Thursday 5 February 2015 – The River Rideau and Mooney’s Bay

Another cold day. Pictured above: ‘Waiting for Waxwings’.

Exhausted after plumbing problems (beware anyone who invites us in – your convenience will be inconvenienced), and satiated from last night’s barbecued bison burgers (it’s traditional that once he’s sorted the plunging plumbing, Ken is sent in minus 20C to dig out the barbecue and provide the first of the year in that genre), and in the absence of Tim to give Sue a lift to Gatineau Park, Helen stayed at home and Sue and I enjoyed a 10 km ski by way of three laps of the Mooney’s Bay nicely groomed classic ski piste.

Before that, I’d wandered down to the river for a while and had discovered a lifeguard sitting out the winter in a plastic chair. Spotting me from a distance, he left his post for a while and hid behind a tree whilst I passed; perhaps he was embarrassed at having such a cushy job at this time of year due to the limited bathing opportunities.

It’s a five minute drive to Mooney’s Bay, where the piste had been freshly groomed, but the wind off the river was perishing cold. It took me a good lap (3+ km) to warm up.

Here, another lifeguard had done a bunk. We later found him shivering in the cafe, from where he was soon kicked out to resume his duties.

Then I followed another tradition, having been misled by some incorrectly labelled ‘pitted’ olives that weren’t pitted the other day. Dentist Adam shook his head and admitted there wasn’t a lot he could do, the remains of my broken tooth being likened to a tree stump.

And so the holiday continued apace…

It’ll be going so fast over the next few days that any postings are likely to be delayed or very brief. I’m sure readers won’t object.

Have a great weekend.

Wednesday 4 February 2015 – A Snowy Ski to Western Cabin

We woke to a balmy minus 8C and snow that persisted all day.

A trip to McKinstry Cabin had been planned, but after reaching P12 (Meech) at 10.30 after nearly running over an errant wild turkey, and wending our way slowly up to ridge road, we decided on a shorter option as the going in the fresh snow was very slow, albeit enjoyable.

So we turned left instead of right, along Ridge Road to the junction with trail 2. The bench situated half way along Ridge Road sometimes triggers a pause, but not today as it was loaded high with snow and afforded a view into the swirling snow storm. There’s usually a good view to the west from this prominent point on the Gatineau escarpment.

Trail 2 plunges quickly down to Western Cabin, which was empty when we arrived. However, there was already a roaring fire and the cabin soon filled up. Perhaps a better choice than the more distant McKinstry today.

Despite being perched on the edge of the escarpment, views were as limited as they had been earlier from the bench.

Today’s conditions were ideal for the backcountry ski trails, so Sue and I returned to Ridge Road along one of these, trail 9, whilst Helen wimped out by heading up trail 2. Back at the big junction where trail 2 intersects Ridge Road, we headed back down to Meech along trail 2, the climax of which is a tough descent that Sue and I had never done. In today’s conditions it was easy peasy, so we just bombed down, hardly needing our ‘snowplough’ brakes.

Trail 2 joins trail 40 for the final plunge down to Meech, where Helen is shown arriving on this still snowy day.

Our route is shown below – 11 km, with 260 metres ascent, taking a little over two hours skiing time.

Excellent.

Tuesday 3 February 2015 – The Burma Road

Temperature outside at 8 am: –22C.

We wouldn’t be going anywhere fast, especially as Sue was well exercised after last night’s yoga class with Tatiana (and Ken).

Around 10.30, the blue skies became clouded with occasional snow flurries and the temperature outside warmed up to minus 14C. That saw Sue and Helen and me (Ken works) dash off to P10 for a gentle ascent to Huron Cabin via Fortune Parkway and Ridge Road over the Khyber Pass.

Being so much later today, we found the cabin empty but warm, with the cast iron surface of the stove toasting our sandwiches (buttered on the outside and wrapped in foil) in seconds.

Outside, the birds were enjoying their feeder. That’s a Hairy Woodpecker in situ, with a Common Redpoll flying in.

