THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2014 The Northern Echo 43 Walks what’son Walks Bousdale Wood & the Hanging Stone the path to the left alongside the plantation). Follow this straight up through the forest, with a steep on for 400 metres to reach a gate Walk information pull up to the fantastic viewpoint that leads back into the felled of the Hanging Stone. This forest. After the gate, turn right Distance: 8.5 km (5.25 miles) large outcrop of sandstone rock (waymarker) and follow the clear Time: 3 hours provides wonderful views towards stony track along the edge of the Guisborough, across Teesside felled forest, with moorland to your Maps: OS Explorer OL26 ‘North and Cleveland. The name of this right (ignore tracks to your left York Moors Western Area’ rock most probably comes from into the felled forest) for 600 metres Parking: Car park at Guisborough the fact that it is perched rather to reach a T-junction with another Forest & Walkway Visitor Centre precariously on the hillside, rather track, just beyond a metal barrier. (Pinchinthorpe). than the old superstition that it At the T-junction (with gates on your right), turn left down along Refreshments: Guisborough was the site of some gallows in the clear stony track and follow Forest & Walkway Visitor Centre. medieval times. this straight on down through the Terrain: This walk follows forest forest (felled at first then forested) tracks and paths for most of the for 700 metres (ignore track off way, with a stretch of track across The walk to the left after 500 metres) to join Newton Moor. The climb up to the 1 From the Guisborough Forest and a very clear forest road. Head Hanging Stone is short but steep Walkway car park, walk up to join straight over and follow the track (rough and muddy underfoot), the old railway track-bed where you ahead down through the forest whilst the forest paths and tracks head left passing the Visitor Centre. (ignore the cycle route branching are rough underfoot in places. Follow this track (old railway) up to the left) to join the road on straight on for 500 metres along the the edge of Hutton Village. How to get there: Guisborough edge of the forest to reach a series Forest & Walkway Visitor Centre of small ponds alongside the track lies just off the A173 to the south on your left. Just after these ponds, 5 Turn left along the road and of its junction with the A171 to the turn right (blue waymarker post) follow it straight on for 300 metres west of Guisborough. along a track up into the forest then curving to the right then, Caution: This walk to the Hanging to soon reach a track across your after 150 metres, take the lane to Stone includes some steep sections. path (Bousdale Wood information the left (signpost ‘Walkway Visitor Many of the paths are rough/ board ‘Trim Trail’). Turn left and Centre’) and re-trace your steps to muddy underfoot. Areas of forest follow the clear track gently rising ‘bridleway’) where you head sharp path along the top of the fairly Home Farm. Continue along the have been felled, and forestry up and bearing right to soon reach right up across the field to reach a narrow ridge (felled forest) to soon clear track passing Home Farm operations are ongoing, so the Bousdale House. Continue along the gate that leads into the forest. After reach a rough forest track across and then Bousdale Cottage, after appearance of this forest may track passing in front of the house the gate, follow the track straight your path (area of felled trees which continue along the track for change. Observe forestry operation then gently dropping down and on gently rising up through the ahead). Turn right along this track 150 metres to reach the T-junction signs. curving to the right for 300 metres forest and curving round to the left and follow it curving round to the again. Turn right at this T-junction to reach a junction of tracks at the for 500 metres then, just before a left (ignore track down to the right) and re-trace your steps climbing bottom of the ‘dip’. Turn left and fenced off pond beside the track, then straight on gently rising up gently back up along the track Points of interest follow the track across the field turn left along a footpath that leads through this area of felled trees. (blue waymarker) passing Bousdale to reach a Bousdale Cottages set House once again. Continue along THIS first and last part of this walk up through the forest (waymarker). The track soon levels out and leads in trees (large chimneys) where the track, which curves down to heads along the Guisborough Forest Follow this path up to quickly reach straight on all the way to reach you follow the track curving right the left then, at the junction of Walkway, a delightful path that another forest track, where you a gate and stile in a fence on the then straight on for 400 metres tracks at the bottom, turn right follows part of the route of the old follow the path straight on rising up edge of the forest, with Newton before turning sharp left to reach (signpost Walkway Visitor Centre) Middlesbrough and Guisborough through the forest to reach another Moor ahead (National Trust sign Home Farm. Continue straight on to quickly re-join the old railway Railway that was built in the 1850s (rough) track across your path. ‘Roseberry Topping’). Cross the along the track passing the farm line. Turn left along the old railway to serve the numerous local mineral Carry straight on rising up through