Gastro Walk? - Gastro Cycle

Date is 5th September. My brother hurt his foot last month and is still finding it painful to walk. Never mind, what an excellent excuse for a bike ride instead? Main difference is that we can walk all day before we get too knackered whereas on the bike its only three or four hours.

Anyway, we set off at about 8:45 and rode out along the main Stockport to Macclesfield road until Poynton, then took a left through the centre up the back roads to Pott Shrigley. Then left up the Brickworks - a nice steady climb. At the top, we turned right towards Rainow then left at the Highwayman pub and up again to Jenkin's chapel.

The chapel is open once a month, but not on the day we were there. I think the sign said every third Sunday in the month. We paused briefly to eat a cookie or two in preparation for the steep climb up to Pym's chair. Its that bad, I had to use the largest sprocket!

Then a long descent down into the Goyt valley. The reservoir looked quite depleted, but it is September, so when the rains start again...

Up again to the Cat and Fiddle pub on the main Macclesfield to Buxton road. Have you noticed we haven't stopped for a drink? Only makes cycling harder! Then down the long winding road to Wildboarclough. Haven't been down there for ages, and it brings back some great memories of rides in the now distant past.

Once we get to the bottom, we turn right to go to Wincle and on to Bosley Cloud then take the main road back through Macclesfield and Poynton back to Offerton. A round trip of 45 miles in about 3 hours. With some serious climbs in the ride, that's a good effort for us!

Barbie held at my brother's house. No, we didn't lug one round with us!

Proost!

Troughing in the Trough of Bowland

Monday 2nd August 2010. I'm off work for a couple of weeks and my brother has a day off. The weather forecast is not brilliant, but its probably as good as we're going to get for a while this year so what better than another barbeque?

We set off from Dunsop Bridge at about 9am and walked up the bridleway that runs next to the river. Surprising how much of our landscape is managed - most of the way up is marked by weirs, channels, pumping stations and other paraphanalia of the water industry. Which is why the path is a metalled road. Wish we'd brought the bikes!

The original route is closed whilst the eagle owls raise their young, so we have to continue on the paved path for longer than intended. The diversion doesn't take us too far out of our way though.

Once we leave the main path, however, it gets decidedly soggy under foot. To say we've had a dry summer and there are hosepipe bans all over the country, some parts are pretty wet. As we climb up to Dunsop Fell, it even starts to drizzle. Not enough to seriously consider putting a water proof on, although one of us does!

As its nearly lunchtime, we're starting to look for a good spot to barbie. Needs to be near water (preferably running), somewhere flat and out of the wind. There's a Roman road that runs from Croasdale Head over Salter Fell, and we find a small bridge over a brook. As the drizzle has cleared, we decide this is the spot - well the next one on the map seems to be next to the Whitendale River, which may mean a late lunch. Having breakfasted at 6:30am that's not the preferred option!

Anyway, the barbie is soon roaring away and the sausages cooking nicely. So it starts to rain again. What to do? The rain will surely put the barbie out! I think you'll like the solution... we used the knives out of the backpack to prop up the cardboard base of the disposable barbie; effectively creating a cover. The heat of the barbie keeps the cardboard dry in the rain and the rain stops it from catching fire! Genius, even if I say so myself.

Sausage sarnie and a bacon sarnie - douse the barbie with water from the brook and we're back on our way. Another successful Gastro Walk!

Salut!

The River Wharfe

Yesterday; a Thursday. Don't usually do mid-week as we both work. But my brother has a week off and to capitalise we decided to go walking up the river Wharfe from Bolton Abbey to Kettlewell.

If you go at the weekend, its rammed with people - tripping over extra long dog leads and dollying along behind gangs of people with baby pushchairs is a complete nightmare. So a Thursday in July is ideal.

Learning from my mistake last month, I made sure the barbeque and the meat went in the bag the night before. This month we were having lamb kebabs, a couple of beef burgers and chinese turkey chunks on kebab sticks.

The pictures show their own story. A fabulous river winding its way down the Wharfe valley, at times just drifting along and at others roaring through tiny gaps like at Strid Wood.

Saw a woodpecker and a red deer. Managed to get pictures of them both - see?

Lovely weather, thought it was going to rain but it held off. A young couple who arrived a few minutes after us and set their own version up! Gastro walking must be catching on.

Bottoms up!

Sutton Bank

Its been nearly a month since we did this walk... and it was so nearly a complete disaster.