We returned to P10 via trail 3, also more memorably named the Burma Road. This is one of our favourite (if not The Favourite) trails in Gatineau Park, especially after fresh snow, when the sweeping undulations make for most pleasurable skiing.

Here are Sue and I on the narrow trail before the sharp descent back to Fortune Parkway. Sue’s new jacket performed brilliantly; it’s definitely fit for purpose.

And here’s Helen at the bottom of the sometimes treacherous hill that today was benign and easy, a bit like a very easy downhill green run, perhaps?

A most pleasurable little excursion – 12.5 km, with 210 metres ascent, taking us about two and a quarter hours skiing time.

Here’s the route, etc, should anyone be interested.

Monday 2 February 2015 – A Short Walk by the River Rideau

On a day on which we heard the news of the recent death of a friend from the TGO Challenge, Jane Eggleston, our own activities seem of little consequence.
RIP Jane; we enjoyed our encounters with you on the Challenge, at the reunions, and most memorably on a TGO readers’ trip to the Taurus Mountains and Cappadoccia.

Today’s cold weather and wind driven snow deterred us from donning our skis. Instead, we enjoyed an hour’s walk from our front door when the snow eventually stopped falling, enjoying the woods next to the Rideau River. Today’s pictures are from that 3.5 km walk.



Before that, we popped into town to get a refund from Mountain Equipment CoOp for some cyclists’ shoe protectors that I thought had worn out but which MEC considered faulty. The money (and the rest!) was well spent on a new pair of trail shoes that I’ll write about separately. Sue refused to miss out on the retail therapy and having forgotten to bring the RAB Vapour Rise jacket that she always uses for skiing, purchased a RAB Strata Hoodie from Trailhead for that purpose. We’ll soon find out whether it’s any good. It’s the first time we’ve seen RAB products being sold over here – they usually serve as a good ‘GB’ label.

Our ‘lost luggage’ saga re-ignited today with calls from Air Canada, who now seem quite anxious (after three days) to reunite us with the luggage that we collected from them on Saturday evening. They obviously haven’t noticed it went missing on Saturday, when my offer to sign for it was declined. Sue is busy adding another paragraph to the letter of complaint.

Sunday 1 February 2015 – A Trip to Huron Cabin

We tried to get a leisurely start. Ken left to enjoy a 30 km skate along the Rideau Canal, and Sue and Helen and I went to ‘Parking Lot’ P7 from where Trail 30 rises to join Trail 1 (Ridge Road), along which you can ski as far as the Fire Tower, some 20 km away. Ken did that yesterday.

Fresh from their journey in a warm car, my hands were warm enough to take the following picture.

It was a beautifully sunny day, but perishing cold, so the camera didn’t come out again until we reached Huron Cabin after 6.5 km, as my heavy gloves are too bulky for operating it.

There weren’t many people about, and the wood burning stove had only just been lit, so the cabin was disappointingly cool, and our carefully prepared sandwiches struggled to toast on the cast iron surface.

Here’s the view from a cabin window, and Sue and Helen are pictured above before after we had left its improving warmth.

It was a pleasure to see a variety of birds – finches, woodpeckers, tits, etc, as well as red squirrels, enjoying the reinstated bird feeders in Gatineau Park. We mentioned last year that the feeders had been taken away as they were regarded as inappropriate to the natural environment in which it was felt the wildlife should fight to survive without human assistance. The backlash resulted in the feeders being surreptitiously returned to their previous positions outside the cabins.

Having arrived via Ridge Road’s Khyber Pass, we left via Champlain and Fortune Parkways, at the junction of which I’m pictured below. It really was very cold. Or am I going soft in my old age?

Then it was down to re-join Ridge Road at Gossip’s Corner, where nobody was pausing to gossip today. There were a few more folk about as we returned to the car park along the narrower Ridge Road track.

Here’s the sign at the car park. No wonder my hands and feet felt cold.

My Garmin gadget indicated 13 km with about 200 metres ascent, taking us about two hours plus the time spent in the cabin. Here’s the downloaded data, from which you can get a perspective on where we are, etc.

It was lovely to get warm again.

