What a Great Cockup! (March 24th 2007)

I didn't believe the name when I heard it. Cockup! Great Cockup!

But according to Hairy a "cock" was short for woodcock and "up" meant valley, so Great Cockup is Great Woodcock Valley (from the old English).

Not as much fun like that, is it?

How to look silly in the Fells. Lesson one...

It's in the crinkly bits behind Skiddaw, where the H often goes and never meets anyone (except world triple jump champion Jonathan Edwards and his son near Longlands! See the Great Scafell entry!)

Anyway, the Screature was at Coniston Museum again, doing things with string (sewing) and we were footloose and fancy free for the weekend. He could have had loose women, loud music and vast quantities of alcohol but he settled for a nice stroll up a mountain, instead. [Actually, I don't think the LW, LM & VQA are on his radar!]

We got passed by a clump of yomping chaps at the start of the walk who went straight up the Burn Tod path. I had a little chuckle, cos we were heading in roughly the same direction but the path we were on didn't do masses of climbing just to come back down again! They were a-striding out for England, but round the bend we were back in front of them! He He He

I love it when that happens.

Anyway our walk was taking us round the foot of Burn Tod to Trusmador and then up the back of GC. It was brill. Totally deserted until Trusmador, then we hit a mini Piccadilly Circus of the fells. There were bods springing up from everywhere! The H.ster claimbed a bit of the side of Trusmador, found a comfy ledge and had a sanger while we counted the hewmings below. Sixteen people came through while he was stuffing his face. I'm not sure how many saw us, perched, vulture like on the towering sides of the coll, waiting to fire our ambushing arrows down on them, but we certainly saw them. And heard them! The acoustics must be weird cos you could hear, really clearly, everything they were saying to each other. Sadly it was all dull stuff, no plots to kill the king or let enemy U-boats know shipping movements, or interesting things that we could have ambushed them for.

Trusmadoor without people.

When a mum and her three brats came screaming down off Meal Fell we knew it was time to go. GC is another of those fell top cricket pitches. No crags or rocks or interesting stuff. Great smells, and some long dead unfound grouse. H thought the views were great but, you know, a view is just a view to a dog! You can't really smell it!

We found a grouse butt (Io thought it meant its bum!) which was lined with stones. Very posh. H saw Chapelhouse reservoir and thought about making it part of a walk for The S. at Easter. It smelled different to Overwater which was odd as they are fed by the same river. Perhaps its the manmadeness of Chapelhouse that makes it smell different.

Lunch was ett at the Sun Inn, Bassenthwaite Lake. A great spot. Hairy ordered extra chips for us and when they came out, the landlady had brought us some bits of bacon too. She's nice! We sat outside on the benches and some touristy types started talking to Hairy and then feeding us the remains of their lunch. They were nice too! They wanted to know if you could walk to St Bega's church, so Hairy was able to tell 'em a good circle walk that went there and through Dodd Wood. We took The S's bof brother and family on it last summer.

Here I'm singing "The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music!"