Tag: Crosby

Slieau Ruy and Greeba Mountain

Hallelujah – she’s been on a walk at last, I hear you say. Well actually, I was in the Lakes a few weeks ago, just over the Easter weekend, and I did a couple of absolutely delightful walks, one up the precipitous Cats Gill, which was quite taxing for an oldie like me, but quite exhilarating too, and another long and lovely walk between Skiddaw and Blencathra. I had lost a bit of confidence for walking on my own, but these two days thoroughly revived me.

Today, back on the Isle of Man, I ventured to the middle of the island, to Crosby (though, for some reason my car decided that I should go via Foxdale, so I was a little late starting!). I plenished my stocks with a £3.50 excellent meal deal from the Coop and started up the lane, a route I know well. At the top of the lane, the path becomes the Millenium Way for a short distance. It is a steady climb, not just this bit, but for a full 3 miles until you reach the junction on the ridge walk. It is not a difficult walk but it is a little cumbersome as the cows and bikes have churned up the path quite a lot so I was often on pats of muddy grass rather than a path. Ahead of me was a guy on a bike and I did wonder how he was coping. I eventually found out when I caught him up. I don’t think he was particularly enjoying his bike ride but I assured him it would get better when he reached the top.

It was fairly dull day at this stage, although visibility was reasonable and I could see all the big hills and as I reached the top of Slieau Ruy, having traipsed first over Larghee Ruy, the vista of the whole of the south opened up in front of me. Langness looked like a little squiggle or an afterthought to god’s creation, and I did think it might entirely disappear with climate change.

After from the biker I didn’t see a single soul, not even in the distance. The ridge walk is only short, about 2 miles, though on another day you could take in Colden to extend time at the top. After Greeba Mountain, the only sensible way down in through the forest. The descent is not great. It looks as if the path has been ‘repaired’ but it is full of small stones of different sizes and the gradient is quite steep, so this was not particularly pleasant. Far easier to walk on the heather, but I didn’t do this. I was glad to reach the edge of the forest after about 15 mins. This is then a very pleasant walk on soft turf in the quiet eeriness of the forest. I had made the decision that I would take a detour from the forest and cross the small stream and follow an old road back to Crosby. I enjoyed the stream – it was in full pelt and there were some stepping stones which were fun to cross. It is a permissive path, but obviously well used.

However, I missed the connection with the road beside the house, indeed I never even saw it, but no matter I continued on the permissive path which was absolutely delightful. The gorse was in full bloom and the path went over grassy fields. This did mean, though, that I ended up back on my original route. Looking at the map, and previously, on the way up, I had noticed another path going to the outer edges of Crosby, so of course, I had to try it. This is an old road, no longer used, and it was a joy to walk along, so my misdirection early on was of no consequence. The flowers were beautiful in the hedgerow.

This is fairly long walk of just over 8 miles, with 1600 ft of ascent /descent. It took me 4 hours, but if you decide to do this, I would allow 4-6 hours on a nice sunny day to stop and admire the countryside. I parked opposite the bowls club in Crosby on the lane by the stream. They are free toilets at the bowls club situated between two blocks so you don’t need to go inside. There is a Costa beside the Coop, so you can get a welcome drink after your stride out, if you so desire.

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Crosby to West Baldwin Circular

This was a route I have never walked and I didn’t know quite what to expect. I was planning a walk for the U3A and if this one wasn’t quite what I wanted I had another up my sleeve. However, the contingency plan was not required as this is a beautiful walk with extensive views in all directions. The paths are good to reasonable, if a bit muddy in places, and the route is easy to follow.

I started at the centre of Crosby parking by the Bowling Green. I haven’t been there since they build the new houses and Coop and the old-fashioned toilets that were so useful have now disappeared, although the gate remains! Crossing the main road requires care and then there is uphill section for some distance. The first part is the most arduous but it’s not too bad and with every step up you get a better view from where you have just come. A path beside the road has been created for a short distance and by the time we do this walk in May, it should be festooned with wild garlic.

We follow the Millenium Way all the way to West Baldwin, up hill and down dale. The maps show direct routes across fields but it is clear from sign markings that the farmers would prefer us to walk around the field, so please be considerate when you are walking across countryside. Some of these fields were very muddy today but I am hopeful that by May they will have dried out a bit. The views, especially to the west and north, make up for the terrain.

As you get close to West Baldwin, the route follows the river along a high track. This was a lovely section and I enjoyed listening to the water tumbling down into the valley below. West Baldwin is lovely and unspoilt, with some interesting and quaint houses and has a much-loved feel to it. The bridge is attractive in itself and a good place for a lunch stop. This is the half way point in this walk, at about 3 miles.

