This is a picture of an apparently rare natural phenomenon which we encountered on last week’s walk led by Geraint. The picture itself was taken by a local photographer just a few hundred yards upstream from Green Bridge.
The conditions must just have been just right for the formation of these ice forms. It was cold. We left home at 9.00 a.m. in a temperature of -6C and it did not get a lot warmer thereafter. The Swale was also unseasonably low. In fact I do not recall such little water in the river at this time of year.
Rendezvous for the team of 6 was Bowlees car park on a typical November morning - grey with some rain forecast. Busy it was not. Walking down to the Tees we spotted a large group of paddlers from Leeds University having an exciting time going over Low Force, with not a capsize or even a roll.
Six walkers (Annabelle, Bob, Bruce, Peter, and Richard and me) met up at Barningham on a grey, hazy but not unpleasant morning before taking the track up onto Barningham Moor. The first part of the walk was straightforward, following the moor wall to How Tallon, a Bronze Age burial mound where we stopped for coffee and to admire the misty views of Teesdale.
I hope those of you who didn’t come on my walk enjoyed the lovely sunny, mild autumn day in Richmond and elsewhere. Unfortunately myself and those select few who did attend didn’t.
The weather in late autumn can be seasonally capricious; late summer warmth; a low sun that plays clear light on the features of the landscape; majestic, scampering clouds; cold north-westerlies and heavy blusters that hint at the arrival of winter; the colourful residues of leaves that cling to the increasingly skeletal fingers of beech, oak and sycamore; the burgeoning harvest of blackthorn sloes juxtaposed with the inviting crimson of hawthorn red.
Caldbergh & River Cover from Middleham Thursday 11 October 2018
Posted by Steve Charlton on 2018-10-16
SOC Walk Report – Caldbergh & River Cover from Middleham Thursday 11th October 2018
The weather did not look promising as we gathered at Middleham Market Place, having endured thick fog and rain over the moors from Richmond. 12 walkers joined us including Geoff Kensett, newly retired and keen to see what the retirees got up to in midweek.