Plan was to start from Sutton Bank and take in a walk around the hills (well, actually if you start from the top of Sutton Bank its quite flat really) stopping for a barbie at an appropriate spot.

I'd bought a few portable barbies from Lidl at £1 a piece a few weeks before, and some fresh burgers, kebabs and a few rolls from Morrisons the day before so we were all set. Of course, the rucksack holds all the utensils - plates, knives, forks, glasses etc - so off we went.

The rucksack, by the way, I got free from Staples with an order over £39. Its great. Has a section with all the things described above - including a teatowel, napkins salt and pepper and table cloth! One compartment contains all that stuff and there's another for putting things like the food and the barbie in.

As the weather forecast said a nice hot day in store, I'd put my two litre water bottle in the freezer overnight. So that went in the main compartment, along with the food. Its a marvelous way to get a nice cold drink whenever you need it, defrosting along the way. Although towards the end, as the ice gets thin, it makes a bit of a racket rattling around in the bottle.

Having set off about 9 ish, we walked until 11:30 when we came upon the derelict house shown in the photo. It was a bit early for lunch really, but we always cook near a water source in case we need to put it out quickly and this was the first place we'd seen that met the criteria. Looking at the map, there was nothing else likely for the next couple of hours so we decided to stop.

Its as well we did. As I took my bag off, I had a horrible thought... I've not packed the barbie! Sure enough, when I checked it wasn't there. Still in the garage at home! So we seemed to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with just rolls and raw meat to eat.

Dave took a look in the house and found some wood. Outside, there was a spot that looked as though someone had previously had a fire. So, in Ray Mears style, we built a little fire and cooked the meat on a hot rock inside the billy cans we usually make the tea in. Sorted!

Probably one of the best meals of the Gastro season.

Chin chin!

Three Shires Head

Late April. Sun's out, it must be time for a barbeque - surely? The dreadful winter has put the dampers on the Gastro walks - we've been out but not in the mood for sitting freezing cold whilst the barbeque warms up.

The Goyt valley offers some fine walking and so armed with the barbeque, chinese pork and minted lamb burgers we set off for the day.

Pictures attached show the barbeque in full flow. Don't be fooled by the glasses - it wasn't wine or champagne this time, just some Wellman energy drink...

A wash out

One of the very few walks we've abandoned.
According to the forecast, it was going to be 'sunny intervals'. Unfortunately what we got was low-lying cloud and persistent drizzle. The intention was to walk from Langsett over to the Derwent ridge, follow it along the valley and drop down to the reservoir for lunch. Then to walk back round the other side of the reservoir along the Roman Road and back to Langsett.

However, we set off in weak sunshine and light drizzle at about 9am. By 10:30 we were at the top of the ridge, but the cloud had lowered and we were getting soaked. Neither of us believe in walking for the sake of walking - we like to have a view - and so we agreed to call it quits.

On getting home, of course the weather cheered up - as you would expect. However, looking out at the hills from my bedroom window, I can see it hasn't changed much on the tops so I'm quite happy with the decision. There is always next month!

Gastro Walks

Back in September 1984, my brother and I wanted to do something other than just cycling. So we decided to go walking and agreed that we would do one walk a month.

Over the years we've done well. There have been a couple of times when we've been forced to take a break - I fell off my bike in 1998 and fractured my skull which resulted in 4 weeks inactivity and 2006 I had a heart attack which meant 2 months off. My brother has managed to keep his health and most of the breaks have been my fault! But other than that we have managed to keep the idea going. If you add in one or two weekend trips - to Bretton Beacons and Shropshire - and the Hadrian's wall walk in 2005 we probably have averaged one walk per month.

When we first started walking, speed and distance were important. We would do walks such as the 3 peaks (which we tried to do less than 8 hours and we achieved once; 7:45. Several other attempts found us completing in 8:19, 8:24...) and the Cal-Derwent-Way, 40 miles in just over 10 hours from Horbury Bridge (the Calder river) to the Derwent reservoir. There have been other epics, and all have been done with no specific training - just the once a month walk.

25 years on and we have become a little more staid. Rarely do we exceed much more than 20 miles in a day and no longer tend to worry about how fast we've done it. So, this September we decided to have a 25 year celebration by taking a disposal barbeque and bottle of champagne with us to cook up a treat at lunch time.

The results are shown in the pictures, but also sparked an idea that we should turn the walks into 'Gastro walks'. So, from now on the barbie will become a feature of the regular walk and details and pictures will be posted here.

Cheers!