I forgot to mention – the man from Air Canada who told us our bags were with their delivery agent lied to us. We eventually picked them up from the airport ourselves late last night.

Saturday 31 January 2015 – The National Gallery of Canada

Here’s Sue’s take on Saturday’s journey:

“Waking to a white world at 5.15am we thought we were in for a tough day travelling to Ottawa, particularly after yesterday's chaos at Manchester airport. The taxi, booked for 5.45, arrived at 6.15, due to slow road conditions. Our seats, booked on the 8.50 shuttle to Heathrow, were changed to the 7.55 shuttle, which was already there. All good we thought. Boarding saw us on the plane at 7.45 and ready to go. The pilot had other information (thick snow on the wings was a bit of a give away!) and soon explained that we needed de-icing before leaving, and that we were in the queue for the one de-icing vehicle. We eventually took off at 9.45 for the 35-minute flight, fairly confident that we'd make our 12.05 connection to Ottawa.

Others weren't so lucky, and the 8.50 flight was cancelled.

A lengthy journey between terminals 5 and 2 on a bus, lifts, escalators and travelators got us to the gate at 11.30, just as an announcement was made that the plane had a water leak and there would be at least a 1.5 hour delay! We finally took off in a replacement plane at 2.05pm and were transported 'over the pond' (and the beautiful, snowy southern tip of Greenland) in 8 hours, arriving in Ottawa just as the sun was setting, at 5pm. Unfortunately, our wait at the luggage carousel was unproductive - our luggage was still at Heathrow (despite over 3 hours having been available during which to transfer it). Clutching our consolation Air Canada toilet bags, we jumped into the waiting car, disappointed that skiing would be postponed until at least Sunday. Helen did make us feel better by telling us that, with wind chill, the temperature on Saturday was forecast to be minus 34C, perhaps a little too cold for skiing anyway!

So, we're now at Ken and Helen’s home in Ottawa, refreshed from a good night's sleep, considering what to do today....”

Amazingly, we had slept until 7.45, despite the five hour time difference that makes that 12.45 in Timperley. It was a lovely sunny day, but cold outside. Ken left for a 40 km training ski (he’s doing the Canadian Ski Marathon next weekend) from P7 to the Fire Tower beyond McKinstry cabin, leaving me, Sue and Helen to enjoy a lazy morning before tripping into town to the art gallery, where Sue and Helen are pictured above underneath the Maman near the gallery’s entrance.

The gallery is housed in a magnificent building, with views up to the Parliament buildings.

From level two you look down on this quadrangle which looks as if it might have been designed by Escher.

The gallery’s current special attraction is an M C Escher exhibition. Brilliant.

Here’s one of Escher’s most famous works, Relativity (1953), a poster of which I remember being displayed in our house for many years. It was good to see the original on display,albeit it seemed smaller than our poster.

There’s much else to see in the gallery, and a good cafe for lunch, so we managed to spend our day with no luggage satisfactorily productively, before driving home past thousands of skaters on the Rideau Canal.

However, whilst our luggage arrived in Ottawa at around 3pm, and we are only ten minutes from the airport, Air Canada say they have given it to delivery agents and have no idea when that delivery will be made. Until the luggage arrives, we have no means of transferring photos to this computer, so this and the previous posting will be sent after it eventually arrives.

Meanwhile, I suppose I should start composing my letters of complaint to both British Airways and Air Canada.

Greenland

Here’s a picture taken by Sue on Friday afternoon from our temporary living room window. It was a lovely sunny day, if a bit chilly outside.

But we didn’t venture out!

A Rare Sight in Timperley

We woke today to a rainy morning, but long after Sue had departed for work, the darkness subsided and so apparently did the temperature.

The rain turned to snow, giving me this rare view from the study window.

I couldn’t go out as I was waiting for a Special Delivery, but once that had arrived, and the snow had stopped, I ventured out – making the mistake of wearing trainers, which soon became waterlogged in the slush.

After slithering up to the canal towpath, I wondered whether it may have been better to travel by bike today, as the snow was melting fast.

However, the sky was clearing and the temperature was dropping. The slush was very cold as I trotted past Walton Park.

