For some time now my Christmas tradition is to avoid it as much as possible – and one aspect of that is to head off somewhere for a walk on December 25th. This benefits me because obviously it’s a good walk, but it also gets me away from, well, everything. As someone with a dislike for Christmas, the constant onslaught of it – TV, radio, online, everywhere – drives me nuts.
Up until a few years ago I’d have said a good hike there, rather than walk, but since the pandemic I’ve stuck to the local woods, so don’t really consider it a proper hike – and in truth, as I mentioned back in August I’ve pretty much stopped going out for regular hikes since then anyway, and need to start again, though taking it gently at first.
I have been out since that walk in August; I went for a short walk in October and, keeping it easy, I ventured along part of the Ridge Way to Wayland’s Smithy Long Barrow, taking plenty of photos along the route.
I spent a little time there, before walking on for a while, though I didn’t venture all the way to the next obvious landmark – Uffington Castle (an Iron Age hill fort) and the Uffington White Horse.
The reason for not walking all the way there is because this walk was on my way home from elsewhere; it was planned, but circumstances meant I couldn’t prepare for it as usual. I had no lunch with me, for example, only a bit of water (though I did have snacks back in the car to see me through to arriving home when I could have something more substantial).
I will probably make another trip here at some point in the future – a proper one, where I venture out specifically for the walk, and therefore come with my usual kit and caboodle so I can make a good day of it.
So after the August walk, and the one in October… the next was late December – my Christmas Day walk. I intended to go back to heading somewhere further afield than my local woodland park, but still being far too soon (and too few walks in) it couldn’t be anything strenuous. In the end, I chose to visit Barbury Castle – another Iron Age hill fort.
Barbury Castle was part of my Christmas Day walk in 2017 – so I was visiting the site seven years to the day after my last trip there. That time, I parked at Hackpen Hill, in the car park that sits at the top of the hill, above the White Horse there, and walked to Barbury Castle along that stretch of the Ridge Way, spent a little while wandering around the fort and taking photos, before returning along the same route.
As I recall, the weather that day wasn’t great – though the main problem was one of strong winds. As such, I didn’t stop to eat while at Barbury Castle, and instead had my traditional Christmas lunch of ham (or whatever) sarnies when I got back to the car. As the photos from that day are among those lost in the Great NAS Disaster, the only one I have now is the one I tweeted on that day showing my spectacular view from the car while I ate (and even then, the copy I have is the one I’ve just fetched from Twitter, not the original):
For comparison, this was my view while eating lunch on Christmas Day this year:
Yup. In 2017, I ended up eating lunch in my car because of the weather – and seven years to the day later, on a trip to the same place, I ended up eating lunch in the car again because of the weather!
It wasn’t the same weather (and not the same car park, either – this time I parked at Barbury Castle), but still it made me hold off on lunch until I returned to the car.
It was a very misty day, so there was no real view except a short distance ahead. Here are a couple of examples of how the place looked:
I actually took over two hundred photos. Many are a bit ‘samey’, but at the back of my mind I’m thinking the paths, lumps, and bumps, the views of trees just becoming visible in the mist a short distance ahead… they might be fitting for one section of an old idea I had for a text adventure (interactive fiction) game, should I ever get around to writing it. So that’s cool.
I mentioned above that one of the benefits of heading off for a walk on 25th December is to avoid all things Christmas. Unfortunately, though, opting for somewhere ‘easy’ as I did this time meant I didn’t get away from it as much as I’d have liked. The problem was that, being somewhere easy and accessible, there were quite a few other people wandering around – so as I crossed paths with the various other people there, I had to hear (and politely respond to) the inevitable ‘Merry Christmas’ greetings. Grr!
Speaking of the other people that were there… I’m not sure if the cause was the mist, or just unfamiliarity with the area, or possibly a combination of both (because I wouldn’t consider it an area where it was even possible to get lost) but at one point, one couple asked me for directions to the car park because they’d lost their bearings.
I clarified which car park they meant – there’s an official one, where I’d parked, and something more akin to a lay-by at the foot of the hill on the opposite side (they were actually reasonably close to the latter). It would have been a case of either pointing along the path down the hill in the direction of the lay-by, or pointing in the opposite direction along the path through the hill fort – which was the way they needed.
Funnily enough, just as I was finishing up and about to head off from one of my places of work before the Christmas break, I mentioned to someone that I’d be heading off somewhere for a walk, and the next words I heard were “Don’t get lost!”
Although there was never going to be a risk of that for this walk (even though I hadn’t decided where I’d be going at that point), a combination of that remark and this couple needing directions reminded me of another walk, another time, where I briefly thought I might have gone a bit astray, but hadn’t…
And then did.
Sort of.