From here, we follow the road south through the village for a very short distance before taking a minor road uphill and going round a few corners before we drop onto what looks like an ancient track going down to a ford, with a tiny foot bridge for walkers. The track is stony but not difficult to traverse and as it goes uphill after the ford it becomes a grassy track leading to a small lane, which is wide and airy. From here you can retrace your footsteps in your mind’s eye as the vista unfolds in front of you.

This is our downwards stretch which takes us eventually to Glen Vine via tracks, a small amount of road and more fields. The stiles in the field section just beside Glen Vine need some attention. They are surmountable but you do need to take care. A couple of them can be avoided by going through gates, but not all of them. Arriving at the main Peel to Douglas Road, we turn right towards Glen Vine for a very short distance, before crossing over the road and following yet another stream (we have followed a lot of streams on this walk) through an old wood down to the old railway line. In all my years of walking I can’t believe I have walked down this path. It is clearly very popular as people have made higher and lower paths through it and created a swing over the stream for children to play.

The walk along the old railway track is very easy walking, and also interesting. There is a new nature reserve and I always enjoy looking at the wetlands just to the side of the track and thinking what life they have and how they developed over the years. The path was modernised in recent years to make it accessible for bikes, pushchairs and wheelchairs. It is settling in well now and doesn’t look quite so much like a road any more. The section from Glen Vine to Crosby is actually narrower and more appealing to me.

This is a walk I would definitely do again. It is not too demanding, with a total of 741 feet of ascent/descent and nothing too steep. Most of the uphill is in the section before West Baldwin. The distance is about 6.75 miles, which I confess was really too much me only 6 weeks after my operation but I am still glad I did it, and I shall look forward to taking our members around the route in May. Apologies for the poor quality of the photos. I obviously have some settings wrong on my camera, but they do give you a flavour of what to expect.

Greeba Mountain – 2nd October 2019

1a. View across to Greeba Mountain

Greeba Mountain is not technically speaking a mountain as it doesn’t reach the giddy heights of 600 metres. In fact, it falls well short at 422 metres and is the peak you can see above the plantation, looking rather apologetic. This was our second ‘peak’ of the day, our first being the traverse of Slieau Roy at 479 metres. I notice the word Slieau contains the word ‘eau’ which is of course, french for ‘water’, which is very apt considering the boggy nature of the peat hills. But I am getting ahead of myself.

We started out from Crosby village, the visitors arriving on the bus and the locals arriving by car. We took the A23 out of Crosby – sounds as if it’s a proper road doesn’t it, but actually it is just a minor lane with little traffic. The road climbs gently from the start all the way up to and around Cronk my Moghlane. It doesn’t take long before you can see the full extent of the valley between Douglas and Peel, and what strikes you most of all is the distant views, the lack of housing and the large amount of patchwork green fields. We are so used to travelling down that valley with its numerous villages dotted along the way,  that it doesn’t seem at all remote, but once you get up on the hills you have a completely different sense of island and what it’s all about.

We continued gently uphill following a grassy track full of humps and hollows made by the bikes in former years, now forbidden on this path, and contoured around the  eastern side of Slieau Ruy, which gave excellent views of the neighbouring hill called Colden (487 metres) and its shoulder The Creg – ‘creg’  meaning ‘rock’. I don’t know what Colden means…  now I do. It comes from the Scandinavian word Kollrinn, meaning the ‘top’ or ‘summit’. Just to complete the Manx lesson Slieau Roy means ”Red Mountain’, supposedly taking its name from the heather. In former times, many flowers were called red even though they were pink or purple; and Greeba is also of Scandinavian origin from the word ‘Gripa’ meaning ‘peak’.

 

11. View of x from my point

It was a little blustery but we so relieved to see the sun after yesterday’s torrential rain that had completed wiped out Laxey and caused landslides on Snaefell. As we reached the col, we turned back along the ridge to the top of Slieau Roy.  It might have been time for lunch, but the weather was not conducive to sitting on boggy ground with the wind whistling past our faces, so we continued undaunted if a little hungry on to the lesser Greeba Mountain. The views in all directions were wonderful and we could spy the wind turbines at Morecambe, Black Combe and the other mountains of the western Lake District and in the other direction we could see the Mountains of Mourne in Ireland. Who cares whether or not Greeba mountain is a real mountain. It is lovely place to stop and stare.

After this we descended off the moorland into one of many plantations in this area, this one with the unimaginative name of Greeba Forest, also known as King’s Forest. Believe it or not, there was an unusual battle here as late as 1937 between police with firearms and feral sheep, who were slaughtered to prevent the spread of sheep scab. I wish I had known that little trifle of knowledge as I was walking down the hill.  As it was, I was very happily engaged in very pleasant conversations with visitors who were part of our walking festival. You can see them below – how many different ways of smiling (or grimacing) can you spot?

