Today's walk along the paths of the Teesdale Way is connected with my 2nd project I'm going to be working on this year. Which is a collection of walks and photograph's from along the Teesdale Way. It's something I've been thinking about doing for a while, but never seemed to get chance to do it. The Teesdale Way runs for 90 miles through some of the loveliest countryside in England, and actually passes right past our front door. I've walked sections of it hundreds of times, but on the other hand there are also bits I've never walked. Even the paths close to home, like those we explored on this walk, which when I think about it is really sad. One of the things about the Teesdale Way is that in places there are alternative routes along both side of the river. This gives several opportunities to create circular walks, exploring both sets of paths. In places though there are no paths along the river banks themselves. Sadly this was the case on today's walk, in the six miles walked, we probably only walked beside the river itself for a few hundred yards. That aside, it still was a lovely walk with great views across the top of the Vale of York, and nice to explore new areas so close to home.
Heading along the lane towards Oxen-le-fields at the start of our walk
Then out across the fields
Some snowdrops we found in the woods, the blurring of them shows how strong the wind was today
Through a short wooded section
Hmm, now which way do we head?
Tall grasses blowing in the wind
Sheena and Badger leading the way
Passing the sewage works, not the most scenic part of the walk
Then along past Stressholme Golf Course
There were plenty of people enjoying a round of golf
Can't blame them it was a gorgeous day, well apart from the strong winds!
The club house
The busy roundabout at Blands Corner
Where we were surprised to find lots of these, which looked like Lesser Celandine in full bloom and lots of them!
Blackwell Bridge, one of the fourty or so crossing points on the River Tees
This was our first view of the River Tees today
and the view downstream from the bridge
Heading into Stapleton village, with the river visible way off to our left
Part of the village green in Stapelton
A view of the distant Cleveland Hills as we walked along the quite lane towards Croft
Passing Stapelton Grange along the way
Looking for the river again, think it's in the trees at the far side of the field below us?
The views were very extensive from up here, those are the Yorkshire Dales on the far horizon
The paths were very good, if a little muddy in places
A brief glimpse of the river
Badger and Cleo looked really interested
A view of the Darlington football stadium, sadly if things stay as they are, the very last game was played there yesterday!
After a pleasant stroll along the lane the village of Croft-on-Tees comes into view
The old packhorse bridge across Clow Beck
The flood gates, which form part of the flood defences for the village
St Peter's Church
which sit's on the banks of the river
Croft Bridge, which we crossed over back onto the northern side of the river
The line of grass and twigs on the right of this photo shows how high the river level was a couple of weeks ago. It came within a few inches of going over the flood defences.
Crossing over the River Skerne, a tributary of the River Tees, which flows through the centre of Darlington
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The previous journal entry was about my 99 Red Skies project for 2012
The next journal entry is a trip to Carlton Bank to watch the sunset
See my other walks in this area My other 2012 journal entriesAll of the photograph's from this walk were taken using my Canon 5D MkII camera
© www.mywainwrights.co.uk (This page was last updated - 24 January 2012)
