And there are many paths to tread, part 9
Nov. 19th, 2018 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatSo much for trying to post at least once a day. Blame the excitement/confusion of getting a new computer - excitement because it starts up SO FAST! (my previous one used to take about 20 minutes merely to wake up from a snooze) and confusion because everything needs to be set up / logged into / installed all over again.
Anyway. I've (temporarily) pretty much abandoned any determined attempt to make progress with my All The Paths project. Partly this is because of the 72 mile walk I've signed up for next spring, which means I need to spend my time doing the sort of walks that allow me to stride out for miles on end, not ones that require a massive amount of poring over maps to find the best way to pick up 0.15 of a path there and .02 of a path there, from a complex spiderweb of interlocking rights of way. Partly, too, it's because we're now in Squelch Season, and I prefer to stick to paths that I know are fairly squelch-free, rather than venture into unknown territory across low-lying farmland. But that doesn't mean that I can't pick up some paths when the opportunity presents itself.
Which it did yesterday. The forecast was glorious. I wanted a whole-day walk, while Pellinor - who had a massively sleep-deprived few days last weekend - wanted a long lie-in and a half-day walk. So I headed out by myself in the morning, and did 12 miles from home to a nice car park out in the wilds. There he joined me with a packed lunch, and we wandered on the Downs for the afternoon.
I forgot my camera, which is very annoying, since the light was lovely. After a few miles of familiar roads and paths in Cowes, I crossed Parkhurst Forest. I normally get lost in Parkhurst Forest, but now I have OS mapping with GPS on my phone, I could navigate by that. Forest paths are confusing. All of them are identical on the map, but some are broad gravelled roads that lie across the lily leven (and are dense with exuberant dogs), while others are barely bigger than a rabbit track, and thick beset with thorns and briars. It's a bit of a lottery which one you get - and both have their hazards. No packs of bloodhounds, sadly, who are known to train in these parts.
Then through some pretty fields, scattered with farms, only a few hundred yards from a housing estate, but really quite pretty. And from then to the start of the Tennyson Trail, heading west.
A cluster of mountain bikers in Brighstone Forest, seeking lost companions. A search party was about the venture into the trees, when they spotted two more cyclists approaching in the distance. "Oh, it's not them!" they realised. "It's two other people." But they appeared to call off their search party, anyway, and the two random strangers joined their clump, so presumably they didn't care about the welfare of their lost companions, but just needed to make sure that their numbers were ten.
Pause to muse why we say "bike" not "cycle," but "cyclist." "Biker," of course, is something else, but presumably wasn't until motorbikes were invented. And mountain bikers are mountain bikers, not mountain cyclists. I wonder why.(Online Etymology Dictionary for "cycle" says "from 1870 as short for motorcycle; by 1881 as short for bicycle or tricycle." Surely not!
Anyway. To the car park on Brighstone Down. Waiting for Pellinor to arrive - (He was late. "I took the wrong road to Brighstone." "You're not supposed to take ANY road to Brighstone." "Hence the problem.") - I watched the antics of two spaniels called Muddle ("Not the puddle, Muddle!" and Chaos. ("Chaos! Paws!")
Rather than heading west over the ridge of the Downs, we took the parallel path slightly to the north, which offered a completely different vista from the normal route - the entire northern half of the island, rather than the southern coast. A bit of dull forest, a nice beech wood, then lots of open down, with the sun JUST grazing the top of the ridge, leaving us bathed in its warmth, but out of the wind. While the southern face of the ridge goes by two names in its three mile length, the northern face apparently goes by seven. So just as soon as you've worked out what Down you're on, you're not on it any more.
We should perhaps have turned back at Freshwater Bay, to guarantee getting back to the car before dark, but we decided to press on to the beacon just past Tennyson Monument, once again heading out along the northern flank of the downs. We passed several car parks apparently known only to dog walkers. Parkhurst Forest was also surrounded by various lay-bys whose existence was apparently a secret known only to those with dogs. I wonder how they get told such secrets.
Lovely long shadows on Tennyson Down. Oh for a camera! As we walked down the ridge back towards Freshwater Bay, the shadows of our legs looked a hundred yards long, scissoring like some dreadful science fiction war machine.
Then back along the ridge. The sun went down when we were still nearly an hour out, but light lingered for a long time, the horizon a lovely burning blue. We knew we'd be heading in on a broad, chalk path, fully exposed to the western sky, so had decided to take the risk. Still, it probably counted as "dark" rather than just "twilight" by the time we got back to the car. But we avoided doom and rabbit holes, so that's okay.
