Another post in the series: “To walk 30 walks of the West Pennines.”

Off to the Two Brooks

from Jumbles Country park yet again.

Until this year I had scarcely heard of the Two Brooks and yet on this Saturday morning at 9:31 a.m. yet again I headed down the steep path at the southern edge of the Jumbles reservoir in order to seek them out. I did have assistance though, the West Pennines Outdoor leisure path (waterproof don’t you know!), my Ipad with numerous Ordnance Survey mapping ‘apps’ installed, a mobile phone with “What three words” installed, a couple of printouts of sections of the walk, oh and of course the book Walking on the West Pennine Moors by Terry Marsh…with his piddling little map! So, should not go wrong with that assortment of aids then?

I took a steadily muddying path along the higher reaches of Bradshaw Bottoms passing Bradshaw Fisheries – who knew they had a café? Then made my way up to the main A676 Bradshaw Road and crossed onto Slack Lane. Although I’d never set more than two footsteps on this path it felt oddly familiar, still when I lived not far away from here I had walked along the main road a number of times, I don’t know why as it’s really busy. I knew this path would lead me straight up in a northerly direction to the tiny village of Affetside and so stayed calm when various offshoots and turn-offs were presented to me. Eventually the track gave way to a more bridal path type of surface and then onto well a sodden grassy field – the book had said ‘follow the line of electricity pylons’ so that’s what I did and soon enough met with the Millennium Green at Affetside where I nearly went a-over-t on the wooden boards, by now my boots were now caked in mud. It mattered not, this village is one of my favourite places on earth.

I crossed Watling Street, I’m not sure how many streets Affetside has, it could be one which just changes name every so often, and towards the back of the ‘staff’ car park at the ‘Pack Horse Country Inn’ where my jaw dropped to the ground upon me witnessing the amazing Holcombe skyline in all its glory.  Video and jpegs do not do this spectacle justice at all, it’s out of this world. A few moments later I was dropping (almost literally – damn wet cobbles) down towards Turton Road (there are a couple of those around here) and the southern edge of Hawkshaw. Upon reaching the road I opted to stick with the path I had derived from my few hours of research on Bing and o/s maps as opposed to Terry’s fiddly this path, then that path, approach which I find too confusing to follow ‘on the ground’. I took the first right hand turn and followed the tarmac drive around to a natural end next to a ‘visitors’ map’ map type of sign.  There was a certain ‘angry animals’ presence redolent as a black ram was all too happy to proclaim its masculinity to all who would listen and  ‘Daisy’ the cow ( I overheard a worker trying to calm her down) was seemingly stuck in ‘lowing’ mode – and making a right racket I can tell you. The path downhill was steep, and wet. I spied the first Chimney – a highlight of the walk, in a field several vertical and lateral metres in the distance and also a warning sign on my right hand side advising me of the path’s steepness and of the need to grasp hold of the handrail – which was festooned with Brambles, I would not be holding onto that! Into the Sylvanian valley I went, and it all started to feel a bit Blair Witch.

Process downhill was a mixture of really slow and really fast! This was certainly a path of the more ‘organic’ type – flattened leaves to be honest and every-so-often there was the odd slippery patch. This was not my usual environment at all! I was lucky enough to bump (not literally) into a couple of bird watchers fascinated by a reporting of Teals seen in the area, and  I asked  them for the way towards Hawkshaw via the driest path and was advised that I was already on it. It wasn’t too difficult to follow the path around to Two Brooks Lane which is tarmac- and grease after receiving a prolonged drenching over autumn and winter.  The map had indicated a tennis court on route, on the ground this was out of sight, this is the problem with digital o/s maps – you forget to observe the contour lines, if I had been banking on these being landmark cues I would have come up short in my preparations. Thankfully I didn’t get lost and within five minutes was on the A676 Ramsbottom Road…heading towards, well nowhere in particular. Essentially this is the continuation of Bolton’s Tonge Moor Road – two-and-a-half-miles later!

All too soon I had reached my turn-off point to take me up onto what I am going to assume is Hawkshaw Moor although the o/s maps don’t disclose that bit of info! I had made the mistake of noticing a couple walking up the same rambling track as me…and naturally assumed that they were going to the same destination. Why? I was intent on heading to Turton Bottoms from here, why did I assume that so was everyone else? I will learn. Having inadvertently played catch-up with the couple it was only after around twenty minutes that I noticed the male kept taking something out from behind his back and referring to it – essentially this was either a map or a book, my newfound assumption? They were lost too! FFS!

