It’s a couple of years since we did this particular walk, so I’d forgotten the route. I’d forgotten that we had done it before! A recce was in order, as I had no desire to get misplaced on Lindow Moss.
So, in the morning I set off on what I quickly realised was a familiar circuit. It was a lovely autumn day – I envied the friends who were spending a day in the Lake District, but I was pleased to be out in the fresh air, feeling reasonably healthy.
The hour passed quickly despite frequent pauses for snapshots.
The last time I walked this route in daylight was on 11 November 2008 – I wrote about it here – on another sunny day, but autumn was decidedly more advanced on that occasion.
I still wished I’d brought some gloves!
Recce done, I went home for lunch, then after tea I dragged Sue, exhausted from a hard day at the soon to be culled labour camp, back to the Boddington Arms, where fellow TGO Challenger Graham Brookes was lying in wait over a half of bitter. A text message provided the excuse from another regular “safely back in Kat, back home Sun, in time to see City thrash Ars”, whilst others had called in “too tired”.
So the three of us enjoyed a moonlit stroll around the same 3 mile circuit. It’s different at night. There are fewer dog walkers. Black Lake really is pretty black. Tawny Owls are quite vociferous with their ‘tuwit, tuwoo’ calls. Wood Pigeons clatter noisily from branch to branch. A few stars are visible, despite the ambient light and the bright moon, with the ‘plough’ being easily identified. The puddles that are easily avoided in daylight become man traps.
Déjà vu. 13 November 2008.
Having already reported twice on this walk, and having provided various references to both the route description and the ‘The Bodies in the Bog’ (Lindow Man), I’ll leave you now with just a few images from the morning’s stroll under a cold blue sky.
A path from the car park by the main road, next to the Boddington Arms, leads directly onto Lindow Common.
Paths criss-cross the common, but we make a bee line for Black Lake, where mallards rule the roost today.
Leaving the Common, after crossing Racecourse Road and bounding down Lindow Lane, we turn left down Rotherwood Road.
Doubling back along Moor Lane, roses grace the hedgerow, even in mid-October.
A carrion crow lurks above, eagerly scanning the scene for titbits.
The tarmac ends, and a field path leads past mole hills and through a kissing gate to another world.
It’s the peat bog – Lindow Moss. Peat is cut here for domestic garden use. This scene from the raised pathway through the Moss shows where Lindow Woman and Lindow Man (the Bodies in the Bog) were found in 1983.
After only about ten minutes, a footbridge provides means of release from the unexpected landscape, back onto a country lane and past an old sandpit that is now a giant aquarium (Rossmere Lake).
Newgate Lane now leads gently back to Lindow Common and the car park, to conclude this gentle outing.
No comments:
Post a Comment