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ridge. The cuts deep Walk information into the high fells of Upper , a wild landscape of Distance: 8 km/ 5 miles stark beauty tamed only along the Time: 2 - 3 hours valley floor where countless stone Maps: OS Explorer Sheet OL30 - walls divide up the valuable flat always cary a map on your walk pastureland. Just beyond Reeth, Parking: Parking around Reeth the valley opens out into a wide green (honesty box) bowl at the confluence of the Swale Refreshments: Pubs, cafes and and Arkle Beck. The word reeth shops at Reeth comes from the Anglo-Saxon word Terrain: Field paths lead up meaning – place by the streams or through Arkengarthdale, with rivers. The descent from Riddings numerous stiles, before a track Rigg to Reeth is superb, with a leads up to the moorland below changing panorama of Swaledale Calver Hill. A narrow path, with virtually every step, and indistinct and boggy in places, then changing terrain beneath your feet. leads up across this moorland, skirting below the steep slopes of Calver Hill, before joining a track The walk that leads back down to Reeth. Leave Reeth along the road to How to get there: Reeth lies on 1 the right-side of the Buck Hotel the B6270 to the west of Richmond. (road sign Langthwaite, Barnard For details of public transport call Castle) and follow this road up out 0870 608 2 608. of the village. After the cattle grid Please note: Take care walking at the edge of the village, follow the along the roads. Numerous stiles to road bending round to the left cross and you may encounter (wide undulating grassy verge) alongside the stone wall on your summit of Calver Hill. You soon the wall on your right. Continue livestock in the fields. There are then, after 100 metres or so, take right then, where this wall turns pick up a clearer path which you along the track alongside this wall some small streams to cross. Rough the footpath to the right through a away to the right (East Raw Croft follow straight on, keeping close to for 300 metres then, where the wall and boggy ground in places. wall-stile just to the left of Sleights Farm down to your right), head the foot of the steeper slopes of curves away down towards Riddings Rigg is exposed to the Brow House (signpost through a squeeze-stile ahead (just Calver Hill on your right, passing Riddings Farm, continue along the elements. Langthwaite). After the stile, bear beyond a small stream) then bear over a small stream / spring after track for a short distance then, left across the field and through a slightly to the right down to join a 300 metres then continue on for a where the track bends sharp left by squeeze-stile, then continue track through a gate just before further 200 metres to reach a small a small pile of stones (Riddings Points of interest straight on passing to the right of a West Raw Croft Farm. Follow this enclosed spring/water trough, with Farm down across to your right), REETH is a grand village in the barn and follow the clear path track straight on passing above spoil heaps/small landslip on your carry straight on on this bend heart of Swaledale, once a centre of straight on through a succession of West Raw Croft Farm to soon join a right. Continue straight on along along a grassy path and follow this lead mining. From Reeth, field squeeze-stiles (Arkle Beck across to junction of tracks just beyond the the narrow path keeping close to for 200 metres to reach a wall paths lead up through your right) over a series of wall- farmhouse. At this junction of the foot of the steeper slopes of corner where you follow this wall Arkengarthdale, keeping fairly stiles for 400 metres. You then pass tracks, follow the clear track Calver Hill on your right then down on your right to quickly close to Arkle Beck for most of the to the right of a larger stone-built bending sharply and steeply up to rising up onto the broad shoulder reach a gate tucked away in the way, to reach the twin farms of barn then on over a small stream the left, through a gate then of Riddings Rigg to reach the corner of the moorland at the top East and West Raw Croft. after which continue straight on continue along the track winding bottom end of a long tumbledown of a walled lane (Skelgate Lane). Dominating the scene are the along the clear path for a further up to reach the road. stone wall. At the foot of this wall, Follow this walled lane down back dramatic limestone crags and 400 metres (roughly following the continue straight on along the to join the road on the edge of screes of , line of telegraph poles) to join a At the road take the footpath clear path heading down across the Reeth (near the school). Turn left scarred with former lead mine clear farm track. 