Last Saturday I had a corker of a walk with the family around the Durham City Woods. Starting out going over the Shincliffe Bridge because of the large amount of rain the River Wear was light muddy brown whereas during the summer months from the downpours then when the river rose it was a very dark muddy brown . Why . Ho ho reading geology books comes in useful although I've never seen this explanation in any of them : in the summer Upper Weardale is very dry so the peat dries out and becomes more compact and like a dry veggie cube when you put water on it a lot of the peat gets washed away . But as the peat gets soggy when there has been lots of downpours as there has been recently the peat is very waterlogged and does not wash out as much so the amount of the peat in the water is less and the River Wear is consequently a lighter brown color . Could do an experiment with this but don't want to use up my veggie cubes . Any way with the ground being super wet and it was a warm day the smells from the river bank were tremendous . A lot of aniseed and earthy smells . As we walked into the woods this changed to a strong mushroom smell and there were a lot of fungi out . The trees in Houghhall Wood are over 200 years old and the whole wood was clear cut in 1799 and some of them are beginning to die but these 150 foot monsters are just wonderful to walk through , still very green but some orange yellow is coming through . Should be a good Autumn. Love walking with the family! There are still not many birds to be seen but we heard a lot of them high up in the canopy of the trees where all the insects are . A smashing walk out and we are going to do this walk a lot through into the winter!