Patrick

Two hills in Patrick

Monday 31st January, 2011

According to Brown’s Isle of Man Directory, 1894, Patrick Parish is “ . . . a wild mountainous region including the northern slopes of Barrule and Slieauwhallin, and, to the west, the Dalby Mountains, with the Peel hills to the north.  The district is barren, and only a small part of its area is capable of cultivation. The population is partly agricultural, fishing, and mining, and is sparsely distributed over the parish.  Glenmaye is the principal village, it is much frequented by tourists on account of its beautiful scenery and waterfall.”

We started from Fenella Beach, named after Walter Scott’s character in Peveril of the  Peak, which was partly set around Peel Castle, and climbed up the slope from the castle on St Patrick’s Isle towards the twin peaks of Peel hill and Corrin’s hill.

The city of Peel lay below on the northern bank of the Neb.

Instead of continuing along the cliffs to the south, we planned to save the delights of Glen Maye and its beautiful scenery for another walk and headed down the east side of Peel Hill towards the area known as the Raggatt.  We could see the outline of Slieau Whallian – our next goal – in the distance.

There was quite a lot of road walking before we reached the Garey and then climbed to the top of Slieau Whallian, where we stopped to take photos of the overcast view back towards Peel.

Then we headed down the steep paths though the plantation, just catching a brief view of the ceremonial Tynwald Hill in St John’s, through the conifers.  Every summer there is a gathering there when the laws are read out to the assembled crowd on the 5^th of July – our national day.

Then we crossed the Patrick Road, walked through a few fields until we reached the old Douglas to Peel railway line and made our way back to the cars.

I stopped to take a photo of the marina and asked Tim to walk ahead with Alexander.  But Alexander, being a gentleman, decided to wait for me and applied the brakes!

List of hills climbed in January.

 03/01  North Barrule                     1860 ft                      565m

             Clagh Ouyr                           1801 ft                      551m

17/01 Beinn-y-Phott                      1790 ft                      544m

             Mullagh Ouyr                      1612 ft                      491m

             Carraghan                            1640 ft                      500m

24/01 Beary                                     1020 ft                      311m            

31/01 Slieau Whallian                   1094 ft                      333m

             Peel/Corrins Hill                   502 ft                      153m

Beary Mountain

Short and Sweet?

(The post – not the walk!)

Monday 24^th January, 2011

 We walked from Tynwald Mills on Monday - up the Staarvey Road, across the TT course at Cronk-y-Voddy and then up the Little London Road, through the valley at Rhenass , up  Beary Mountain and along the path from the Dowse on the way back to the car. 

It is a fairly long walk, quite tiring and not very photogenic so we didn’t waste too much time on photography.  Even without our usual frequent stops, it took us four hours. 

But we did stop to photograph the ruined farm buildings at Ballasayle.  This old farm isn't far from the northern boundary of Glen Helen . . .  

. . .  and it has the best preserved example of a horse mill that I have come across during our rambles. 

Penny Pot

Back to the hills

Monday 17^th January, 2011

We started our walk from the Bungalow, a little station at the junction of the Mountain Road and the electric tramline to the summit of Snaefell.  We had intended climbing Snaefell but it was covered in dense mist so we headed south to climb two lower hills, hoping the sun would burn off the mist as it rose. 

We crossed the road and walked along the lower slope of Mullagh Ouyr before recrossing the road to climb Beinn y Phott.

The morning rush hour was ending but there were still a few cars driving over the mountain - using their headlights because of the dim light and fog.  Warning:  Google+ does not approve of my dark and moody photographs and has tried to cheer them up.  I shall have to change the setting to prevent the “improvements”.  If Wuthering Heights got the Google+ treatment, it might have ended with everyone living happily ever after!

  

At first we got misty glimpses of the East Baldwin valley below.

But soon we could only see the path ahead leading to the summit.

The welcome sight of a pile of stones marking the top of the Penny Pot.  But now we had to find the path leading down towards an invisible Carraghan, the next hill on the list.  These paths are easy enough to find when you and can see the direction you need to take . . . but not so easy on a foggy day.

We didn’t get lost and followed the path up Carraghan without difficulty.  It is a long hill with two summits.  We weren’t sure whether this pile of stones marked the highest point so we followed the path to the end of the ridge and then climbed down through the heather and the mist towards the Millennium Way.

As we descended the fog thinned and we got our first hazy glimpse of Injebreck Reservoir in the West Baldwin valley.

Further down a glorious view emerged.

This photo shows the route of the Millennium Way along the top of the ridge between the West Baldwin valley and the East Baldwin Valley on the left.  St Luke’s church is in the far distance, beyond the small plantation.

We intended returning to the cars via the Millennium Way and the Brandywell Road but, while we were going through a gate, a shepherd on a scrambler bike stopped to chat and asked about our hike.  He suggested going back via the footpath to Windy Corner.  We explained that we didn’t want to walk all the way down the track, past St Luke’s, to get to the road which would take us to the footpath.  He replied that we could just take a direct route down through the fields.  We didn’t know whether he had the authority to give us permission to cross the farmland but he was so keen to be helpful that we didn’t like to turn down his offer.  Also we can’t resist the opportunity to experience any new route.  So we headed down through the fields towards the river at the bottom of the valley – hoping to find some way of crossing it without getting too wet.

I need not have worried because we managed to climb over a fence onto the track to the old farm, where the Windy Corner footpath starts, and crossed the footbridge at the ford.  The snag with walking down into the valley was that we had to climb up the other side.