3directly opposite (signpost) and moorland to join a clear stony along the road back into Reeth. spoil heaps. From West Raw Croft follow the clear path straight on track across your path (signpost). Farm, a stony track winds its way Follow the track straight on heading up across the gently rising Mark Reid up to join the unfenced dale road, 2down through a gate then, after grassy moorland of Reeth Low Turn left along this track and Walking Weekenders 2014 however, this is forsaken for a path 75 metres where the track drops Moor (heading towards the right- 5follow it on alongside the stone , Lake District & up across Reeth Low Moor skirting down towards the river, branch off hand side of the steep slopes of wall on your right (at the top of the Snowdonia beneath the steep slopes of the to the left (signpost Langthwaite) Calver Hill ahead of you). Follow in-bye land) and follow this for 500 www.walkingweekenders.co.uk summit of Calver Hill up onto the along a path to reach a squeeze- this clear path up across the grassy metres until you reach a gate in wide ridge of land known as stile. Follow the clear path heading moorland for 450 metres then, as this wall where the clearer stony Riddings Rigg. An old stone straight on up through the valley, you approach a tumbledown stone track turns right through this gate windbreak, now little more than a with Arkle Beck down to your circular sheepfold and small towards a house (wall ends on your Unique corporate activity days, long narrow heap of stones, right, over a small stream and rectangular concrete reservoir right). Do NOT head through this navigation skills and team building through a broken wall then on to cover, turn left along a narrow path gate, but continue straight on along provides the perfect place to stop experiences in the great outdoors. and admire the view from this reach a gate in a wall corner. After skirting beneath the foot of the the grassy rutted track gently this gate, head straight on distinctly steeper slopes of the rising up for 150 metres to re-join teamwalking.co.uk

Countrydiary by Phil Gates Birdwatch by Ian Kerr T’S a safe bet that if you asked any Way west of ANY of our early spring migrants already established on breeding grounds. countryside visitor to name the wild Middleton-in- are settling down to breed after We are now into the period when I flower spectacle that they most look Teesdale, there M establishing their nesting unexpected rare species can turn up forward to in spring, many would are open fields territories and now we are enjoying the virtually anywhere, making late April and nominate the bluebells that carpet full of bluebells first sightings and sounds of the May so exciting. These are often birds woodlands. From the next two weeks the where there traditional later arrivals. These have which have overshot intended southern annual azure display will be at its best. It’s once must have included a cuckoo at Lockwood Beck and European destinations, or which have been not just the sight of these graceful wild been woodland. grasshopper warblers beginning their drifted westwards by winds to arrive along flowers that brings pleasure, it’s the scent Further south, strange reeling songs from hiding places, the east coast instead of being in northern too. The hyacinth-like fragrance that at Kisdon hill in in thick aquatic cover across the region. or Eastern Europe. Last week’s red-rumped hangs in the air between the trees on cool, Swaledale, the Many more yellow wagtails have also swallow at Rainton was a classic example. still spring mornings is one of the great treeless north slopes host a sea of appeared. Since then a short-toed lark, which should sensory experiences of the season. bluebells that can be seen from a mile After a rather slow start, swallows have have been in a Mediterranean breeding These flowers can also provide an echo of distant. become much more prominent, area, has appeared at Burniston. Black lost landscapes. If you stand amongst the In recent years concern has grown about particularly after the fine Easter weekend. terns at Saltholme, Heslington and Bolton- flowers in some of the finest bluebell the spread of cultivated Spanish bluebells I came across my first lesser whitethroat, a on-Swale were probably well off-course on habitats, like Hollingside woods that are from gardens into the countryside. This finely masked male, quietly picking off migration to marshlands around the Baltic less than a mile from Durham city centre, decorative species is much more robust insects from bursting hawthorn buds in a or further east into Russia. A wryneck at it’s not difficult to conjure up a mental than the native, with broader leaves and coastal ditch, always a sign that we’re into the Farne Islands may have been pushed image of a far distant past when tree cover upright flowers, and lacks a delicate scent. the later stage of spring arrival. I was also our way while en-route to Scandinavia. was much more extensive, before It thrives in gardens, so much so that it lucky enough to watch three large, robust However, the rarest individual to occur agriculture, industry and urbanisation can become too prolific for small plots. and very colourful cock wheatears fly- came from much further afield, North created the landscape that we live in today. Plants that are thrown out readily catching along a sea embankment. They America. This was a Franklin’s gull which Even after trees have been felled the establish in the wild and hybridise with were almost certainly birds of the flew south at Saltburn, no doubt to delight bluebells that they once sheltered can be native bluebells, producing intermediates Greenland race which pass through when and amaze those lucky enough to be sea- tenacious. In Teesdale, along the Pennine that lack the charms of either parent. our own slightly smaller wheatears are watching there on Monday.