purplecat: Scene from The Prisoner.  Everyone in multi-coloured capes. (The Prisoner)
I never posted the photos I took when we were in Portmeirion for Christmas.

So please find them below the cut. )
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
While B. and I are not habitual Scottish mountain climbers, we have both climbed a fair few in our time. In fact I had climbed Ben Nevis as a teenager with my father. So we, broadly speaking, feel we know what we are doing when it comes to mountains. The various guide books and websites warned of unexpectedly bad weather at the summit, and the possibility of falling off a cliff to your death in the mist, and advised taking survival gear, first aid kits, spare clothing and numerous other items up the mountain.

It was a Saturday in August, the world and his wife would be climbing the mountain, and the weather forecast said it would be cloudy but dry. We were pretty sure we knew what we were doing and set out with the walking gear we had taken with us all trip. We were walking up what used to be called the "The Tourist Track" but has been rebranded the Mountain Track. How hard could it be?

The World and his Wife were, indeed, climbing the mountain. Our excellent taxi driver advised starting (and ending) at the Ben Nevis Inn which made the route a little longer than starting at the Youth Hostel but with a smidgen less up. We found ourselves more or less in a queue of people going up the mountain. Occasionally energetic looking souls ran past us in the opposite direction (more of this anon). The going was steep but steady and, indeed, the Strava profile shows a steady gradient all the way up. The path alternated between gravel, paved steps, and the odd rocky patch that needed to be scrambled over. We set off just before 9am. Around 11:30 we crossed a stream below a waterfall which seemed to be giving people pause - I say "seemed" because this manifested as largish crowds either side of the stream eating sandwiches. The path then started zig-zagging up the mountain. By this time the crowd had thinned a bit, and it no longer felt like walking in a queue.

It was when we walked into the cloud covering the top of the mountain that things began to get a bit trying. The wind picked up and the non-existent rain started out as "Scottish Mist", upgraded to drizzle and then began to rain in earnest. The visibility slowly got worse until we couldn't even see the next cairn from the current one, and I could barely see at all because of the rain on my glasses. We passed someone lying on the path in an orange survival bag, surrounded by anxious friends. Around this point, it occurred to me that I didn't have a survival bag and should I slip and twist an ankle, I'd be stuck two thirds of the way up Britain's highest mountain, in a rain storm in only the clothes I was wearing until such time as Mountain Rescue arrived.

It got colder. The wind picked up.

We reached the top at midday. B. suggested I have lunch. "I don't want lunch, I just want to leave!" I said. The rain was cold and I was losing feeling in my hands, because I'd foolishly come without gloves (though B. said his gloves, once wet, didn't help much).

I did take a photo )

We headed back down as the weather got dramatically worse. The wind became a gale. The rain almost, but not quite, became hail. I lost all feeling in my fingers which were gripped around my walking sticks. I could barely see. As B. noted, it was a good job the World and his Wife were climbing the mountain since even if we couldn't walk from cairn to cairn, we could walk to the next person.

I don't think I've ever been on the summit of Ben Nevis when one could actually see what the terrain was like but some googling tells me that it looks like this.

Ben Nevis Summit )

Anyway, we didn't fall off and the weather slowly improved as we descended. The person in the orange survival bag was gone. The details were a bit unclear but it sounded, from the gossip around us, that they had been stretchered off the mountain - possibly to be collected by the helicopter that we heard for a long time before we could see it, hovering above the path.

Mountain Rescue Helicopter )

Once out of the clouds it honestly wasn't that bad. It wasn't raining. It got gradually warmer. Feeling returned to my hands. We were both very tired once we got back to the Ben Nevis Inn which served an excellent bitter and where I, finally, ate my lunch.

As we left the inn in another taxi, Mountain Rescue were once again unloading stretchers to head back up the mountain. The taxi driver told us that there is a race up the mountain a the start of September and Mountain Rescue are always particularly busy that day. It took us around 7.5 hours to get up and down the thing, the running record is just over an hour and twenty minutes.