And, being gluttons for punishment we decided to return to the Bungalow over the top of Mullagh Ouyr so that we could bag a third hill during the walk.

Before we descended to the car, I looked across and saw that the last of the fog/cloud had lifted and Beinn y Phott (with the ridge of Carraghan behind on the left)  were bathed in sunshine.

PS  We walked up in Brookdale Plantation on Saturday afternoon, and I paused to take a photo of the sea mist which was covering the northern plain and creeping up the glen below.   It suddenly struck me that the clouds had been turned upside down since Monday.  On Monday we walked though the clouds up on the top of the hills but today the tops of the hills were in brilliant sunshine and the "clouds" were all down at sea level.  Weird.

Laxey Valley

A walk to the Snaefell Mine

Tuesday 11^th January, 2011.

We intended heading for the hills this week – weather permitting.  But weather often doesn’t "permit" during winter on the Island and there was dense hill fog up on the tops.  I have never quite managed to work out the difference between hill fog and low cloud – perhaps clouds move more and hill fog clings to the high ground.

Anyway we didn’t manage to tick off any more peaks on our list of hills this week – and settled for a walk in the upper Laxey valley instead.

We started near Brown’s Café and walked up the road to Agneash and then continued along the track towards the Snaefell Mine.

There were patches of sunshine but Snaefell was hidden in the hill fog which extended down to below the level of the mountain road.

The first ruin along the track was bathed in winter sunshine.

It is a long, stony track but eventually we reached the last ruin before the mine workings – the Mine Captain’s house.

There is a little building on the hillside above the house which looks too small to be anything but a Thie beg (outdoor loo) although it was rather a long way from the house.  I expect the Mine Captain was important enough to have servants to deal with chamber pot emptying duties.

This photo shows part of the interior of the house – with the oven below and a fireplace for heating one of the upstairs rooms above.

Dorothy stopped to photograph the “deads” or spoil heaps which are criss-crossed with the tyre tracks of daredevil bikers.

Then we headed up the hill above the mines.

This part of the walk reminds me of one of our first solo walks on the Island.  We were accompanied by Chrissie, a little golden Schipperke who came to the Island with us in 1990.    Chrissie's best friend also came to the Island with but but she was a ginger cat called Emma who couldn’t understand the attraction of hiking and preferred to stay at home.    We were armed with one of Peter J Hulme’s books “Rambling in the Isle of Man” but still managed to get lost.  My main memories of that early walk are seeing the hares on the hillside and wandering for hours without finding the right path.  Chrissie thought she might be able to catch the hares but they just bounded off cheerfully and then sat up and laughed at the little fat dog.  They knew that they could outrun her . . . even at half speed.

When I read Peter Hulme’s description of the walk now, it seems easy to follow and hard to understand how we went wrong.  I think we just couldn’t believe how high we needed to climb before reaching the footpath.  It didn’t help that he mentioned following a wall until we reached an outcrop of rock.  I think we must have followed the wall too far.  Anyway to cut a long story (and a very long rough walk!) short we finally found ourselves outside an isolated house in the semi-dark.  In desperation we knocked and asked where the footpath was – and were told that we were on it!  The kind owner of the house pointed us in the right direction and we got back to the car without any further problems.

This last photo was taken on the footpath which we couldn’t find on that memorable occasion.  We were just below the dense cloud/fog and the view into the valley was quite hazy.

North Barrule

The first walk of 2011

Monday 3rd January, 2011

After the last walk of the 2010, in Maughold, I asked Trevor and Dorothy where they would like to walk this week and suggested that we should choose an inspiring walk as it would be the first one of 2011.  Without hesitation they replied in unison "North Barrule".

So yesterday morning we drove up to Black Hut, where I dropped my sister-in-law and Tim off to walk along the ridge together some years ago.  I emailed these photos to my sister-in-law hoping they would bring back some happy memories of a warm summer walk when they enjoyed seeing and hearing the skylarks up on the mountain.

There were no skylarks yesterday and the temperature was exactly zero when we left the car.  

We climbed Clagh Ouyr and walked along the ridge as far as the highest point of North Barrule and then retraced our steps back to the car.  It must have been below zero on the tops but there is so much climbing up and down the series of peaks that we kept reasonably warm.

Walking down Clagh Ouyr towards the boardwalk through the boggy bit.  It wasn't as muddy as usual because most of the ground was frozen - a "clean boot" walk. 

The view to the north with Glen Auldyn on the left and the Scottish coast in the distance.  It was another overcast day on the Island but we could see the sun shining on Burrow Head.

The view of Ramsey from the surveyors' pillar on top of North Barrule.  The scene looks rather hazy because I was using the zoom function on my camera and probably should have done something to compensate.  I really must read the instruction book for my camera!

Another zoom photo.  This time Glen Auldyn.

And finally, the view to the east – the patchwork farms of the Maughold peninsula and the distant, nearly visible coast of Cumbria across the Irish Sea. 

During the walk, we discussed a possible theme for the hikes this year and decided to make an attempt to climb all the accessible hills on the Island!  There are a few on private property like Cronk y Voddey and the Bride hills but we should be able to climb all the major hills and most of the others.

    Next week - Snaefell and Beinn-y-Phott . . .  weather permitting.  I don't know how to pronounce Beinn-y-Phott everyone just calls it Pennypot.