Lancashire/Yorkshire real ale trail

After watching Oz clarke get in a right merry state on TV, i decided to follow in the great mans footsteps and travel from Dewsbury all the way back to Manchester. I would be accompanied by my good mate and real ale connoisseur Chris " The moores" Moores.
We both live in Atherton Lancashire so the best tickets to buy are a Greater Manchester Day ranger at £4.60 and a West Yorkshire day rover at £6.20, these allow you to hop on and off the train whenever you like all day, just don't loose them as its around £5 per stop between stations. The train from Manchester Victoria takes about an hour so you might want to take some snap, you travel trough some fantastic scenery including the beautiful calder valley, passing through Todmorden and the now flooded Hebden bridge.  We arrived at Dewsbury for lunchtime and the bar on the station was already overflowing into the car park so we got directions from a star trek extra and wondered into the town. If i was led blindfold into the first bar i would have said i was in a geriatric ward for ugly fuckers, so we supped up and moved on, by the time we got back to the station a few beer monsters had moved on so we had a pint of Taylor's Landlord and jumped onto our train .

You get 40 minutes between trains so sit near a door and rush to get in or you might end up waiting twenty minutes to get served. The choice is yours were to get off as there is a pub at every station, but i must suggest The Wellington in Greenfield, about a ten minute walk away but full of real characters and the landlord has a cracking lunchtime menu. I won't bore you with the details of every other pub just go and explore for yourself, but not on a saturday when all the stag and hen parties are out its a fucking nightmare. The one thing i must recommend is to sit in the bar at Stalybridge  station and take in some of the fine surroundings before a load of men dressed as banana's ruin it. Well chin chin and enjoy xx

A quick mooch on the moors

This was another £3.90 return special to Greenfield with mi good mate john and 18 month old Lizzy, we walked from Dove stone reservoir up past the old grouse butts and onto Ashway moss. Once you get to Ashway stone you will see the path leading to Chew reservoir, a GPS is handy here as the path is not well used and the heather grows pretty quick. You also need to watch your footing as John found out when he went up to his nuts in a bog ( even the bloody dog laughed ).

We gave lizzy a bit of dummy training in the reservoir and walked back down the hill and into Greenfield , were we stopped for a quick pint in the King Billy. I walk this area at lease once a month but i suggest week days as the trains are like the Bombay express on saturdays, one good thing about traveling with a cute dog on a train full of drunken women is you do get a right eye full :) and it makes time pass a little easier.

Swimming in Easedale tarn 4/5/12

Pen life, today chorving dads canaries

Red kites and corvids being fed at Gigrin farm Wales

Views from welsh mountains

Our first stay at plascurig hostel and four unpronounceable peaks

On saturday 24th march 2012 my good mate  Shaun and myself set off for an overnight stay in Snowdonia,  we usually stay in run down bothies or so called youth hostels but i left shaun to do the booking this time and he did us proud. The plascurig hostel has not been open long and you can tell, everything is so clean and unspoiled but you still have a good relaxed atmosphere. The dorms which are £22 a night have eight beds in them and the curtains pull across so you get a good nights sleep, but if you don't want to share with six other swedish girls { god only knows why not } you can book smaller rooms and even family rooms. The hostel is in walking distance from the village of Capel curig were you can get all the supplies you need. Our first two peaks were pen Llithrig y wrach and Carnedd Llywelyn which i'm not going to talk about just enjoy the pictures. These were completed by four o clock at a steady pace setting off at ten, the weather was in the twenties with a nice cool breeze and it would of been rude not to stop a the local for a couple in the beer garden in those conditions. The second day after talking to a rock climber at the diggs we decided to climb Carnedd Dafydd which has some great scrambles and well worth it for the views of Tryfan and Snowdon peaking above the rest. This climb takes around five hours following the track down Ffynnon Llugwy back to the roadside car park. There's some great wildlife to see along the way from wild goats and ponies to flycatchers, dippers and pie crust eating ravens. Give it a go its a great place. ;}