I know this because Strava told me – I never do a walk without recording it on Strava now). You can, of course, take a minute to admire this view as well, if you wish.
And this one. Over there lies the south of Lancaster and a bit of Quernmore (that's pronounced quor-mer – silent 'n', no 'e', imaginary 'o').
I love the effect you get when you sit on the grass to take a photo, with the grass in detail in the foreground. Brilliant.
Once we were rested, we decided to go just a little higher to see if we could see the sea from the top of the hill. I thought we would be able to, but it turned out I was wrong because I'd forgotten about Slyne. There were sheep and rolling hills and more poo, but no sea. I found it quite strange to look west and not see the sea.
Sheep. Aren't they funny? They just stare at you for ages, chewing.
Especially this one. She stared for a very long time. I'm guessing she's a she. Standing at the top of a little rise, pretending to be a mountain goat.
It started to rain quite a lot while we were up the hill, so we decided to go back down and have a look in the wood. You might not have noticed that there was a little wood at the end of the drive, but there was, just a little one. The road cuts right through it. Here's what it looked like from the inside:
Matthew asked me what I thought might live in the wood, so of course I said werewolves because that's what I always say. He knows this, but he always forgets and he always asks what I think might live in a wood. He was instantly spooked, as he always is, and even more so when I saw this broken plank and said that a werewolf had probably done it when it was chasing a teenage boy who'd stayed out too late. Matthew didn't wait for me while I took this photo, so I had to jog a bit to catch him up.
The wood was very small though and we were soon out the other side. By this time, even though the walk had so far been very short, our jaunt up the hill had made us both feel a little queasy and we still had wobbly legs. Also, once again, we'd come out before tea and were hungry. But I also don't like to go home until I've pushed us just a little bit further than Matthew wants to go, so I said we could turn back once we reached that tree just on the bend.
Just before we reached the tree though, we came to a gate and a field with some weird-looking sheep in it. And I mean they looked really weird. They looked like pig-sheep. Hang on, I'm going to see if I can zoom in on that sheep's face ...
Look at it, the little weirdo! I've never seen such a squat and flat-faced sheep in my life. Fat little bodies, squashed faces, long legs and ginormous dangly bits. I've not zoomed in on those for you because some readers might be a bit delicate when it comes to sheep testicles, but man, they were huge! And what was even weirder was that this was a field full of boy sheep, and all of them had massive danglers. That's not what I expected to see today. Matthew couldn't stop laughing.
But there are only so many sheep testicles you can look at before you start to get cold in your jumpsuit because it's starting to rain again and it's not 25ºc like the BBC weather app said it would be. So we went for a quick look at this majestic tree, promised it we would come back another time and then set off down the drive.
When you emerge from the wood this way, you can see just how small the Lune is this far from the sea. It's really quite tiny. Which I find quite surprising because it goes on for nearly fifty more miles, right into Cumbria. In fact, although I think of the Lune as Lancaster's river, it actually covers much more of Cumbria than it does Lancashire. And I didn't even Google that! Are you riveted? Educational as well as entertaining, this blog.
There, see, I told you the drive was longer than it looked. Laughing at those funny-looking sheep had given Matthew a nice burst of energy though, so this half mile back to the car was no trouble at all, and he even chatted my head off all the way back. I forget what he talked about now, but it was probably Pokemon.
Until tomorrow, hill climbers.
WQ
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