Sunday 6 February 2011

Walk at the top of the world!

Would you like to come for a walk with me and my two friends? This is where we went Wednesday. Trouble is I've loaded the pictures in the wrong order so you need to get to the bottom and come up.
We parked the car at the bottom of Hen Cloud, the rock outcrop on the right of the second picture. And walked along the road for a mile or so till we came to the end of the Roaches. When I first moved to this part of the world I lived in the Roaches and when we pass the track down to my old house I always check it out. It does seem light years away living there now, although it's only 13yrs. It was a hard existence for the ten years I lived there, as it was derelict when we moved in and even when we left, although the building work was down inside and out, it never had any central heating. But I digress
The road climbs up steadily to the end of the Roaches and then the serious climb starts. It's all walkable,but tough terrain, so the path means clambering over boulders, up and down hills. It was incredibly windy so the wind chill factor was pretty horrible. And to add insult to injury I'd forgotten my flask of coffee.
In the middle of the top of the Roaches there is a pool known as Doxey's Pool, it is rumoured to be bottomless. And in all the years I've been going up the Roaches I've never seen it alter in the amount of water in it,even in the height of the summer.
Finally the climbing up ends and the way is mainly down, before you get to the small resting spot between the Roaches and Hen Cloud, gather your resources and go up again!
Both these places are well known rock climbing areas and even last Wednesday there were bus loads of kids in their bright coats and hard hats sitting around on the Roaches getting geography lessons. They must have been freezing, we were, and we were walking hard.The down path from Hen Cloud is steep and slippy through the woods and the trees are ancient.
But we got down, it was too cold to sit anywhere to have lunch outside, so we went to one of the bird hides at Tittesworth Reservoir to eat our lunch, and my friends to take pity on me and shared their coffee!
Another great walk, all feeling tired and all cobwebs chased away, with the thought of my hot path and large coffee the reward when I got in.



A long tailed tit and blue tit eating the fat ball viewed from the hide.



The water is frozen but the reflection is lovely of where we've just walked



A hollow tree on the slidy slippy path down the hill



The rock formations on the top are spectacular, the way the weather over the millenium has driven these grooves into the rock



Or how this piece of rock ended up balanced



Doxey's Pool at the top of the world

PS the pictures on my side bar are all of our walk around Tittesworth, with the Roaches in the background the week before

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

WOW~!
that was a wonderful walk!
I saw the balanced rock on your other blog and thought it was spectacular!
This looks so much more enjoyable than sitting on the computer!
LOl
Thanks for the hike!
((((HUGS)))))

TALON said...

Stunning place, Mandy! I love the names - "Hen Cloud", "Doxey's Pond". Your photos, as always, are gorgeous. Sounds like an exhilerating hike. My daughter rock climbs - she would have loved to visit there. :)

Dragonfly Dreams said...

Wow, what an enchanting walk! I am breathless!

Paula said...

The names sound nostalgic. Great walk and surely I love walking with you to the top of the world.

Lyn said...

Wow Mandy -- with such breathtaking panoramic vistas such as these, I would surely be motivated to walk forever. Thanks for taking us along ... : )

Miss Robyn said...

the world is indeed a wonderful place!

Anonymous said...

I'd find it worth tolerating the freezing cold for that walk. So enjoyable to view these.

Mel said...

Double WOW!!!!!!

Holy cow.
MUCH more enjoyable than sitting at the computer (though, I suspect a whole lot chillier).

Absolutely gorgeous.
What an enchanting place...and how wonderful to get to share it with friends.

Anonymous said...

Love those rock formation. What a wonderful place!