Here’s the view from Marsland Bridge. When I get time I’ll have to play with this image and make it black and white and green.

Whilst I was out, many trams passed me on their way to and fro from Altrincham. Quite a surprise as the slightest bit of bad weather often halts them (or am I being cynical?).

It would have been good to experience some nice crisp creaky snow, rather than the slush which is currently in the process of freezing. Perhaps we’ll have to go elsewhere to find that…

Monday 26 January 2015 – A Rivington Ramble

It had been a while since I’d seen Alan R, so it was good to meet up at short notice in Rivington. Viv and Neil had spotted the ‘short notice’ event and it was good to have their company as well. Alan has had a bad knee for some time, so this amble was intended as part of his recuperation. I think it worked.

Viv and I had a very easy drive from Timperley, leaving us with a leisurely forty minutes to enjoy coffees at the Lower Barn. Travelling similar distances from north Manchester, and setting off from home at the same time as we did, Neil and Alan had less success with the heavy traffic. Anyway, there was no hurry, and by 10.45 we were heading off to the Upper Barn and along the rising track to the ‘Pigeon Tower’.

Built in 1910, and with Lady Leverhulme's sewing room on the top floor, it was renovated in 1974 and re-roofed in 2005. (That’s at least the third time I’ve written those words on these pages – one day perhaps I’ll be able to actually remember these facts!)

On the pleasant but overcast January morning we continued on to Rivington Pike Tower, situated on a knoll at 363 metres, a hunting lodge built in 1733. Unfortunately, access to the interior of the lodge and its spacious cellar is not available to plebs. The steps are well constructed and convenient, though Alan’s knee preferred the grass.

The high point around here, familiar to all who use the M61 motorway, is Winter Hill and the array of masts that adorn its summit. It wasn’t on today’s itinerary, but as you can see below, there’s a well worn and rather boggy route from the Tower to the 456 metre Hill. The first mast was put up in the 1950s, and they have been replaced and added to since then. The hill is also the site of Bronze Age burials (1600 to 1400BC), the graves of two sons of King Edgar (1097 – 1107) [it was formerly known as Edgar Hill], an 1838 murder, and several air crashes and UFO sightings. More here.

A cool wind at the Tower didn’t stop us noshing some cake, before ambling back down to the woodland of Lever Park, a designed landscape between the open moorland and the chain reservoirs which incorporates the village and buildings of Rivington into the overall design and is "one of the largest and most impressive examples of landscape design in Edwardian England". It is of national importance and historical significance but has been neglected and has deteriorated. Situated on the east bank of the Lower Rivington reservoir, the park is named after William Lever, Lord Leverhulme, who bought the estate in 1900 and donated 364 acres  of land to the people of his native Bolton as a public park. Lever was allowed to continue with plans to lay out Lever Park at his own expense, and he maintained it during his lifetime. The park opened in 1904 and contained a boating lake, a zoo, tree-lined avenues and a network of footpaths. Rivington Castle, a folly, was built as a scale replica of Liverpool Castle at Coblowe Hillock near the Lower Rivington Reservoir. There’s not so much as a bench on which to enjoy your cuppa.

The castle overlooks the Lower Rivington Reservoir. Wikipedia reports that Rivington was dramatically changed by the construction of the Anglezarke, Upper Rivington, Lower Rivington and Yarrow reservoirs which were built to provide Liverpool with a safe, clean water supply. Nine properties in the valley were demolished before construction work began. The Rivington Pike Scheme, still in use today, was undertaken between 1850 and 1857. The scheme was to construct five reservoirs and a water treatment works at the south end of Lower Rivington with a 17-mile (27 km) pipeline to storage reservoirs at Prescot. Water from two higher level reservoirs, Rake Brook and Lower Ruddlesworth, was carried south in The Goit, a man-made channel connecting them to the lower reservoirs. The scheme was expanded in 1856, to include High Bullough Reservoir, built in 1850 to supply water to Chorley. The scheme was further expanded by the construction of the Upper Roddlesworth Reservoir in 1867–75 . Work on Yarrow Reservoir began in 1867.

