Deepdale Nature Reserve

We had a wonderful wander down Deepdale Nature Reserve today, British natural woodland at its best...- ostensibly looking for an esoteric crag - well there's a surprise.  We had a map and a guide book but managed to completely over shoot where we thought we were going and ended up sat on top of a different but still very nice rock with a rather grand almost 360 degree view of Teesdale.   It was fairly obvious why it was called Deepdale as we walked along the valley deepened into a definitive gorge and then we climbed up the path into the top of the valley for amazing views.

The walk from Barnard Castle down through the nature reserve was very splendid. It was perfect weather for a stroll through the woods - the colours were amazing, bright blue skies with the odd white cloud, greenery bursting out, moss, trees, new leaves, flowers everywhere... Birds singing, a heady scent of wild garlic, swathes of bluebells, dappled sun light over the amazing verdant greenery, gentle streams running and some amazing limestone pavement stream beds almost empty of water in spite of all the rain we have had! - so very different from our last walks along the river in the snow.... 

limestone stream bed

It almost goes without saying it was another of Dr Freds misleading walks, what with massive fallen trees to clamber over or under and land slides to bypass, streams to ford, it wasn't quite the straight forward affair promised but we found some rocks and I spent a happy half hour sketching in the sun before heading back along a track giving us amazing panoramic vistas across the country - right back to our house if we had had binoculars which as usual we had forgotten!!!  We had to make do with more local scenery, lots of chunky little lambs, a large number of moody looking cows and some very beautiful horses tethered in various enclosures. 

fine specimen of animal and the house in the background was stunning