This was February, 2006, a few days into my first ever Lake District holiday (in fact my first ever holiday as an adult) – and it’s fair to say that it was one of those days where if something could go wrong, it probably did.
That day, I’d planned to walk up to the summit of The Old Man of Coniston – with Coniston village itself a bit of a drive from where I was staying. Off hand, I’d say it was around 45 minutes.
I started the day off by oversleeping and getting up later than intended. To be fair, though, I’d been off for a walk each of the preceding days of my holiday and, as is fairly customary for me, each walk ended up covering more ground than originally planned, so oversleeping was perhaps understandable. I may have been a bit worn out by this point.
By the time I was ready (breakfast, prepare sarnies for lunch, along with a flask of hot water for my coffees), and had set off for Coniston village it was very late morning – possibly even gone midday. In fact, I’ve just looked at the metadata in the first couple of photos in my collection from the day; the first says 11:37:52:
However, I’m inclined now to think I took that at some point en route having stopped for whatever reason (to check where I was and where I had to go?). This is because the next photograph was taken in Coniston village, and it is timed at 12:16:38 – over half an hour later.
A quick look on Google maps and using Street View tells me that’s at the end of Ruskin Road where it meets the B5285 – which is right next to the car park I’d used.
The car park! I’d looked at my map beforehand and found one in the village, which I discovered when I got there was pay and display. Oh well, I thought, and popped the necessary coins in the meter.
A very long road walk later I reached the start of the actual path I was going to use to head up the mountain. And what was there? A free car park not marked on my map.
Looking now, I can see that walk along the road from ‘my’ car park to this one was 1.1 miles, with an estimated 26 minute walking time – though it probably took me longer, because I took a few photos along the way. It’s hard to say for certain, because I don’t know how far I’d walked along the actual walking route before I took it, but the first photo I have that isn’t from the road shows 12:53:31 – 37 minutes later. Let’s just say half an hour for the walk from car park to car park, then.
So the bottom line is that if I’d known about that car park, I could have saved myself that half an hour walk (along with the cost of car parking) – and a little bit strain on my legs, which will become relevant later.
And yes, that’s a bit of a spoiler!
From the car park I could have used – which I now know is identified as Walna Scar, for the old packhorse road that leads to it – the route I chose to head up Coniston was comparatively short in terms of distance, but that means it was also very steep. The route back down was a longer more gentle one. In hindsight, I should have perhaps reversed that – and these days I probably would.
Well, in fact, these days I wouldn’t be heading up that mountain at all; it’ll be quite a while before I’m ready for that sort of trek again!
My route was to head NNW from the start of the path (i.e. from the Walna Scar car park that I didn’t know about), along a path that’s fairly flat as it passes below a hill called The Bell to the right. I’d then have to turn left and head East, to eventually reach a tarn called Low Water. From there I’d head SSW up a much steeper climb that would get me to the summit.
From the summit, the path that would bring me back runs a little way NNW, and with a fork or two and a veer here and there, would take me to a point where I was overlooking Goat’s Water. I’d head down the path directly towards and then past that, and I’d then have a long walk around the fell South of The Old Man of Coniston back to that road (and that car park). Finally, I’d have another long walk along the road back to the village and to where I’d parked.
That was the plan.
This is me.
Of course I didn’t stick entirely to it!
I’ve already mentioned two things that could have gone better: I could have got an earlier start, and I could have parked somewhere better. The oversleeping was understandable, though, and the car park wasn’t marked on my map – but the next mistake was definitely mine.
The Bell. As I was walking along the path that would have taken me past The Bell, I looked at it, saw a route up it, and thought “Why not?”
So I did.
At the time, I thought it was worth that little side venture, because I had quite a nice view from the top, looking out towards Coniston Water. I took a few photos while up there, but these three are of that view:
I took those three shots with the idea in mind of stitching them together into a single panoramic image (something modern cameras can themselves handle – but this was early 2006, and the camera was probably a couple of years old by then). So with that in mind, I’ve just installed a piece of software called Hugin on my Ubuntu Linux computer (on which I’m typing this), and with all the powers of darkness at my fingertips (imagine a clap of thunder there) I’ve used it to produce this:
The result isn’t too bad at all, I reckon, for three consecutive handheld shots where I just changed the angle I was pointing the camera slightly. Even with modern cameras handling panoramic shots internally (my last couple at least have had this ability) I still find myself taking occasional short sequences of photographs this way, so it’s good to see that almost twenty years further on my early attempts worked, even though I don’t think I’ve ever tested them until now!
Anyway, I’m veering off topic slightly. Back to my walk in February 2006…
I Spent a little while wandering around the top of the Bell – and looking at the times in the image meta data, I’d say maybe an hour – before descending and getting back on my intended path. So that was more time wasted, and more strain for my legs.