I hope, on any other mountain, we'd have given up about half an hour into the mist and rain. The only thing that made this remotely safe was the sheer number of people on the mountain. If I had needed a survival bag, them someone nearby would have had one, and a walkie talkie. Even so, it was a salutary lesson in not taking Scottish mountains for granted.

On the plus side, adding in Ben Nevis (just over 5 miles up and 5 miles down), meant we topped 100 miles walked for the trip and B, who had never been up Ben Nevis before, got to tick it off his bucket list.
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
We left Kinlochleven up a steep path which the guide book described as being almost as high as the Devil's Staircase but a less good path. It was honestly OK and we got nice views of Kinlochleven as we left.

More included photos under the cut )
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
This was the shortest leg of the trip and the weather forecast had been consistently unpromising. However by Wednesday night, it was beginning to look like the worst of the rain would be done by midday and since we didn't have to checkout until 11am we opted to remain in our infeasibly large room (admittedly without much of the luggage) until 11am.

It was raining pretty steadily as we left. The first hour was spent walking more or less alongside the A82 through Glencoe. Then, just as the rain began to ease off, we swung right and began to climb out of the glen up the Devil's staircase (which even the guide book admitted was not as bad as it sounded).

More and photos under the cut )
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
Knowing we were about to embark on the longest section of the way, we left Tyndrum early. We'd hoped to be gone by 8am, but in the event it was closer to 8:30am. Fortunately the whole leg was on good paths - often wide enough for a Land Rover or similar. The weather promised to be clear, which was a relief, and indeed we had almost perfect walking weather - not too hot with blue skies - for what promised to be the most spectacular part of the walk.

More, including photos, under the cut )
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
The American group we had been playing leapfrog with on day 2 reached the Ardlui hotel an hour after we did - in fact we saw them coming down the hill as the ferry left. They walk faster than us, but take longer breaks. We went back to the east side of the lake with them the following morning though the ferry was delayed because "Jerry" wasn't ready. We sat in the boat, in the rain, while people tried texting and phoning Jerry to tell him to get a shift on or they would leave without him. We didn't see a lot of them after that, except for a brief glimpse around lunchtime when two of them were waiting for a third who had been delayed on the path. Just as we were wondering if something had gone wrong, she turned up, annoyed that they hadn't continued without her since she had sent a text.

Anyway, it rained all day - not so many photos since extracting the phone from waterproof locations was a pain.

The first couple of miles (which were part of the previous leg) took us away from Loch Lomond over a rise and then down the other side to Inverarnan. From there we followed the River Falloch up past many waterfalls, on a path that varied from one person wide, to something that was clearly an access route to a hydro station.

Photos of waterfalls )

A "sheep squeeze" - not as low and narrow as the guide book led us to believe - took us under a railway. We then went under the road that goes from Loch Lomond to Crianlarich and, from there, into the Highlands. I am familiar with this road from many holidays on the Ardnamurchan Peninsula as a teenager. We then climbed into a large plantation of trees that took us up and down a fair bit as we skirted Crianlarich. Then back down again, across the road once more and through some farmland where I saw my first (and so far only) Highland Cow.

Photos under the cut )

It was, by this point, about 3pm and the rain was finally easing off. The way ambled over and along the river, back alongside the village of Tyndrum, back across the road, back over the river and across the road once more to the Green Welly Stop (which is, honestly, a glorified service station but one which I had fond teenage memories of). Next to the Green Welly Stop was the Tyndrum Inn, a basic hotel very much geared to walkers, where we stayed the night.

It wasn't, to be honest, as hard a day as the walk around Loch Lomond, but it had been long with over 600m of ascent, mostly in the rain and were pretty tired. Finding that some websites mysteriously didn't work on our computers (though they did on our phones) didn't help - we've since worked out that the hotel must have been maintaining a white list, but that this was circumvented by the university VPN running on our phones.

Medical TMI about feet )
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
We were woken in the night to the sound of thunder and torrential rain. It had eased off a little by the time we set off just before 9am, but the weather forecast predicted rain until midday.