In 1900 Liverpool Corporation attempted to acquire the entire area to safeguard its water supply, and proposed to demolish the entire village. Some buildings were protected and others left vulnerable in an Act of Parliament known as the Liverpool Corporation Act 1902. This allowed the corporation to acquire by compulsory purchase properties in the west of the village, including the Black-a-Moors Head public house and the New Hall, which were demolished between 1902 and 1905. The result was the small settlement that has remained largely unchanged since then.

Here’s a view from the Castle.

Returning to the Lower Barn via the woodland path beside the reservoir, a couple of young wood mice were seen scurrying around. This one was clearly lost and disorientated. Alan kindly returned him to the home that had been revealed by his brother.

A pleasant woodland path led back to the Barn, after this pleasant and sociable outing, with shafts of sunlight greeting us at the finish.

There was plenty of time to return home for lunch, though for the forthcoming programme of three further walks, lunch will probably be taken at the end of the walks. (See below.)

There’s lots more about the history of Rivington here, and the route of our 8 km (5 mile) stroll with over 200 metres ascent, taking around 2 hours, is shown below. Alan’s excellent report, with more history from Wikipedia, is here.

Further morning walks on which all are welcome:

Thursday 19 February - The Adlington Circular Walk. Meet in the White Bear Marina cafe (SD 599 130) at 10.30 am for this 10 km (6 mile) dawdle around Adlington.

Thursday 12 March - An Irksome route to This & That. Meet at 10.30 am at Heaton Park Metro Station (SD 823 038) for a 13 km (8 miles - 3 hours) wander beside the River Irk to a curry house in Shudehill.

Thursday 23 April - Suitable for Tortoises. Meet at Bury Metro Station (SD 804 105) at 10.30 am for a muddled (perhaps muddied) route via Greenmount to the Hare and Hounds in Holcombe Brook. Approx 10 km (6 miles).

Full programme here.

Summer Holiday - 2014

I’ve recently spent a happy few hours indexing our summer holiday 2014 photos and uploading slideshows to Picasa. The set is now complete, so those wishing to dip in to our/their memories can now do so with ease from the existing index page here.

Enjoy!

24 January 2015 – Wythenshawe Parkrun Number 171

Sue and I turned out for today’s Parkrun in fairly benign conditions, though in order to avoid further destruction of the northern touchlines, Andy and Co had devised a route to the south of the football pitches. I hope we didn’t do too much damage.

We started in a different place to usual, resulting in a little congestion in ‘Holloway’s Bog’, but nobody got too badly trampled.

As Sue had pulled a muscle in between getting out of bed and being handed her early morning cuppa, she helped to marshall at a distant part of the course, and took the opportunity to snap a few of us – 18 pictures that can be viewed here.

There were just two of us in my age group. I passed Michael on the first lap, accusing him of being an old timer (he’s a couple of weeks older than me), which he told me afterwards had given him the impetus to make an adrenaline fuelled spurt on the second lap which left me for dead. Well done, Michael.

The route, which is probably about 5.1 km (Parkrun ‘wet weather’ routes are always a little longer than the normal routes) was two laps of the course shown below. Everyone seemed quite happy with it, so well done ‘management’ on coming up with this after having to cancel the run last week for fear of damaging the pitches.

Today’s 183 ‘runners’ included 77 females, a good proportion, and everyone finished within an hour, in some cases only just within an hour, which makes me think that they either had a major incident, or did they perhaps walk? “Parkwalk?”

Anyway that made for a very sociable interlude in the cafe whilst the marshalls swept up the last of the runners and collected all the signage. In fact we’ve come to spend more time in the cafe than we do on the run – that’s to some extent the nature of Parkrun.

The results are here.

PS Sunday morning had me puzzling over a photo published on Wythenshawe Parkrun’s Facebook page, taken by volunteer Bea Holloway, one of the younger members of the Holloway dynasty. I couldn’t resist including it below – Wythenshawe Park at its best on a Saturday morning. Well done Bea, I hope you don’t mind me using your little piece of magic.