Let Sleeping Mammals Lie...

Welcoming Summer

Summer is officially here! We celebrated its arrival by having vanilla ice cream with red sugar sprinkles topped by a sparkler. The kids loved it!
It's a small way to honor the change of seasons. Much more appropriate than running naked through the field like I threatened to do in the past. Just kidding, my children. I'd never do that. Really...probably not.

The Jaunt to Jerusalem

A simply stunning weekend was had in Mt Jerusalem National Park, immediately to the North of Mullumbimby. And yet there is still much to explore in this region. I didn't find the cave paintings that I had been told were in the area, but there may be another lead on those in the Koonyum Ranges. Something to explore for another day perhaps.

The ride to the campsite was relatively uneventful to start with. I got the usual late start that seems to be a common theme in weekend tours, and took the now usual route south via Urliup. When I crested that range I could see that there was rain sweeping across the Tweed Valley from the South. I had no idea that it was going to stay with me for the rest of the morning. The rain started soon after I passed through Murwillumbah and simply did not stop, at all.

The climb up the range toward the campsite was treacherous, partially because of the condition of the road, but mostly because of at least two complete idiots careering out of control in the opposite direction. I have no idea how (if) they survived, and I can only hope that they don't take any innocent people with them when their time inevitably comes. For my part, I continued across the top of the range, before the descent to the campground that I am now christening Leech City, in honour of the creatures who were encouraged by the continuing rain.

I actually considered going home and abandoning the whole idea at one stage, but I decided to stick it out, on the basis that a leech-infested rainforest campsite in the wet is still a million times better than another weekend of suburbia. I crawled into the tent, had lunch and slept for an hour, by which time the rain had stopped, and the sun had made a rare appearance. It was time to explore the area immediately surrounding the campsite. I had my own swimming hole and waterfall.



Later in the day I decided to undertake the climb up to Hell's Hole. I had seen this last September of course, but I wanted to see how it looked after the rain we've had recently. The climb to get there is still as hard as it was back then, although that particular dirt road didn't suffer too badly in the rain it seemed. The track off the road to the falls was extremely muddy, and I hid the bike half way down and walked the remainder of the distance, while picking off some more leeches. Whatever I had to do, it was worth the effort.





Hell's Hole is a chain of swimming holes linked by little watefalls, culminating in one BIG waterfall at the bottom end. I'm still trying to find a way to access the BIG waterfall. Perhaps I'll consider a return visit in April. By the time I finished here, it was getting late, so I headed back to my campsite (which was virtually all downhill from here) and retired for the evening. I managed to filter some water from the creek to keep me going, and now it was time to rest after what had been a memorable day.
* * * * * * * * *

I really seemed to be plagued by laziness the next morning for some irrational reason. I did head for the top of South Chowan Road (some of which was unrideable on this bike) and did get a magical ride through the rainforest, as well as some lovely views through the trees at the top of a ridge. The problem is that I didn't bother to come up with any particular plan of attack, and ended up heading down a side road that led nowhere, before deciding to head back to the campsite and make preparations for the ride home.

On a drier day I'll return and explore the South Chowan Fire Trail, albeit I think I can guess where it might go. I returned to Uki for lunch, and commenced what turned into a surprisingly easy ride home. Even the climb over Tomewin didn't trouble me at all. Maybe all the blood lost to the leeches lightened the load a little! I simply mopped up the remaining kilometres, and pondered what I can take from this trip (apart from probably a few too many pictures).

The Mt Jerusalem National Park has emerged as the great unknown among all the places I now regularly visit. A google search on it turns up surprisingly little, and much of that content is either incomplete or just inaccurate. Consequently, I have no idea what to expect in some of the other areas of the Park. I have a feeling I'll need to set aside some other weekends to explore those fully.

Empingham - Tickencote - Gt Casterton - Pickworth - Clipsham

Led by me, with Barry and Gordon. Fine with a chilly wind. Muddy underfoot in places. Just over 11 miles in all, including the ritual progress along the avenue.

This covers most of the same ground as the walk on 31 August .