18. The top

As we had made good time, we finished our walk by crossing over the ever so busy St John’s road and made our way to the heritage trail, which was formerly a railway line between Douglas and Peel. It has recently been upgraded and totally spoiled (in my opinion) in order to accommodate cyclists and possibly wheelchairs. It is now a wide uninteresting shingly type of path that won’t make anyone want to go for a walk. It has lost all its character and there is no longer any sense of its history. But times move on, and so must I.

I leave this blog on a high note. I had a wonderful day, and met some really interesting people. It is so wonderful to share our love of this island with visitors and to hear their stories of their travels. Thank you so much to the Walking Festival, and to our leader, Ken and assistants Belinda and Gayle, who have given up their time to take us out for the day. I can’t join them for their other events this week, but I hope the weather holds up for all the walkers.

Distance: 9 miles; Ascent 1408 ft; Descent 1424 ft. I will attach a short slide show of other photos from today after the map.

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Ballasalla to Crosby (almost): 9.3 miles, 597 ft ascent

What to do during TT (other than watch the racing)? Walk some of the Millenium Way of course.  At a risk of putting some of you off attempting it, the southern section is a mix of some lovely scenery, as in Silverdale Glen and some super views to the south, but a lot of road walking and, as it has been raining a lot in the last 10 days, muddy footpaths.

I met up with a friend who I had met when I hosted the Facebook U3A walking page for the Isle of Man, and we boarded the number 12a bus at Port Erin railway station which took us to Ballasalla for the start of our walk. From here, we walked down to the Ford, where a biker walked into the water, stood in the middle for a second or two, then retraced his steps to the other side! Strange…

DSC00574We followed the lovely Silverdale river past the Monk’s Bridge (above) up to the boating lake where we had a short break, then continued past the old waterworks – or more correctly, the now defunct spring water factory to the main Ballamodha Road.

This is the first stretch of road walking,  which in itself is not unattractive – it affords great views of South Barrule – but the road was relatively busy by Isle of Man standards.

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We were quite relieved when after a mile or so, we turned off the road onto the footpath, that would eventually take us to St. Marks. At one point, we went through a farm yard where a friendly dog kept yapping at us to the consternation of its owner. At the far end of the farm was a sign pinned to a barn, saying in no uncertain terms that persons should “shut and fasten the gate, or be liable to a fine of forty shillings”. We duly shut the gate, not having forty shillings on us, and continued on the path, which appeared to peter out shortly afterwards. We continued northwards across a field, before I thought this was wrong route and we retraced our steps to find a very clear sign pointing across a different field, which we had missed completely because of the angle of the sign on approaching it. Here started the mud, and many gates that were only fit for very skinny people and not people with rucksacks. The grass was long and wet which helpfully cleaned our boots intermittently. As we went over a shrubby stream, Ros saw a frog. At various points on our walk we saw a small copper butterfly, a female common blue butterfly and a number of dead birds! As we approached Crosby we did see a bird of prey but could not identify it.

On, over the grassy meadows and reedbeds, we finally reached St. Marks where we had lunch and visited the absolutely delightful church; simple and unassuming, warm and welcoming. You can even help yourself to tea and coffee, but as we had brought ample supplies for ourselves, we did not partake.

From here it was more road walking, but this time on quieter roads that barely see traffic, but do bring with them views to the north and the valley in between.  This walk makes one aware of what a watery place the Isle of Man is, with streams at the end of every few fields. There is no doubt that even walking along roads makes you aware of the local scenery in a way you wouldn’t otherwise see it.

 

DSC00611As we came closer to Crosby we could hear the buzz of the motor bikes and saw what we thought was a TV helicopter following the racing. On this stretch of road, Ros found an abandoned egg shell. It was almost the size of a hen’s egg, was buff coloured and very slightly speckled, as you can see in the photograph. If anyone can identify this, please add a comment to this blog.

Unfortunately, I have had a problem with my Achilles tendon for the last month – I know, nothing stops me walking until I am forced to face the problem – and as we reached Marown old church, where we were due to turn right to go to Glen Vine, I was forced to take a break. At the same time, who should come out of the church but a friend from choir who happens to live just down the road from me! What a happy coincidence. Ros and I had a half second discussion and decided we should ask if he was going back to Port Erin. And, of course, he was. My poor ankle was so very grateful. We had been intending to walk another 4-5 miles along the railway track back to Douglas, but my foot clearly thought otherwise. Someone up there was obviously watching over me today, as I can be my own worst enemy.

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This opportune event allowed said friend and I to catch up and Ros and I passed a very pleasant 20 minutes sitting comfortably in his car listening to stories and finding out what is happening elsewhere. He dropped us off at our respective houses and continued on his way to Shoprite. And I, for once, did as I was told and bathed by ankle in ice cold water. So, probably no more walks for a bit – sad face – and a holiday in Crete – happy face – but I do have a short but interesting walk to write up from walking around and inside the cliffs of Port Erin this last week, so another blog to follow shortly.