And speaking of my poor legs…
On the initial part of the climb proper, one of my legs began to play up, and got steadily worse as I progressed. I forget which one at this point, but I want to say it was my left leg. In essence the lower leg started to hurt, and in particular whenever I bent the knee. As I climbed, I found myself taking ‘half steps’ with that leg because of it; I’d use the other leg to advance up the hill (requiring a distinct bend at the knee), then I’d simply bring the painful leg level or no more than slightly ahead. I’m glad I had a pair of walking poles – essential kit, in my opinion.
Walking like that I eventually reached an old mine/quarry works, where I took quite a lot of photographs before continuing on my way – and shortly after that I spotted something in my camera’s settings.
Back then, storage was more limited than now (as was the resolution of the camera) and in order to maximise the number of photos I could store, I routinely set the camera to a slightly lower resolution and quality setting than the max. All of the photos until this point had been taken at a resolution of 1280×960 (or vice versa, depending whether taken landscape or portrait).
The ones from the mine works, though, were at the highest resolution and quality setting.
Not wanting to run out of space, I deleted those photographs, walked back to that point, and took another batch.
More time wasted – and more strain for a leg that was already hurting.
What I didn’t notice at the time, but have now spotted is that even though I changed those settings back to 1280×960, before moving on from that stage again the photos become 2048×1536 (which I think was the camera’s highest resolution).
I must have accidentally set it to the higher resolution as I reached that spot, and after spotting it and deleting the photos I’d subsequently taken and setting it to the lower resolution… while retaking some of those photos I must have accidentally set it back to the higher resolution again before continuing, without noticing until now.
So almost two decades later, I’ve discovered a whole additional thing that went wrong! Ho hum.
Anyway, that backtracking done, on I continued, until I reached Low Water, where I had a spot of lunch – and just before I chose a suitable rock to sit on for that, I took another set of images with a view to stitching them into a panorama, so a quick play with Hugin later, and…
This is made up of four images, though the original set was five. Annoyingly, when the fifth image of the set is added in the software fails to complete its task. Taking out the first image and including the fifth, so it’s still four images, the result looks like this:
My first instinct is to suggest the fifth image (fourth in that composite) has gone awry slightly and is causing Hugin to get in a pickle – enough to kill it when it’s part of the full set – except that reducing it to just the last three produces this, which is fine:
I’ll have to play further with the software – I have plenty of other sets of photos taken at the time with the idea of stitching them together this way, including some intended as full 360° panoramas.
Back to the walk, however, and after eating lunch I set off on the next stage – heading from Low Water towards the summit of The Old Man of Coniston.
From here the ‘walk’ became more of a climb – and I’d climbed maybe a hundred yards above the tarn when the weather turned. It was windy. It was misty. And it was raining. The sensible thing to have done at this point would’ve been to head back down the way I’d come.
I thought about it, and – stupidly – reasoned to myself that with my leg playing up as it was, it would probably be easier to carry on going up than to go down. I think my logic excuse was that because I was now so close to the summit, that meant I was close to the easier route that I’d planned for the descent.
So I carried on.
By the time I reached the top, my leg was in agony – much, much worse than when it first started to get painful – and my other leg was beginning to suffer the same problem.
There’s a nice view out over Coniston Water from the summit, but I didn’t benefit from it because of the weather. Visibility was poor – just look at the next photo (so as well as the remark about not getting lost reminding me of this walk, perhaps the views on my 2024 Christmas Day walk should have as well) – and the wind was also strong enough that I could lean into it without toppling.
It was also very cold. Cold enough that on opening my flask the contents were still hot, but by the time any was poured into a cup and then lifted to my lips it was cold.
Anyway, the worst part was over – despite my bad leg (now legs) I’d reached the summit. The trek back was going to be a very long one, but it was mostly downhill (there’d be some inclines in the overall path, but nothing significant).
From the summit of Coniston, I reached the point where I was overlooking Goat’s Water. The weather had eased off by here, and I got a very nice view of that.
That, incidentally, was the last photo of the day, taken at 16:53:47.
I descended, and found some parts of the path around Goat’s Water weren’t obvious; you can see it plainly in the photo above, but once down there in places it was more of a scramble over rocks than anything else – and not easy with my legs – but I got past it and found the path proper (the Walna Scar road) again.
And by now it was dark – and it was raining again… and I then hit another problem.
Something I haven’t mentioned until now was my map. I had the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 ‘Explorer’ map (and still have it, in fact – I glanced at it to double check the names of various parts of this route). I was also experimenting with a fairly new toy, though; a MiTAC Mio 168 PDA (personal digital assistant) – which had a built-in GPS unit – on which I was running an application called FUGAWI.
