thousandmilesblog | Walk Post 019 - Getting Lost in Diglea

Date of Walk: 03/04/10
Walk organized by: Self
Start time: 14:00
Start location: Saddleworth Museum, Uppermill
Walk length: 7.21 miles
Weather conditions: Dry, sunny spells

House near the canal on the way to Diggle

Details:
Not really walking, more an adventure with a map. The intention was to walk from Uppermill to Diggle along a familiar route, then explore some footpaths picked out from the map on the way back. The thing with picking a route from a map is, you never really know what you're going to get. That does make things interesting.

The route taken was along the Huddersfield Canal to Diggle, then back along roads and footpaths to the east of the towpath with a couple of diversions. Starting from next to the museum car park, I followed the canal towpath under the viaduct, past the Brownhill Centre and Wool Road car park, past Dobcross Loom Works and Warth Mills up to Sam Road, where the canal enters Standedge Tunnel (I love that the entrance is called a Portal, makes it sound like a gateway to another world). From there I walked along a section of the Oldham Way towards Diggle Edge. It got quite windy and looked as if it might rain at this point so I decided to head for somewhere slightly less exposed. After consulting the map I retraced my steps to Diglea and headed along the road eastwards through Diglea, hoping to join a footpath that would take me onto another running back south towards Uppermill. This is where it got slightly interesting.

It would probably be a very bad idea, here on this public blog, to start mentioning specific places where footpaths marked as public rights of way across farm land have been illegally blocked. People might get litigious. So I will not mention any barbed wire that might or might not have been arranged to block a stile and prevent walkers crossing the field boundary either side of it. I will also not mention any pair of footpaths that may or may not have been effectively blocked by a whole lot of signs saying 'Trespassers will be prosecuted' and two footpath signs turned back the opposite way. That would clearly be unacceptable. Nothing of the sort happened here.

Suffice to say that after getting as far as I could along the road from Diglea, getting very frustrated and quite muddy, and making more sheep than necessary feel nervous trying to find a footpath that somebody had done their very best to render invisible, I decided to turn back and head along the road south from Diglea through Lee Cross. From this road I turned up the lane through Fair Banks Farm and joined the path running south that I'd been trying to get to earlier. This proved to be a not especially nice path anyway, one of those that runs between high hedges and the backs of buildings, never gets any sunlight and is consequently a little narrow corridor of swamp. Anyway, it brought me out exactly where I'd wanted to be, on Running Hill Lane heading for Moor Lane. The sun was shining and I knew where I was going, and it didn't really matter how much I'd wandered around trying to get where I was. I continued down Moor Lane to Brownhill Lane, and joined the canal towpath at the Brownhill Centre to get back to the start point.

Some new places, a few I probably won't be heading back to but some I will. The swampy footpath continues north from where I joined it and looks a lot less swampy, and it may be easier to head along it the other way up to Diggle Reservoir. It was also good to find a bit of the Oldham Way, as I may be planning some walks along parts of it in the future and it's always nice to recognise at least some of where you're walking. It was reasonable weather for exploring, which was quite lucky really. Also, getting in an afternoon walk of decent length felt good, as I had fewer problems with lack of energy.