Castleton to Mam Tor

This mornings walk has been one of my favourites so far.  Castleton is a place I have been to many, many times, mainly for the cafes and gift shops.  Today I learned so much more about the area.

We started our walk in Castleton car park, crossed the road and walked behind the town and up into Cavedale.  Cavedale boasts 4 caverns, all open to the public, with their stalagtites, stalagnites and dark dank pools.

The climb up through Cavedale. 

As we walked up the valley littered with limestone rocks and boulders, we turned back to catch a view of Peveril Castle which was built for William Peveril, illegitimate son of William the Conqueror. You can just see it there centre left in the photo above.

Our walk continued out over open farmland crossing the Limestone Way which runs from Castleton through into Staffordshire.  This was fairly easy walking although quite exposed and very windy.

Mam Tor

By now we could see Mam Tor in the distance.  We weren't going to climb it originally, but hey, the hill was there so it had to be done!  Mam Tor has a fascinating history. Once a bronze age hill fort, it's name means 'Mother Hill'.  You can still see the ridges in the hillside used to defend the fort. 

It's a wee bit of a climb up there but the views from the top are stunning and it's easy to imagine how the inhabitants must have felt on a bright summers morning, gazing over the countryside all around.  It was still blowing a bit of a gale so it was all too easy to imagine the harsh conditions they must have had to endure during the winter months.

Me at the trig point on top of Mam Tor

The above is one of my favourite views. Showing Lose Hill and beyond it Win Hill. The hills take their names from the Battle of Lose Hill and Win Hill which took place in 626. Legend has it that Prince Cwichelm and his father, King Cynegils of Wessex, possibly with the aid of King Penda of Mercia, gathered their forces on neighbouring Lose Hill and marched on the Northumbrians based on Win Hill. Despite their superior numbers, Wessex was defeated by the Northumbrians.  It's very unlikely that this actually happened but a good story nonetheless.

Looking from the back of Mam Tor is a fabulous view of Kinder Scout and Edale as shown above.  That's a much longer walk for another day though!

We came down the other side of Mam Tor past the Blue John Cavern and down towards Treak Cliff Cavern.  Treak Cliff is now a grass covered hillside but was once a limestone reef.  The nearby road would have once been a sea bed, and it's just mind blowing to think that the hillside is made up of the fossilised remains of millions of sea creatures.   

In later years lead and blue john was mined here. The miners worked long hours underground by candlelight.  They often had to supplement their living by farming.  The lead mined was used for church and castle roofs.  The blue john was used to decorate stately homes but is now mainly made into jewellery.

We continued our walk off over the fields imaging the creatures who had once lived beneath our feet, past Speedwell Cavern at the bottom of Winnits Pass and back into Castleton.

It was lovely to follow the river back down into the village and discover some more delights!

So what set out as an ordinary walk in the countryside turned into a fascinating and informative history lesson, by far my favourite and most memorable walk so far.

Monsal Head Round Walk

Another absolutely glorious Sunday morning. Up with the larks at silly o'clock and out for 8.30.  Arrived at Monsal Head well before 9 and spent a few minutes taking in the stunning view which was the walk ahead of us today.

First part of the walk was down some very steep steps and along to the now defunct Viaduct with the River Wye winding it's way lazily below us and out onto the Monsal Trail.  The trail is a former railway line having been part of the Midland Railway line through the Peak District National Park.

We continued along the trail with the river  on our right until we got to Cressbrook Mill.  The original mill was built in 1783 as a cotton mill, this burnt down and was replaced by the current building in 1812.  The mill was originally powered by two large water wheels until 1890 when they were replaced by turbines. 

We wound our way down by to the river eventually crossing at Water-Cum-Jolly (yes, really!) and followed the river along past the limestone rocks. This part of the Peak District is called the White Peak because of the prevelant limestone landscape. 

The walk along the river was very peaceful, and we didn't pass anyone else on this stretch of the walk. 

We carried on until we got to Litton Mill - another cotton mill.  Litton Mill was opened in 1782 and became notorious for the harsh treatment of the children who worked there. Children were imported from Sheffield and London and many of them died because of the conditions there.  The mill has now been converted into luxury flats and holiday lets. A far cry from the days of child labour. 