At this point the West Highland Way offered the choice between the traditional low path and a high path, put in place at some point when the low path "became dangerous". The guide book was full of statements like "This final section up Loch Lomond has a somewhat fearsome reputation" and suggested the high path was easier. Given our issues with age-related decrepitude the day before, we opted for the high path. This was a wide gentle upward slope following the path of the old military road which carried the red coats into the Highlands to suppress the Scots. A bonus advantage was that this meant we could carry umbrellas instead of sticks. Occasionally we got glimpses across Loch Lomond when the mist rose above sea level.

More including photos under the cut )
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
The day began with the first big ascent of the walk up Conic Hill (1,107 feet, 310m). This was mostly through wooded plantation but eventually this opened out onto traditional Scottish wide open hill country with views of Loch Lomond.

More, including pictures, under the cut )
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
A good walking day. Mostly clear, but cool with only a few spots of rain. We walked the 12 miles from Milngavie (pronounced Mull-guy) to Drymen (pronounced Drimmen) in a little over 5 hours, which necessitated then spending an hour and a half in a pub waiting for the B&B to open. The walking was pretty gentle, on good paths, though the final section was along a road which was quite dull.
photos under the cut )
purplecat: The family on top of Pen Y Fan (General:Walking)
We are in Glasgow. But not at Worldcon.

Tomorrow we head north on foot.

TBH, if I'd been paying more attention when B. decided he didn't want a family holiday in Japan I could probably have combined the walk with Worldcon, but I wasn't, so here we are.
purplecat: Scene from The Prisoner.  Everyone in multi-coloured capes. (The Prisoner)
On Thursday we awoke to bright blue skies and snow on the mountains. There had been some discussion on Wednesday about whether we should, perhaps, leave the village at least once during our stay. B. was initially keen on the idea of a steam train but then cooled when it occurred to him that this would mostly be spending three hours on a train. However, by this point Marmalade Sparrow had been told about the possibility of a steam train and was strongly in favour of it and against the alternative option of a castle. After a bit of negotiation we decided to ride from Porthmadog (near the village) up to Blaenau-Festiniog (the place has one F but the railway has two. I got the impression that the railway's additional F was some kind of publicity move to emphasise its welshness). Anyway we enjoyed the journey, though there is not, frankly, a great deal to do or see in Blaenau - but it got us up to the snow line so B. could touch actual snow. The views from the train were lovely but we would probably have been just as happy though if it had taken an hour less time!

Pictures under the cut )
purplecat: Scene from The Prisoner.  Everyone in multi-coloured capes. (The Prisoner)
We are on a short break in Portmeirion, mostly dodging the weather while trying to complete our respective dissertation projects and grant rebuttals.

Pictures under the cut )

Wroxeter

Sep. 17th, 2023 02:02 pm
purplecat: Averbury Stone Circle.  A large stone close by and smaller markers leading away. (General:Prehistory)

View of low stone ruins with an upright wall on the right and a Roman down house with a colonnade and yellow upper storey beyond.


The village of Wroxeter occupies one corner of the Roman city of Viroconium Cornoviorum. English Heritage has preserved an excavation of the substantial baths, next to a modern recreation of a Roman town house. Most of the baths, as is common with Roman remains, had clearly been covered by the landscape but "The Old Work" must have stood visible in arable land and one can't help feeling that the nearby residents of Shrewsbury missed a trick when they didn't loot it for building material.

Pictures under the Cut )
purplecat: Hand Drawn picture of a Toy Cat (Default)
We walked along the Montgomery Canal twice during our holiday - once going north from Welshpool and once south.

Pictures under the Cut )
purplecat: Averbury Stone Circle.  A large stone close by and smaller markers leading away. (General:Prehistory)
On our final day we walked from Chollerford to Heddon-on-the-Wall. There wasn't a great deal of wall left to be seen now we had come down from the hillier parts.


Stretch of wall alongside a path that goes under trees.

The remains of a square turret.
This was our last turret - just after Chollerford. It's more exciting when you are coming in the other direction and it is your first turret.

A low stretch of Hadrian\'s Wall in a field.

View of a field with undulating ridges showing where ditch and vallum were.
Although there is no wall visible here - the ditch and vallum have left their mark on the landscape visible even after 1900 years.


