High on a hill...

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Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
... is a stone age quarry, yodel ay-ee, yodel ay-ee ,yodelay-ee-ee...

And I'm off in a minute on a coach trip to see it (Great Langdale). It's years since I walked up a proper hill, wish my legs luck!

Tomorrow, I will be going down a flint mine, in Norfolk...
 

oxbob

New Member
Location
oxford
 
Aperitif said:
...make sure your mate Patrick knows you're going down... he'll be up all night worrying otherwise...:blush:

I'd be happier if I were hanging on to her legs to make sure she's safe. :ohmy:
 
Oh my word - great langdale...one of my favourite places, but not to walk!!! Last time I walked there I'd just done the coast to coast, so my little legs were somewhat weary. Halfway down stickle gill they folded underneath me and I could barely walk down the mountain. Us cyclists aren't meant to walk, you know.
Enjoy btw....
 
OP
OP
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Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
Canrider said:
Is that Mark taking a class trip or something?

Yup, well, it's the Implement Petrology Group Conference trip, and I've been helping out, so I got to go for free...

Blimey. That was hard going, but amazing views, and Neolithic stone working waste just lying around in great drifts... I opted out of the scramble around Pike O'Stickle to see the other quarry, but just up there and back was at my limit! Oh, my legs! And my bruised toenail - coming down can be so painful on the toes...

Anyway, today is Grimes Graves, so it's all flat, apart from the ladder down the mine...
:blush:
 
OP
OP
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Arch

Married to Night Train
Location
Salford, UK
A few pics of the last couple of days...

Monday:

Took so many views of Langdale, hard to do it justice! Just thinking about walking up this far is making my legs hurt again...

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But this is why we were here:

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The waste products of a thousand or more years of stone axe manufacture. Neolithic folk came up here, 4 to 5000 years ago, maybe earlier, and extracted this stuff from outcrops using sticks, antler picks, hammer stones and fire, and the resulting axes were traded right across the country...

I opted out of the scramble around Pike O'Stickle...

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Tuesday:

Grimes Graves:
Each of these depressions was once the shaft of a flint mine:
GrimesGraves.jpg


Being 'experts' we got to go down the one the public can't...

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The vertical shaft leads into horizontal galleries (only a couple of feet high) that the seams of flint came out of... (the flash is flooding the scene with light - we were seeing by torch)

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Here's the good stuff they were after:

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All dug out with picks like these (these really are 5000 year old deer antlers, not modern props...!)

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A bit dusty, crawling through the chalk, but an amazing experience! I do wish I didn't look quite so much like a startled rabbit, but hey, it's hard to be glamorous 50 feet underground in a hard hat!

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