Teesdale

After another night of not sleeping well, I thought I would be exhausted this morning, but I was fine.  We had planned another walk today, but had to be back home by 6pm (or so we thought), so we had to be quite organised today.  We packed up, had breakfast and then checked out of the hotel.  We packed the car and then picked up some provisions for the walk and we headed off, walking down river today on the Teesdale Way.  It was another lovely day, and not as hot as yesterday, at least when we set off.  The path was very up and down, before settling into running by the river.  We eventually left the river and headed up to Egglesburn and then on to Eggleston – where TT started reminiscing about cricket matches again.
 
We walked past Eggleston House which advertised a café.  TT fancied a cuppa, so we took a detour.  The café was packed, so we didn’t bother and just continued on our way.  Our next stop was in Romaldkirk, a lovely village where we decided to stop for lunch.  We had a lovely bench in the sunshine, on the village green – idyllic.  Being time constrained we couldn’t linger too long, so once we’d had some lunch, we continues.  The walk back was mainly on the Tees Railway path.  It made for easy walking, which meant fast walking, and for a railway path  there was lots of interest along the way.  We met quite a few walkers, while we hadn’t seen any this morning.  We were back in Middleton in Teesdale sooner than we expected, but with no time to waste, we picked up some cold drinks, jumped in the car and headed off on our journey home.
 
We largely retraced the route we had come on, over the moors to Blanchland, passing the chimneys on the moor.  We then  took a slightly different, but more direct,  route to Corbridge.  I hadn’t had a phone signal, but when I suddenly got one, I realised I had a few missed calls from BB.  I called him back and he eventually answered to say they had finished their walk early today, so the leader had given him (and others) a lift home.  That took the pressure off us, though we were in fact home at one minute past six.
 
We could barely get into the kitchen as BB had just emptied his bag and there was stuff everywhere!  What’s worse if that our stuff added to the mess.  I sorted stuff out while TT did a mammoth watering session in the garden.  BB was starving, tired and grumpy – not a great combination.  I ordered pizzas for tea, which went down well.   Later it was such a lovely evening that I popped out for a short walk in the late evening.  I could see the haar coming up the river which doesn’t bode well.
 
What a lovely weekend all round.  BB enjoyed his weekend adventure and so did we. 
 
There were more lovely flower meadows today and picturesque dales views.  We were interested in this sign (extra) above a door at the Baptist chapel in Egglesburn, which google tells me refers to provision of reading room for the workmen of the Eggleston Street Mill. The second extra is a pumping house on the moor above Blanchland, whereby a water company had taken over the engine house of a closed Derwent Lead Mine and developed a pumping house to supply water to Consett.