We got to Heddon-on-the-Wall in good time to meet [personal profile] sir_guinglain for dinner in a pub. We didn't actually visit the wall at Heddon until the next morning.


Longish stretch of low wall next to a fence.

Selfie showing the wall next to a fence behind me.

Then we went home.
purplecat: Averbury Stone Circle.  A large stone close by and smaller markers leading away. (General:Prehistory)
Chesters is probably the most impressive of the Hadrian's Wall forts simply because it has walls that are in many places a good deal higher than the foot or so you see elsewhere.


B peering out from under a stone are.  Stone steps lead down to it between walls.
A store room.

Low walls showing rectangular rooms.

B standing in the entrance to a square building.  It has no roof but the walls reach up above his head.


The bath house complex by the river is particularly impressive.

A semi-circular room with high walls and stone benches around the edge.
I think this is the hot steam room - presumably a bit like a sauna.

A stone wall with small arched openings.
These were the lockers where you put your clothes before entering the complex.

Looking down on roofless stone walled buildings leading down to the river.
purplecat: Averbury Stone Circle.  A large stone close by and smaller markers leading away. (General:Prehistory)
Day 5 was a ridiculously short walk. The intention had been to take a side-walk down to Corbridge as part of the day's walking, but I'd made a mistake and the side-walk left the main path close to Heddon-on-the-Wall (at the end of the Day 6 planned walk) not close to Chollerford (the end of the Day 5 walk). In the event therefore, even taking things slowly we were in Chollerford by lunch time.


Straight and flat stretch of Hadrians Wall


One of the places we lingered - or at least lingered as much as one can really, when viewing a stone building in a field, was a Temple to Mithras close to our B&B at the start of the day.

Rectangular low walls.  At the far side a pathway leads in at an entrance.  Small stone markers form an aisle down the centre of the building.
Top of a stone altar with pennies and a small bracelet left in it.
B. stands next to three upright stones at the end of the building.
All the carved stones were, in fact, reproductions. The originals were in the museum at Chester fort.
B. behind the three large stones at the end looking as if he's about to nick something from the altar.


Once we got to Chollerford and deposited our back-packs at the hotel where we had upgraded our room to a luxury suite - largely because they offered such an upgrade as part of some weird pretend auction - anyway we got it for £9. We went to see the footings of the Roman bridge across the Tyne opposite Chesters (we also visited Chesters but I'll do that as a separate post). This wasn't in the guide-book for the walk for some reason so we'd missed it last time around. The Tyne has moved so the bridge footings are now some distance from the river.
Cut for Roman Graffiti which I hesitate to call obscene since the Roman's thought it was a symbol of good luck. )

Despite being called Chollerford - there was a bridge.

Arched bridge over a river.

Housteads

Jan. 29th, 2023 03:06 pm
purplecat: Averbury Stone Circle.  A large stone close by and smaller markers leading away. (General:Prehistory)
Housteads main claim to fame as a wall fort is the excellent preservation of its latrines. However, in celebration of 1900 years of Hadrian's Wall it had acquired a controversial art installation in the form of a colourful gatehouse decorated with comments from workshop sessions on the Wall. B. and I quite liked it but could see that if this was your only visit to Housteads you might not have wanted the whole thing dominated by a mock gatehouse.


The gatehouse from the side as it straddles the wall of the fort.  Scaffolding is visible with a sloping roof with no covering on the framework.  Colourful boards in pinks, greens, reds and blues are visible.  Particularly dominant is a rectangular board with a pattern made up of black, yellow, blue and green triangles.  Some of the panes have text on them but the resolution isn't really good enough to read them.  On says STOP in yellow on a red background.  Another says DOGS in blue on a green background.
B admires the gatehouse from within the fort.  It has two turrets either side of the main entrance which consists of two arches in yellow, pink and red stripes.  Small arched windows are visible on the second storey and the pointed turret roofs are in yellow and orange.  More colourful boards decorate the sides.  Most of the signs are too small to read, but one says Freedom in red on a yellow background.
As above though B is now grinning at the camera.
Looking down from above on the wall of the fort and Hadrian's Wall stretching from its corner out across the fields.
This is the view from up within the gate house.
Looking down on the fort itself.  Low walls show the remains of blocky buildings.
A long room with low stone walls.  The centre contains two stone basins and there is a channel in the floor around them.
The latrines.
A sign post points back along Hadrian's Wall to the fort.  The mock gatehouse is very visible.
purplecat: Averbury Stone Circle.  A large stone close by and smaller markers leading away. (General:Prehistory)
Day 4 our our walk started from our Hotel, The Twice Brewed Inn at Once Brewed.


