Power walking

If you have an aversion to an industrial element to your countryside, read no further. We pulled in at the pampered car park, put on our waterproofs and spun down a wheelchair-smooth path under ash trees frizzing into leaf, by pussy willows and tamed bramble benders.

A local thought the Selby sunshine would be out in an hour. A lad fished a mere, catching rudd and hoping for 'big pike'. And then we were on to the neat Barlow Common Nature Reserve, which is fashioned from an old ballast dump. Rachel Stanhope, the Selby countryside officer, gave us information and had a look at our map; Chris Williams, a volunteer here for ten years, was looking forward to a bonfire.

The land was quiet and pleasant, with teasels, cowslips, bluebells, and dark soil ridged for spuds or glowing with oil seed rape. Moorhens floated on a pond and blossom floated on the drainage ditches. But lest I forget - Drax power station, on the right shoulder, two miles as the crow flies.

We were now on the 'Big River Walk', and soon striding out for our three good miles on the high, wide flood banks of the great River Ouse. The water was tidally low, ten feet of muddy banks exposed, but even so 50 yards across. The flow was in out direction but faster.

At a bend in the Ouse willows have moved in from their precarious riverbank and colonised an acre or so, their horizontal and sprouting trunks a perch for lunch.

As we tangentially closed on Drax, the cooling towers moved in parallax. The flood bank deepened and picked up a parallel curtain of poplars. Black faced sheep grazed, so be careful to lock the stiles which are an uncommon mechanical squeezer sort.

After a humming transformer and the sluiced confluence with the River Derwent, we turned towards the power station. An un-reinstated path across a field on a route promoted by County prompted a soil test, i.e. take a pinch of earth, mix with saliva, make a malleable pellet, therefore clay. Pear Tree Avenue was lovely for a dozen big old trees, but one had just fallen. Don't think for a second, as we did, that a thing on a plinth is a trig point; we're about 15 feet above sea level, all the way.

The next excitement was a length on the 'Energy Walk'. Clouds from the looming vase-shaped cooling towers blocked the sun, wires audibly sizzled with electricity, a conveyor belt rattled. Skeletal bridges provided vantage points.

Then came a lovely post-industrial wood with a winding path through flowering bluebells, Ash Wood it is, and it blends on to twisty cinder rail track bed all the way back.

Fact File:

Distance: Eight and a half miles. Add one mile for nature reserve.

Time: Four hours.

General location: Near Selby.

Start: Barlow Common car park - free.

Right of way: The route is along public rights of way and permissive paths.

Date walked: Friday, April 16, 2004.

Road route: From Selby 4 miles on the A1041 toward Camblesforth and Snaith. Turn east, signed Barlow 1.

Car parking: Free.

Lavatories: Barlow Common Nature Reserve.

Refreshments: None.

Tourist & public transport information: Selby 01757 212181.

Map: Based on OS Explorer 290, York.

Terrain: Flat flood plain.

Points of interest: Wheelchair access in and around the Nature Reserve.

Difficulty: Easy walking.

Dogs: On leads in nature reserve.

Please observe the Country Code and park sensibly. While every effort is made to provide accurate information, walkers set out at their own risk.

Directions:

When in doubt look at the map. Check your position at each point. Keep straight on unless otherwise directed.

1. Track from car park, right after Mere, pass toilets, access track.

2. Left to road. Field-edge path on right (signed), 200 yards, path switches to left of hedge/ditch. At wood, footbridge on right over ditch and immediately left to path.

3. Right to road. At corner, squeezer to floodbank path. After farm, path in wood around meander. Return to floodbank.

4. Skirt to right of transformers, return to floodbank. Skirt to left of house, 100 yards, stile on right (3-way fingerpost), cross road, cross field by telegraph poles, field-edge path.

5. Right to road.

6. Track on right after lake (signed) and stay by Drax fence to left.

7. At corner right of way continues between fences and under wires. However just before corner there's a permissive path on right through young woodland, footbridge, stile to path with fence each side.

8. Path swings left under wires, raised footbridge, path between fences, raised footbridge, path between fences opens out and keeps stream to right.

9. Track into wood (ignore left forks), track becomes gravelled path, swings right when meeting another path from left (stream to right).

10. At wood corner (tree with two yellow waymarks), path swings right, 50 yards, footbridge with iron railings over stream, stile, 20 yards, left at tracks junction (signed fingerpost), cross road to car park.

Click here to view a map of the walk

Updated: 08:51 Saturday, April 24, 2004