Total miles: 25.22
Of which miles of unique Rights of Way: 17.97
Anyway. I've (temporarily) pretty much abandoned any determined attempt to make progress with my All The Paths project. Partly this is because of the 72 mile walk I've signed up for next spring, which means I need to spend my time doing the sort of walks that allow me to stride out for miles on end, not ones that require a massive amount of poring over maps to find the best way to pick up 0.15 of a path there and .02 of a path there, from a complex spiderweb of interlocking rights of way. Partly, too, it's because we're now in Squelch Season, and I prefer to stick to paths that I know are fairly squelch-free, rather than venture into unknown territory across low-lying farmland. But that doesn't mean that I can't pick up some paths when the opportunity presents itself.
Which it did yesterday. The forecast was glorious. I wanted a whole-day walk, while Pellinor - who had a massively sleep-deprived few days last weekend - wanted a long lie-in and a half-day walk. So I headed out by myself in the morning, and did 12 miles from home to a nice car park out in the wilds. There he joined me with a packed lunch, and we wandered on the Downs for the afternoon.
I forgot my camera, which is very annoying, since the light was lovely. After a few miles of familiar roads and paths in Cowes, I crossed Parkhurst Forest. I normally get lost in Parkhurst Forest, but now I have OS mapping with GPS on my phone, I could navigate by that. Forest paths are confusing. All of them are identical on the map, but some are broad gravelled roads that lie across the lily leven (and are dense with exuberant dogs), while others are barely bigger than a rabbit track, and thick beset with thorns and briars. It's a bit of a lottery which one you get - and both have their hazards. No packs of bloodhounds, sadly, who are known to train in these parts.
Then through some pretty fields, scattered with farms, only a few hundred yards from a housing estate, but really quite pretty. And from then to the start of the Tennyson Trail, heading west.
A cluster of mountain bikers in Brighstone Forest, seeking lost companions. A search party was about the venture into the trees, when they spotted two more cyclists approaching in the distance. "Oh, it's not them!" they realised. "It's two other people." But they appeared to call off their search party, anyway, and the two random strangers joined their clump, so presumably they didn't care about the welfare of their lost companions, but just needed to make sure that their numbers were ten.
Pause to muse why we say "bike" not "cycle," but "cyclist." "Biker," of course, is something else, but presumably wasn't until motorbikes were invented. And mountain bikers are mountain bikers, not mountain cyclists. I wonder why.(Online Etymology Dictionary for "cycle" says "from 1870 as short for motorcycle; by 1881 as short for bicycle or tricycle." Surely not!
Anyway. To the car park on Brighstone Down. Waiting for Pellinor to arrive - (He was late. "I took the wrong road to Brighstone." "You're not supposed to take ANY road to Brighstone." "Hence the problem.") - I watched the antics of two spaniels called Muddle ("Not the puddle, Muddle!" and Chaos. ("Chaos! Paws!")
Rather than heading west over the ridge of the Downs, we took the parallel path slightly to the north, which offered a completely different vista from the normal route - the entire northern half of the island, rather than the southern coast. A bit of dull forest, a nice beech wood, then lots of open down, with the sun JUST grazing the top of the ridge, leaving us bathed in its warmth, but out of the wind. While the southern face of the ridge goes by two names in its three mile length, the northern face apparently goes by seven. So just as soon as you've worked out what Down you're on, you're not on it any more.
We should perhaps have turned back at Freshwater Bay, to guarantee getting back to the car before dark, but we decided to press on to the beacon just past Tennyson Monument, once again heading out along the northern flank of the downs. We passed several car parks apparently known only to dog walkers. Parkhurst Forest was also surrounded by various lay-bys whose existence was apparently a secret known only to those with dogs. I wonder how they get told such secrets.
Lovely long shadows on Tennyson Down. Oh for a camera! As we walked down the ridge back towards Freshwater Bay, the shadows of our legs looked a hundred yards long, scissoring like some dreadful science fiction war machine.
Then back along the ridge. The sun went down when we were still nearly an hour out, but light lingered for a long time, the horizon a lovely burning blue. We knew we'd be heading in on a broad, chalk path, fully exposed to the western sky, so had decided to take the risk. Still, it probably counted as "dark" rather than just "twilight" by the time we got back to the car. But we avoided doom and rabbit holes, so that's okay.
Total miles: 25.22
Of which miles of unique Rights of Way: 17.97