B standing inside a metal structure shaped like a beer bottle with a union jack flying out the top.  An image in black and white a Roman Soldier is on the front like a beer label and it has a space cut out for you to stick your head through for photos of you as the bottle label.  B. is doing this.


We then took a detour to Vindolanda. A large roman fort slightly off the wall which is owned by a private trust, not English Heritage and has an active dig on site, plus museum, tea house, fake roman temple and all the works. Strangely I didn't take many photos.


Flagged walkway in between the remains of stone buildings.  Walls are about 2 feet high.
This is the main entrance way to the fort proper.

Small leader mouse in a display case.  The legend reads: Leather Mouse.  This small piece of leather was found in a bag of offcuts and scraps.  The maker has shaped it into an animal, most likely a mouse.  It could have been a toy or practical joke due to its realistic size and shape.  Small cuts have been made to the surface of the object to represent fur and eyes.


After that we went back up to the wall to walk to our next B&B. Our walk included Sycamore Gap made famous by Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (albeit the film locates it somewhere between Dover and Nottingham). When we came past previously there was no one there but this time it was full of people having picnics in the sun. This is not terribly surprising since it is a short walk from one of the main car parks on the wall, if anything it was odd that we didn't see people the previous time, but I think we came past much earlier in the day. We had noticed the last time a small sycamore in a circular stone enclosure, presumably being grown to replace the big one at some point. We were sad to see this time that the enclosure had been dismantled and the baby tree was nowhere to be seen.


Large sycamore standing next to Hadrian's Wall
This angle was very carefully chosen so as not to show picnickers.

Hadrian's Wall under a blue sky, leading down a gentle slope and then up the next one.

B standing atop Hadrian's Wall with a gate behind him and a tree to his right.  The wall here has grass growing on the top with a narrow worn path in the centre.
In the walk up to Housteads Fort (more on which anon) there is a stretch of wall you are "allowed" to walk on.

purplecat: Averbury Stone Circle.  A large stone close by and smaller markers leading away. (General:Prehistory)
Birdoswald was our first fort on the walk. We'd skipped viewing it last time because we reached it at the absolute low point in our walk, where it looked like B's knees were going to give out, I had terrible blisters and when we stopped in the tea room they gave us squirty cream with our scones and jam.

The tea room and visitor centre had been renovated in the intervening years (though we didn't risk the scones). There was a nice short film about Hadrian's wall as well as Lego models of turrets, milecastles, curtain wall and a Roman Bridge together with (albeit sketchy) instructions. I've photographed these, though I haven't yet built Hadrian's wall myself.


B stand next to what looks like a bit of Hadrian's Wall but is, in fact, the wall of a fort.
To be honest, the forts later in the walk have more to see, but we could still follow the outline of the fort's walls.

A grand victorian building with square tower amid trees.  Low remains of walls just visible in front of it.
What Birdoswald does have is a 18th/19th century farmhouse (complete with mock tower) in the middle of it. I thought it was a youth hostel and had looking into booking us a night there, but it turned out to be more a holiday house kind of thing - easy enough to book if there are 10 of you wanting to stay for a week - less attractive if it is two of you wanting to stay for the night.

B standing next to some wall.  He is hitting a large silver thing that looks a bit like a giant metal lyre with curved downward facing bowls where the strings would be.  He is hitting it with a small red hammer attached to it with string.
I think this was supposed to be some kind of Roman instrument. It was located at the far entrance of the fort.

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