And so began around thirty – forty minutes of attempting to retrace my footsteps whilst retaining as much energy as possible. We never realise we are lost at the top of an incline do we – it’s always at the bottom! I managed to find a farm, desperate for someone to heed my “Hello?” yelled out to nobody! Of course this was the back of the farm, the front was nowhere to be seen and neither was any side, Christ how big was this farm? Nobody came out, I struggled on, trying desperately to ‘see’ an obvious path to anywhere else. I wandered past what was obviously an ancient burial mound or whatever “Round Loaf” is which served as a good indicator as to where I was. Instinct kicked in and I homed in on what looked to be a very faint ridge path over near the opposite end of the farm. There was a gap in the fence, I strode through tenuously, and here the ground was a bit more trodden than out on the open (kind of picturesque) moor.  The same thing again, another gap, another path and this one had a yellow arrow on the fence – a public footpath sign! Yay I’m saved. On entering the next marshy field I remembered Sue’s sage words from years gone by ‘Always look for the opposite style / fence’, sound advice and yes I could just about make out another exit for me and over on a nearing horizon lay – Turton Bottoms, I wish that sounded more dramatic than comedic!  It was the spire which stood out the most, I almost did a dance! I was not going to have to call any walking friend and ask for directions, woohoo!

Passing startled sheep and traversing stiles that my hips would scream about later I finally blundered on to Pallet Lane, sat down and put my iPad away – I had been using the O/S maps app to try and plot a route out of the moor – to be honest that hadn’t worked. I walked towards Turton Bottoms and said hello to two farm workers. One of the farmhands had the nerve to ask me what I had just taken off the wall, was it a stone? I demonstrated my innocence, undid my backpack and brandished my iPad, there was the very faintest of all “okay” responses. Part of me wanted to really take the high ground and wish him a good afternoon, he might have detected my sarcasm and I was in no fit condition for a fight, verbal or physical, or to flee across an A-road! To say nothing was victory in itself.

I crossed over the road as I had spied another public footpath sign and instantly realised that this was Birches Road in front of me, hence what I had just crossed was in fact Bury Road (not the A58 one!) which confirmed I was in the right area and had a pretty sound idea that I knew where I was heading. And then another Chimney popped up into view! I had seen this further back up the hill then duly forgotten all about it when being accused of stone rustling! Here it was though kind of looming over…what was the name of these quaint cottages to which I was too close to get a good photo? Pallet Cottage – yes, I remembered this name from the map, oddly enough these are now named Knots Cottage on Bing O/S maps and I didn’t think things were updated so quickly, hmm! I say these as there is definitely more than one building. The path, never any relative of ‘dry’ quickly deteriorated into the typical West Pennines slip and slide kind of affair but that was okay as there were small groups of people coming from the opposite direction whom could break my fall! One such small group were two blonde girls (sorry there is no P.C. way of describing them without seeming sexist), who were in a jovial mood and out for a ‘random wandering’ kind of walk which I had likened to mine. I did warn them about the farm-hand across the road and his wall-stealing accusations, then mocked him six-ways from Sunday and my book which had given me naff directions – to be fair it was the damn farmer putting padlocks on gates which had messed up my route. The girls gave me directions that I never asked for which included a trip to Holden’s for an ice cream. I countered that I was going to go left towards Vale Street and back over to the Jumbles. It was all nice. I met several other people in between here and the start of the path which accompanies the Bradshaw Brook to the Jumbles and even found time to stop for my lunch which was a pale Vegan imitation of a Bacon Lettuce tomato sandwich on malted bread – truly disappointing, on a bench near a bend in the brook.

I arrived back at the car at 13:25 – just short of four hours since leaving and given the thirty – forty minutes I was lost and added two miles to the walk I thought that this was a good performance for my first real uphill walk since September 21.

Summary

I like Turton. I like the fact that since the dawning of this new year I have now somewhat expanded my horizons to more than Pendle or Rivington or stay local. I hated getting lost, but, sat here in the warm (it was not cold on Saturday), with dry feet and a cup of coffee to hand I am inclined to suggest that maybe I should get lost a bit more often! There is something to be said about falling out of one’s comfort zone and thinking things through as opposed to just doing what I would normally do and follow the same path I’ve already followed countless times. They say you learn more from your mistakes than from your successes…I’m still undecided on that. I do know that I found my way off that moor and back to the car park without having to call for assistance, it was not a horrible place to be, in fact there is a growing desire to go back, to explore, to spend some quality time in that little area away from most people and with gorgeous views. The comfort to be taken from that would be to give myself time, around six hours should suffice. For now this is another walk ticked off the list of Thirty! and I have other places to visit!

 

This walk will be available to watch on my YouTube channel, but bear with me folks with 72+photos and 4 video files this is going to crash Movie Maker so I am going to have to learn how to use Adobe Premiere Pro.

 

Here’s a rather botched plotaroute map:

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