FUGAWI is a mapping application, that came with 1:50,000 Ordnance Survey maps. Supplied on CD, it shipped with different parts of the UK, and I have the complete set. It runs on a Windows PC, and also has a mobile app that can (could – back then) be run on Windows Mobile devices; the device could be connected to the computer, and sections of map downloaded from the computer to the device. The app on the PDA could then display where you were at any given time on the map (provided it had a good GPS signal), as well as record your route (for later transfer back to the computer) and so on.
That’s all run of the mill stuff now, but don’t forget this was two decades ago – and the major selling point for me was that it came with the Ordnance Survey 1:50k maps. I still have it installed on one of my Windows laptops, in fact – but sadly the mobile element has never been updated; I’d love to have it running on Android.
My paper map was in my rucksack – and it was around this point that the battery died in my PDA, with still quite a lot of walking to do to get back to civilisation.
I opted not to get the paper map out of my bag, and to instead rely on my memory of where I needed to head because, generally speaking, even though I’m useless at following directions, I do have a fairly good sense of direction.
Essentially, I decided, I just had to remain on the path I was on, keep going in the direction I was going, and I would eventually reach the (car park and) road. I did need to be aware of a fork or two in the path, and to make sure I took the right one, but I should be okay.
That walk felt like it was taking far too long. What didn’t help at all was that my legs were now really bad, so I was taking very small steps; it felt like a longer walk than it really was – to be fair, it must have taken me a lot longer than it otherwise would have.
Even though I knew some sections of path would be on an incline, at one point I started to worry that the incline was a little steeper than I expected. I wondered if I’d forked, and was actually heading on a path that would start to take me back up the mountain, which was definitely not what I wanted to be doing!
I thought perhaps I should dig out that paper map after all, but realised that because of how dark it was, even with my torch I probably wouldn’t be able to make out any landmarks in order to get my bearings anyway.
No, all I could do was push on, and hope I’d taken the right path(s).
Eventually, I saw a silhouette in the distance ahead of me – the unmistakable rectangular shape of a car. I was on the path towards the car park! Although that wasn’t the car park I’d used, of course – even from there, I still had over a mile to walk. (It also occurred to me that the car parked there meant there was someone else still out there somewhere!)
So I eventually reached the village, and my car. With no point of reference now – no more pictures after the one of Goat’s Water – I’m not sure now what time it was, but given that I was walking very slowly because of my legs, I’d say probably a good three or more hours from that last photo. Probably around 8pm, then – and the ‘fun’ wasn’t yet over.
I still had to drive from there to where I was staying. I had a bit of a rest first, and finished the last of my hot drink (well, after the long day it was now only warm – but being poured while sat in the car, at least it stayed warm from flask to cup to lips). And eventually I set off…
The first and most obvious problem was that using the pedals in the car was a very painful process, due to the need to bend my legs. Changing gear in particular hurt like hell.
The next problem I had to overcome was finding my way back to where I was staying. With my PDA dead, I no longer had a usable satnav; the auxiliary power supply (what used to be thought of as the cigarette lighter) in the car I was driving then didn’t work, so I had no way to charge the device. Although I had a both the OS paper maps, as well as a road atlas, they aren’t very practical when trying to find somewhere remote at night while driving. Finding places to stop and check the map when you’re on narrow lanes isn’t ideal.
I figured I could more or less remember the route I took from my accommodation to the car park, so could probably get it more or less right in reverse to go from the car park to accommodation – though that meant, in essence, remembering the initial route, turning them into directions in my head, and then following those directions!
Even worse, it meant doing that at night, in the dark, versus the original journey, which was late morning, when it was light.
Yeah, right.
As I said, I generally have a good sense of direction, but I’m useless at following directions – so you can imagine how well that went! Yup, somewhere down the line I inevitably took a wrong turn, and realised at some point that I wasn’t anywhere I recognised.
Oops.
I found somewhere safe to stop when I passed through a village, found said village on a (paper) map, decided roughly what direction I needed to head in, and just drove that way as best I could (i.e. subject to twists and turns), hoping I’d find my destination.
After a while, I found myself on a dark, narrow road, which in the dark didn’t look like the one I needed to be on, but nor did it look like it wasn’t… It may or may not have been the right road from my point of view at that point.
While on that road I had to slow down at one point to allow for a young deer; it was running along the road in front of me; trying to run as fast as it could to get away from the big monstrosity in the road behind it; my car!
And it was thanks to that deer that I spotted the sign for where I was staying; it was only a small sign at the end of the driveway – and had the deer not slowed me down I would probably have driven right past it.
So on the walk I didn’t get lost, but briefly thought I may have taken a wrong path – and on the drive back to where I was staying I did get lost, but in the end just went in what I decided was the right general direction and got to where I needed to be!
