A-Walking: Weardale Wiggles

The expedition today (2009-05-03) brought us back to the Weardale area. We were last here on 29th March - click here to see details of our previous 'Weardale Wander'. Today, we went further west. Our coach dropped us off at Daddry Shield {NY 895 380} and picked us up again in Allenheads {NY 859 453}. In between these locations, we visited Cowshill {NY 855 405}, Killhope Lead Mining Centre {NY 824 432}, Peasmeadows {NY 852 470} and Byerhope {NY 867 462}.

There were nine people in the group: JB, PB, RB, KF, CH, MuS, JY, PY and Michael. PB led the walk. We set off from Daddry Shield at about 11.00 am. After leaving the coach we headed back to the bridge over the River Wear. After crossing the bridge, we turned left along a narrow minor road (see picture below).


After a short westerly 'warm up' along the road beside the river, we turned north into the first major climb of the day. This took us up onto Carr Brown Moor (1500 ft) and Race Head (1925 ft). From the high ground we dropped down into Cowshill. Turning onto a north-westerly bearing, we headed for Wellhope and Weardale Forest. Here we had another good climb - up Cowhorse Hill - but not to the top! We circled around at about 1800 ft in order to reach NY 816 430 and then headed east so as to cross Killhope Burn using the bridge at the Lead Mining Centre.

After crossing the A689 at NY 824 433, we encountered our next climb. This took us up over Killhope Moor (2060 ft) and onto Allendale Common; sadly, we had to miss out Killhope Law! Our north-easterly trek across the common took us pass Dodd Reservoir (on our left) to the footbridge over the River East Allen at {NY 851 471} near Peasmeadows. We crossed the B6295 road and then faced another good climb - from the road up onto Byerhope Bank (1650 ft) {NY 861 472}.

Staying on the high ground, we now followed a south-easterly bearing in order to reach the Rookhope road at {NY 869 453}. From here, we followed a footpath in a westerly direction that took us downhill to meet the road we had just crossed! We joined the road and followed it into the centre of Allenheads (see picture below) where we met up with our coach and the other walkers.


What a great day we had: beautiful scenery, good climbs, tremendous views, gorgeous weather and,of course, wonderful company. Yet another marvellous day in Weardale.

Click the buttons below to see the GPS tracklog, the walk statistics and the photographs that we took.

  

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