So in an effort to achieve the above, Jenny and I have been out most days this week, walking around the town instead of taking the car. Yesterday we went to one of my favourite spots, Curbar Edge and walked for about 5 miles. We encountered a short hail storm bookended by blazing sunshine, which was a little surreal.
Earlier in the week Simon and I decided to do a segment of the Dronfield Rotary Walk.
In it's entirety it is just over 14 miles, and we've promised ourselves to take a full day out sometime soon to do the whole thing in one go. The plan this week, however, was to walk from Holmesfield through to Unstone - a distance of about 6 miles, We set off at 7.30pm and hoped to be finished before the light gave out.
It's nice to get off the beaten track outside Holmesfield, Going through by car you miss the absolutely fantastic view behind the houses. Stepping out onto the first public right of way, this was our view at the start of the walk. This was taken on my mobile phone so apologies for the quality.
We headed off down the hill past some amazing 17th century houses which we didn't realise were there, complete with knot gardens and dovecotes. I shall be going back with my camera. We headed off across the fields to pick up the road at Cowley. From there we crossed over towards Monk Wood. It's 8 years since we did this walk last, and at that time we came from the opposite direction. We climbed the hill up to Monk Wood, stopping to take some snaps of the horses that greeted us (my phone had died by this point so I'll upload one from Simon's mobile when I get a chance). The route is well sign posted. That is when the sign posts haven't been uprooted making it difficult to ascertain whether it's actually pointing in the right direction or not.
We knew we had to go into Monk Wood so decided to follow the most well worn path.
Some time down the path we realised that we should be going uphill by now to hit a mobile phone mast which is near the bridge over Dronfield by-pass which we needed to take to get back over into Dronfield. Unfortunately we were going downhill at an increasing pace. Not to be deterred, the noise of the traffic from the by-pass was getting louder and louder as we walked. We expected to come out at Sheepbridge Industrial Estate, just outside Unstone, and then walk through the streets to my car which was parked on the otherside of the village.
Unbeknown to us, the path we took was taking a steady right hand swing away from the by-pass and we eventually emerged from the trees to be greeted with the sight of Barlow about a mile and a half away. This was way off course. Our only option was to either go back through the woods or head for Barlow. The woods weren't a viable option as we would have the last 45 minutes of the walk treking through them in the dark without a torch, and neither of us fancied taking the chance of tripping or twisting an ankle, so we decided to head for Barlow and see if we could get a friend to pick us up from there.
Our friend Julie kindly came to our rescue, much to her amusement, and she picked us up at about 9.30pm by which time it was pitch black.
Overall an very enjoyable walk with an unexpected ending, which just added to the fun.
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