We stopped here for a drink and snack.   Next we followed the trail towards Millerdale.  What a shock.  After the steep descent at the start of the walk, we had mainly been walking on the flat. We knew that at some point what comes down, has to go back up, and our time had come!  Up some steps through the woods, onto a short plateau, marking the start of Priestcliffe Lees Site of Specific Scientific Interest Nature Reserve.  Up more steps and then we were confronted by a very steep hill, which just seemed to go on forever, but probably took us about 20 minutes to get to the top of.  The views from the top were lovely though and worth the climb.

Once again the trail steadied off and we set off over the fields towards Upper Dale.  At this point we had to decide whether to carry straight on over the top of the fields or head down to Lees Bottom.  By this time the pub back at the start of the walk was calling us, and we decided the delights of Lees Bottom would have to wait for another time.  

The pathway here and in other places was awful.  Snidy little stones had been poured along the way, I guess to make it easier to walk, but they were horrible little things, all sticking out at right angles making it uncomfortable to walk on.  I think they may have been inhabited by the souls of the children who died in the mills, and this was their revenge.  And who could blame them!!

Again we followed the line of the river, but from above once more. 

By now we could see the pub in the distance.  Another very steep decline, over more of those awful stones and we were back on to the Viaduct and within striking distance.

Our last climb of the day was back the way we had started, up the steep steps to the Monsel Head Hotel and The Stables, where we had a very welcome, and I'd say well earned pint!

Time taken: 2 hours 45mins

Distance: 5.89 miles

I've Won!!

How exciting!  I knew all this walking would pay off eventually!!

Some weeks ago I registered with Active Travel Challenge. This is a Derbyshire-wide initiative for companies and employees throughout the region to register their intention to become more active. I decided I would park the car at the bottom of the hill every morning and do the hour round journey to the hospital and back to the car every day.

Ha!! That didn't last very long - getting up at 6.30 is bad enough without having to set the clock even half an hour earlier, and by the time I got home at lunchtime I felt like I'd put in a day and a half.  Not to be deterred, I've been walking most days elsewhere and been logging them all on the site here: http://www.activetravelchallenge.org.uk/

So in 7 weeks I've walked 57 miles, burnt 1,800 calories and saved 18kg of C02.

Sadly there are only 15 days left of the challenge, but I do hope they extend it.

Oh yes, my prize - coffee and cake for 2 at Fresh Basil in Belper.  http://www.freshbasil.co.uk/eaterie.htm



I don't think I've ever been to Belper before, so that's a good excuse to find a nice walk which ends up in a nice little coffee* shop.










* Not a fan of coffee but I'm hoping they will give me a hot chocolate in lieu.

Lathkill Dale via Over Hadden

LATHKILL DALE WALK - one of the first Dales to be designated as a National Nature Reserve.

What a glorious morning.  Up and out just after 9 and arrived at Over Hadden car park for 9.30.  Over Hadden is just outside Bakewell, but we've never been through the village before.  Set off down a very steep lane and had an idylic walk alongside the River Derwent.  The River is one of the pursest in the country and you could see right through to the river bed - the water was so clear.  (It's not very deep mind you).

The route took us up through Quiet Lane and on to Alport.

Alport was the halfway maker so time to break out the water.

Alport is a gorgeous little village with some stunning houses and gardens.  And a water mill, but it's privately owned so we didn't get much of a view of that.  We crossed the road and set off on our first real uphill climb. 

The climb didn't last long though and soon we were back in the fields with a view of the Derwent below us and Over Hadden ahead.  A trudge through the fields full of sheep, little orange butterflies and ladybirds followed and then we saw the most wonderful sight ahead.

Yes!! A pub!  The Lathkill Hotel.  Very friendly hostilery with a stunning view back over Lathkill Dale.  Sitting in the beer garden supping a cold drink was the perfect way to end the walk.

We'll be back!

Dronfield Rotary Walk

Well - this last week the walking has started again in earnest.  After a very uncomfortable weekend, last week, the Doctor thinks I have an hiatus hernia, and amongst other things, said that losing some weight may help it slip back into place. 

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.

Whilst on the subject of books!

ereaders!

I haven't used my Sony ereader quite as much as I thought I would. Then again, I thought it would come into its own on holidays and we've not really had a holiday since I got it at Christmas.

Over the Christmas break I downloaded a load of copyright free books, mainly classics like Oscar Wilde etc. A couple of weeks ago though I made my first proper purchase. I deliberated between buying the physcial book, or downloading it, because it's the latest work by my favourite author Barbara Kingsolver (The Lacuna). I eventually decided that I might as well go for the e version and see how I got on.

