To the Moors pt1

 

As I drove south to Thorne moors on Monday I thought I must be mad. It was foggy, lights shone from every vehicle except for the forgetful and the dim. It looked cold and likely to be wet. But it was neither. Deceptively mild, and beautifully still, the low cloud just added to the mystery of the place.

I arrived at 9.15 and set off for a full circuit of the moors. The combination of the stillness, the quietness (no geese circling around on this day) and the mist gave it a real other worldliness. I felt privileged to step into this magical secret land (I walked for five and a half hours and neither saw nor heard another human being.) This avenue of birch, around one of the old tramways used for taking the extracted peat to the railhead, is almost formal in the way the trees are, by chance, spaced.