Walking in the Peaks

This weekend has been all about walking - walking with the 50+ Adventure Club in the Derbyshire peaks, where we had mixed weather.

I met up with the two couples who were sharing our rented house in Tideswell, where I have stayed before.  Very comfortable, but we decided to have a walk on Friday afternoon to look at what Tideswell had to offer.  No sooner had we set off than the heavens opened and there was a cloudburst!!  Where better to get out of the rain than the local pub where others were also sheltering and a good afternoon was had by all.

Anyway next day we met up in the village of Litton and set off walking downhill through Tansleydale

How dressed up are we - it is supposed to be June!!

 

Nearer the bottom of the dale the going got rougher and there were runners coming UP.  Great admiration for their guts!  We passed these lovely cottages, which were once mill workers' homes, now converted to holiday homes.

'Shilling on the stairs' to let

 

Completely isolated in the woods.

Their back gardens

On down through Cressbrook Dale where we turned right and walked along beside the River Wye.

River to the right

 

The River Wye

 

A coot with babies.  Aaargh!

This is the Derbyshire River Wye and it is a tributary of the River Trent.  Very beautiful and peaceful and we thought we saw a water vole but it was a duckling sitting on the bank!!

Litton Mill

We passed Litton Mill and proceeded to the long (or so it seemed!) walk up Tideswell Dale, passing the only water vole we would see that day -

and so we had completed our first 6.5 mile walk of the weekend.  A convivial meal was had at the pub down the road in Tideswell with everyone attending, except our Chairman, D, who we later learned had been airlifted to hospital after being taken ill before the walk even started.

Next day, Sunday, we all met in Hathersage for the long walk up to Stanage Edge

We walked though glorious pastures full of wonderful flowers including some wild orchids.

"Are we nearly there yet?" Stanage Edge in the distance!

 

A very inquisitive sheep

 This sheep rushed up to us when we had a break for water and sweets - did he hear the rustling of the sweets?

Looking behind us.

We passed some moorland and were lucky enough to see and hear this bird

A curlew - much larger than I expected,

On we climbed with the promise of our sandwiches when we reached our destination.  However we were slightly disconcerted to see this black sky and wondered whether we would miss it.

Much blacker than this photo shows

This was the nearest that I would get to the edge as I am terrified of heights!!  Then suddenly the heavens opened and a deluge descended and with a rush to put on water proofs etc we packed up the remains of our lunch and tried to find the path down.  I didn't bother with waterproof trousers and so I got soaked, but we saw the lighter band behind the dark cloud and when that got to us the sun shone and we all dried off.  Finally after a wet descent we came out onto this grass path

where we were surrounded by swarms of midges and so back down to Hathersage and a very welcome cup of tea and a slice of cake!  A long 7.5 walk but I loved it.

A great weekend in Derbyshire and one we will never forget as Chairman D, is in Derby Hospital and we all wish him a speedy recovery.