First surprise was the price of the thing. I can only assume that because it's not yet available in paperback, the sellers (Waterstones in this instance) thought it ok to price it higher than the paperback will be. How on earth can that be? I can't for the life of me fathom why an e book should be more expensive than a paperback. I know it's still relatively new technology but surely the overheads must be less than those of physically printing, packaging and posting a book out.

My first attempt at paying for and downloading the book failed. At the payment stage. Error with the website. My second and third attempts were the same. I emailed Waterstones. They replied 5 days later saying that they were having problems processing ebooks and to try again in a couple of weeks.

I left it a month. Everything went through all ticky boo.

Until I tried to download the file which saved as an jpg of the title and nothing else. I then took the unusual step (for me) of consulting the instructions. As far as I could see I was doing everything right. OK off to customer services then.

Customer services turned out to be a lady who appeared to have lost what might have once passed for her personality, somewhere down the phone line. Despite talking me through the wrong instructions on how to open the file, I sussed out what she where she was trying to go and we got there in the end. It turned out that I had to rename the dowloaded file from its current file name to the name of the book.

That worked but maybe it would have been better if they'd told you to do that in the instructions in the first place. Hopefully they have addressed the problem how.

There still doesn't seem to be a vast choice of books available for ereaders. Are books not committed to computer automatically these days, before they're printed? Surely it can't be a big step to convert them to a downloadable file.

As a footnote to the above - I recently found The Lacuna (paperback) at Sainsbury's in a 'Buy 2 for £7' offer.  Hmmm!!!

And as a further edit - I found The Lacuna in WH Smiths on a 'Buy one get one for £1' offer - so I bought it.  Another important thing to mention is that we just came back from a week's holiday and I completely forgot to take my ereader - one of the main purposes it was bought for.  I've just watched a vid on a blog (http://broadcastingfromashed.blogspot.com/2010/07/socialnomics.html) which mentions that some universities are giving people ereader facilities instead of emails - emails being outdated.  Watch this space, maybe in a year's time we'll all have one and I'll have upgraded mine to one with some better features.

A Cat's Tail

Meet Chivers!

He lives next door.
Last week he picked a fight with our cat flap.

He lost the fight.
And he lost his tail.

This week his owners are having a few days away so I'm feeding him and making sure he gets his antibiotics and loads of affection.

He's desperate to get outside - hopefully soon!

It's all gone a bit Gerald Durrell

It appears I wasn't the only one pulling an all nighter last night.

After a very late night surfing to distract me from some tummy ache I finally climbed wearily back into my bed at around 4am this morning, looking forward to getting a couple of hours of shut eye before having to be up for work. Just as I was dropping off what sounded like the whole of the feathered cast of Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds' decided to have a party outside my bedroom window. I opened one eye just a bit to see if the celebrations were due to the sun putting in an appearance, but no, it was still pitch black out there. I was just about to cover my head and ears with my pillow when I realised, that actually, it sounded quite lovely and soothing.

Their premature saluations to the Sun God lasted about an hour. They had my attention now, with only the occasional distraction of the soft snoring of my other half. I played 'see how many different bird sounds I can hear' before finally dropping off to sleep.

I woke again with the sun sometime after 5.00 - when there was only the gentle 'coo coo' of a solitary pigeon to be heard. I reckon the other birds had decided to quit this crazy scene and go find some breakfast.

Needless to say I'm now completely trashed. But it was worth it.

Potato Pie and Tractors

Two book recommendations for ya.

The first I read a couple of months back, namely "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer. It's a lovely book and I thoroughly enjoyed reading this tale of a writer who gets involved with the inhabitants of Guernsey and their recounting of their experiences during WWII. It's an interestingly indirect take on how the german occupation affected the islanders, but there's loads of humour in there and the obligatory love story. The only disappointing bit was the predictable happy ending - I hoped for something a bit more realistic.

I must be growing up.

The second I read just this weekend, in a couple of sittings. "A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian" by Marina Lewycka is as quirky as it is thought provokking. A tale which starts with the 80 something Ukrainian refugee father of our narrator announcing his intention to marry a blonde, buxom 30 something he met at the local Ukrainian Social Club. His two daughters find it difficult to be civil to each other but become united against their father's decision. As the siblings relationship progresses, family secrets and heartaches are revealed leaving our narrator to wonder how two children from the same family can have such differing experiences and views of life.

Dandelion