We left one car at the Yew Tree Avenue, and drove to Empingham to the start of the walk. We parked on the road near the church, and then walked along the main street east through the village. Just after the last buildings and Mill Lane we took a footpath to the right, leading uphill through Chapel Spinney.

The path came out of the trees into and continued along the top edge of several fields. Empingham was now a cluster of houses and the church behind us. We passed a spinney on the right, and continued to follow the path. According to the map there should be a turn to the right downhill across a field, but we didn't see it, and in any case avoided the sticky mud by carrying on to the farm track, where we turned right and walked down a short distance to pick up the path. It crossed the fieldto the next yellow post just before a farm house.

The path emerged on to a small road, and then across a couple of fields, going roughly north east, before swinging round more to the east behind Tickencote Hall, with the mill pond visible through the trees.

We crossed another road and entered the ram's field.





Today he wasn't asleep, but posed no problem. Of course, I talked to him nicely.



We called in to St Peter's Church to admire the chancel arch and vaulting, before making our way through the village and along the road past the OK Diner and to Great Casterton.


We took Pickworth Road, past the school and up hill out of Great Casterton. After about a mile along this quiet road we tirned left along a muddy track between two hedges - just opposite Mounts Lodge Farm. We walked alongside a very big field, and then turned right along another track with hedges on each side. The footpath sign post was on the ground here. We had a break, slightly sheltered from the wind.
From here the path continues north towards Pickworth, passing some woodland and the site of Woodhead Castle (invisible from where we were). With one short diversion to the right we kept on walking.

At Pickworth we turned left, leaving the church on our right, and passing the archway - now behind a gate, and John Clare's lime-kiln, which is also clearly on private land, and fenced off.

Pickworth Church

We went past the first signed path to the right, and took the second one, where the road bends left. The wide track turns into a path after half a mile or so and turns right across a field to Little Sutie, a section of woodland joined to Pickworth Great Wood. We walked thorugh the tress and then followed the edge of the woodland as far as the path across Clipsham Quarry. Up the other side and following Rutland Round signs, the path eventually took us down hill across a slippery wooden bridge and uphill again into Clipsham. From here we walked along the Castle Bytham road and back to the yew trees.

What the storm hath wrought

We could have used all this rain last spring or summer, but it's still welcome.

Even if last week's storms are going to cause a little extra work. I wish I'd put something in there for scale - this tree was huge. I had to hop up on it to get over.

This ex-Sycamore was definitely dead already.

I think the fish and ducks and flittery little birds would like this a lot, but hubby thinks it needs removing.

Collateral damage... I wish it hadn't taken two live trees with it.

It's amazing how fiercely the Sycamore balls still cling, this time of year.

Except for this one.

Flocks of Cedar Waxwings celebrated the rain. (Click to enlarge.)

Weirdness

This is an old baptismal font at Jamestown, Virginia.
Today in Sunday School, a friend of mine was talking, so I could stare at him without being rude.   As I continued looking at him, he ceased looking like himself and became like a stranger.  I've known this person for almost thirty years.  It made me feel like I didn't know him at all.  Isn't that weird?
Have you ever had this to happen?  It's not the first time it's happened to me.

I Made It!

The engagement party went off without a hitch on Friday night.  We had a cookout at a local state park.  Here's the cake I made for them; camo and girly pink.  It was a cute idea, but my execution left a lot to be desired.  Cake decorating is not on my list of talents!  Oh well, everyone thought it was cute anyway.
We had a crowd for Easter dinner.  Lots of good food and fellowship.  The kiddos had a great time hunting the eggs.  I had a great time hiding them.  I kept finding myself smiling and remembering the past when all the cousins would gather at Grandma Collins' house to hunt eggs.  I was telling my mama what a good time I had hiding the eggs and remembering all the hunts we had at Grandma's house.  Mama said that she just loved hiding the eggs too.  There were probably a hundred or more since there were so many cousins hunting them.
So hopefully this week will be a little slower and calmer; at least until Friday.  The whole weekend will be spent in celebrating our church's 25th anniversary.  There'll be lots of friends back to help celebrate, so it'll be good to renew relationships.  Summer, please come quickly!  I'm ready for a laid-back state of mind.  All these schedules are makin' me crazy!