Teesdale Way

The River Tees rises on the slopes of Cross Fell in the North Pennines and flows east for 85 miles to reach the North Sea between Hartlepool and Redcar, passing (some would say making) the Pennine attractions of Cow Green Reservoir, Cauldron Snout, High Force and Low Force. Towns and villages that have grown up close to points where the river is bridged include Middleton-in-Teesdale, Barnard Castle, Piercebridge (the Romans bridged the river here), Yarm and Stockton-on-Tees. Further downstream, many of the industries that grew up around Middlesbrough relied on a relatively local source of coal, but also on the river, both as a source of water and as a means of transport for bringing in raw materials and exporting finished products.

The Teesdale Way is a 100 mile long distance footpath which, below Cauldron Snout, follows the river closely (though above Middleton-in-Teesdale it is coincident with the Pennine Way and not labelled as a separate long distance path). Above Cauldon Snout, the path veers away from the river, with a start/end point at Dufton in Cumbria. This seems a somewhat bizarre choice. The actual source of the river is on a protected nature reserve, so I guess you can't get there by any route. We therefore decided that the JordanWalks end of the Teesdale Way would be Cow Green Reservoir, just above Cauldron Snout, about 85 miles along the path from the mouth of the Tees.

The Teesdale Way is usually described in the direction of the river's flow, but we decided to walk upstream from the coast. This was partly to enable us to start from a location we had previously walked to (Saltburn-by-the-Sea, about 4 miles to the South of Redcar) and to follow the general direction of our journey northwards from home in Norfolk. It also enabled us to get the industrial parts of the walk over and done with at the beginning of the walk. This, as people pointed out to us, did mean that we were walking "uphill" and into the prevailing wind. However, neither of these things caused problems and we would recommend the walk in the direction in which we did it. We would also recommend our link path along the coast from Saltburn to Redcar, rather than the official E2 "Tees link" from the Cleveland Way via Roseberry Topping to Middlesbrough. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with the Tees link path, but we were struggling with the logistics of getting to Roseberry Topping (where we had also walked before) and also getting to the mouth of the Tees in order to start the Teesdale Way proper, without too much 'there and back' walking through industrial Teesside.

We walked from Saltburn to Redcar and the mouth of the Tees, then upstream as far as Middleton-in-Tees (about 75 miles) in July 2015. The weather was almost perfect for walking; it wasn't too hot and by sheltering under trees to avoid a couple of heavy showers, we managed not to get wet at all. The banks of the River Tees were delightfully green, with trees and other vegetation. Sometimes the path was rather overgrown, and in other places someone had obviously been to a lot of trouble to clear the vegetation. However they have a real problem with Giant Hogweed, really giant in places, and a nasty piece of work; brushing against it can result in the sensitization of your skin to sunlight, resulting in nasty burns. Rumour has it that Giant Hogweed, an imported ornamental plant, escaped into the Tees Valley from the Barnard Castle Estate.

In some senses, a path alongside a river is rather repetitive. However the variety of the landscape through which the river was passing, from industrial, to wooded valleys to open moorland, made for a diverse and enjoyable walk. The walking was generally not too difficult, with just occasional steep climbs and descents (usually on steps), occasionally muddy stretches, and some struggling with the overgrown vegetation described in the paragraph above; we were occasionally strung by nettles or scratched by brambles, but thankfully the Giant Hogweed had always been cleared from our path.

We returned to the Teesdale Way in August 2015, whilst staying in Butterfly Cottage, a lovely holiday cottage in Upper Weardale. The rivers Tees, Wear and South Tyne are all within a few miles of each other here, so we were less than 10 miles from the Cow Green area. It was lovely to be back on the Teesdale Way. Our progress was much slower than on our previous holiday because our wish to get out walking was tempered by my wish to do some writing, so each day included an element of each - and we only had one car with us, so we had to walk each leg in both directions.

The Teesdale Way is described in a Cicerone guide, written by Martin Collins and revised by Paddy Dillon. This describes the route in the 'wrong' direction, so it was of limited use. The quality of the signposting (mostly with yellow signs featuring dippers, though towards the beginning of our route there were steel signs with walking boots) was a bit variable. We made good use of OS Explorer (1:25000) maps 306, 304 and Outdoor Leisure 31.