stile and follow the broad path buildings on your left to reach a line, passing the series of ponds, mines. The line closed between the trees to reach a third (clear) straight on across the heather road. back to the Visitor Centre. Nunthorpe and Guisborough track across your path. Turn right moorland (Newton Moor), with a wall to your right, for 400 metres to in 1964, part of which has since along this track for a few paces Mark Reid reach a plantation across your path Walking Weekends 2014 been transformed into a walking 2 Turn right along the road for then left along another footpath (Slacks Wood) and a bridlegate in Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, route along the northern edge of 150 metres then, where the road (waymarker post) and follow this path up through the forest to soon the wall corner to your right. Lake District & Snowdonia Guisborough Forest. Our route bends left, head straight on (to the walkingweekenders.co.uk then heads through Bousdale Wood right) through the gate (signpost). emerge out into a clearing where before reaching the scattering of After the gate, head straight on you carry straight on climbing 4 Do NOT head through this Unique corporate activity days, houses and farms at Hutton Gate, along the track along the bottom steeply up to reach the Hanging bridlegate, but turn sharp left back navigation skills and team building which once had its own private of the shallow valley for 100 Stone. on yourself (45 degrees) heading experiences in the great outdoors. station for the sole use of Hutton metres to reach a fork in the track 3 As you reach the Hanging Stone, along the clear path/track across teamwalking.co.uk Hall. Tracks and paths then lead (halfway across the field - signpost carry straight on along the narrow the middle of Newton Moor (ignore

Countrydiary By Phil GatesBBirdwatch y Ian Kerr

NYONE who grows dahlias will be HEN I started bird-watching, Seaham and Whitburn where it lingered very familiar with earwigs. These admittedly a long time ago, long enough for one enterprising birder W a telephone box was the only A common insects like to squeeze into to combine his phone and telescope to tight crevices at night, head down, with method of alerting anyone to the discovery snatch a picture he posted immediately their defensive tail pincers at the ready, of something rare. Today mobile phones, on the internet. The bird continued and densely packed overlapping petals of tablets and instant internet access have northwards and was seen well from eight to the air because their fan-shaped wings dahlia or chrysanthemum flowers make transformed things, enabling news to be Northumberland localities before it are so intricately folded under their wing a perfect hiding place. That wouldn’t be a given to hundreds of people, as happened finally disappeared past the Farne Islands. problem if it was just shelter that they were cases. They are unusual amongst insects last Sunday with an extremely rare seabird. Technology had enabled this bird to be looking for, but they also have a tendency in that they care for their young. Eggs Fea’s petrel has a tiny population confined tracked for 120 miles over an eight-hour to nibble holes in petals, which makes them are laid in autumn and the parent guards as a breeder on Madeira and the Cape Verde period, giving scores of appreciative birders Islands. Very occasionally they are caught an enemy of growers of blooms for flower them, licking mould from their surface and the chance to see it, if only briefly. up in Atlantic movements of other petrels shows. cleaning and feeding the young when they The petrel appeared during a good first hatch. and shearwaters and reach British waters. passage of Manx and sooty shearwaters, One traditional method for catching them On Sunday morning one of these mega Earwigs’ common name comes from the similarly designed by nature to effortlessly is to fill a flower pot with straw and place rarities, named after Italian naturalist myth that their liking for crevices includes ride the up-draughts from waves for it open-end down on a short cane, when the Leonardo Fea who first described them in hundreds of miles on feeding forays. earwigs will crawl in at night. Unless you taking up residence in our ears when we 1898, flew north off Flamborough Head. are asleep and nibbling our brains. This Much rarer great shearwaters were logged are a vengeful gardener they can then be Instantly word went out alerting birders off Filey and the Farnes and a Balearic fear dates back at least to AD 77, when the transported to somewhere where they can further north. shearwater was off Whitburn. This do no harm, but first it’s well worth taking Roman natural historian Pliny the Elder It was seen again off Filey and Burniston excitement overshadowed a continued a close look. Male and female earwigs can advised that “if an earwig be gotten into the and then off Cleveland at Cowbar before it good showing of smaller rarities, including be told apart by their tail pincers, which are ear…..spit into the same, and it will come vanished for almost three nail-biting hours further yellow-browed warblers at Marsden, strongly curved in males and straighter in forth anon” – hard to do without help from when it presumably rested on the sea. To Whitburn, Hartlepool Headland, Burniston females. Both sexes can fly but rarely take a trusted friend! the relief of everyone, it reappeared off and Filey.