This was my second walk on this path this year. This was abother Durham County Council walk lead by full time Ranger Dave who's empire covers quite a bit of the upper parts of the Derwent valley. I was the "steward" helped by another voluntary Ranger, Bruce.
When I arrived at Waskerley station, it seemed highly unlikely that anybody would turn up for this walk as it was blowing a gale and sleeting enthusiastically.
One car arrived, waited for their windows to steam up and then left again.
In the next half an hour, twenty people turned up, all determined to have a walk, and so, at just after noon, we set off.
Dave had taken the precaution of parking a van at Whitehall picnic site, five miles down the Waskerley Way and so, thats where we went, downhill all the way with the wind behind us.
Shortly after we set off, the weather quickly realised that it had been outflanked and it cleared up, giving us the opportunity to explore the Burnhill wildlife conservation area on the way. This is a project which involves local schools (mainly from Tow Law) in work to provide habitats for 3 different species of butterflies.
We used the van to ferry the walkers who were also drivers back to the start and, this and various other combined tactics got everybody away from the end of the walk.
Thats enough Waskerley stuff for me for a while anyway.