The forecast of a dry day on the Bank Holiday Monday was more than little optimistic. It was wet!
After spending a bit of time feeling unmotivated to do very much, the fear of a wasted day persuaded us to don our wet weather gear and get out. We decided to explore some of the quarries near Hodge Close.
We started off towards The Works. The down climb was obvious, with a fat tape to help the descent, but it was too steep in the wet for Zac so I stayed up top with him while Pete scrambled down and explored. Later we found a far better solution – a tunnel.
We then wandered along the paths, had a spot of lunch, passed a no entrance sign, passed an abandonned building or two, passed another no entrance sign, and found ourselves at Moss Rigg Quarry. This was massive. We couldn’t see an easy way in so we walked around the top to the far side where we were able to peer over the edge of the sheer cliffs. What looked from the other side to be fantastic route opportunities proved to be scarily unstable.
We eventually found our way in, after following numerous paths and coming back to where we started. The uneven boulders were slippy in the wet so we didn’t hang around for long. Instead we made our way across country to Rhunestone Quarry. There were a few bolted routes over steep rock and slabs, mostly pretty green but some looked like they had been cleaned fairly recently. There was an excellent slate bridge, going no where, but fun to walk across.
While we were checking out the quarries we realised there was plenty of ‘shrooming to be done.
We took our cache home to study, leaving plenty of the obviously poisonous ones behind. After consultation with our ‘shrooming expert, Peri, it turned out we had a couple we could eat. We’ve dried them out and I’ve had a nibble. I’m still here – Phew!