Author Topic: Cheviots Preston and Broadhope Hills and Cold law  (Read 3126 times)

mike knipe

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I was chatting to Conan, who works in the library, and he suggested these two hills might make a nice little walk. Its the sort of place, in fact, that dawgs are banned from and the sort of  heathery, boggy stuff that is really really hard work for tired old legs full of beta blockers and lactic acid from the night before.

And so once the traffic had, more or less cleared from the Western Bypass (for it never really clears), we (me and Bruno) headed off once more up the A1 and that other road wot goes to Wooler, to seek out the beetling heights of Broadhope and Preston Hill, which both lie just a bit North-East of Langleeford.  Langleeford is probably the most popular place to park for climbing The Cheviot and other bigger hills like Hedgehope and Comb Law. I dont think all that many get up these two hills, though.

Like Blister, UKmase and the other bloke's walk, this one was a bit on the breezy side. I'd guess around force 6 - cos sometimes you couldnt stand still, or walk into it.  In view of the wind, and the fact that a gamekeeper was sitting in his 4WD within sight, I decided to sneak around the back of the hills using a bridleway and a public footpath, then, once out of sight behind Broadhope Hill (500 metres of it!), I bashed my way through the deep Erica and Calluna stuff to the top of Preston Hill (527m). Didnt stay there long, though as it was almost impossible to stand up, and a cheese spread butty would have been ripped from my grasp and sent hurtling off towards Denmark. What the Danes would have made of this is anybody's guess.

So now, with the wind behind us, we made a wind-assisted ascent of Broadhope (517m) and a very quick backward-leaning descent of the other side, where, hitting sudden shelter, I fell over backwards.  As it happens the heather was dry and warm and comfy, so I called for a lunch stop and a bit of a snooze in the sun.

Later, once Kylie Minogue had put her clothes back on,  I noticed that the keeper had gone off somewhere else, so me and the illicit pooch  returned to the storm and climbed Cold Law - very quickly due to more uncalled-for and over-enthusiastic help from the elements, and Bruno, jumping the fence at the top to get at the trig point, did a record  distance for mongrel-class fence leaping. I think he was a bit surprised at how far he went.

A  vague kind of path lead us back to the valley, where it was just as windy.   A few hundred yards in the wrong direction and a quick turn-around took us back to the car.

Todays sign of spring: frogspawn, and the spring snow, of course... it'll be lambing quite soon, so any fat sheep in the pastures are likely to be seriously pregnant, so me and the dawg will have to be careful about that.

Only 8 miles, but 2000 feet of climbing.
« Last Edit: 10:29:08, 08/03/08 by mike knipe »
Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles

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