BEYOND YOULGREAVE AND THROUGH LATHKILLDALE

Well, the weather isn't too brilliant for today's walk, it is damp and foggy, but we are hoping for things to clear up later. But the first obstacle isn't so much the weather as actually meeting up.

Our plan, which seems eminently sensible when you look at the map, is to meet in the car park at the end of Moor Lane which leads out of Youlgreave. Simple, you'd think. Not so.

I'm the first to arrive by virtue of being the map reader and having a decent sense of direction, but it was touch and go. Moor Lane is a tiny offshoot from the main road in Youlgreave, easily missed unless you are expecting it and only signed with a hand painted sign. The narrow street I drove up looked as though it was someone's private driveway, then when I turned right onto the main lane I was greeted with a narrow lane and a sign saying 'Quiet Road'. To cut a long story short, it was an interesting drive and I was lucky only to encounter one car coming in the opposite direction (driven by an elderly gentleman who looked, quite frankly, scared and lost) and wasn't surprised to be first to arrive in the deserted car park.

To cut a long story short, it takes a few phone calls (thank goodness for modern technology and mobile reception) and hastily garbled directions (and a couple of chapters of my book as I wait) before PC manages to reach the car park a little late but in one piece and relieved not to have met any other traffic.

We're late setting off, but we're undaunted. We're Mollie-less until after Christmas so we only have ourselves to sort out, and we dress ourselves in our waterproofs from the outset as we doubt that the weather will clear much.

PC worries that the day won't produce many decent photos - there is the prospect of good views from the edge of the car park on a clear day, but all we see is murk - so she starts snapping straight away.

We walk down the 'quiet lane' and haven't gone far before a farm lorry comes rumbling up behind us! We both scale the grass bank at the side of the road and thank our lucky stars that we didn't meet it when we were driving. Once the lorry has passed we continue down the road, pause to photograph a statuesque tree which is posing grandly, then meet a footpath on our left which crosses a couple of grassy fields to another road (Back Lane).

Across the road we take the next footpath which, again, crosses fields. One thing that becomes immediately apparent is that the stiles around here are not terribly forgiving! Many are high off the ground for their first step meaning a good leg stretch for all but the long limbed, then fairly high too. No matter though. We're coping without any trouble and the weather has improved slightly too.

It is a fairly straight path, punctuated only by stiles, downhill towards Meadow Place Grange, a large farmyard. The current farmhouse is a Grade II listed building dating from the 18th century, but the original grange farm belonged to Augustinians of Leicester Abbey until the dissolution of the monasteries. Today it is still a working farm, and as we paddle along the muddy path towards the very high stile - which we clamber over with grace and dignity (naturally) - we realise that it isn't long since the inhabitants of the field passed this way too. Sure enough, at the other side we see cattle inside a large barn, and one cow in particular seems very interested in what we are doing.

 

We cross through the farm yard (fortunately, not so muddy now) and take the path directly opposite which climbs gently through a grass field before bringing us to the top of Meadow Place Wood.

The downhill path between the trees is a bit slippery in places, but soon we are approaching the River Lathkill and the footbridge adjacent to the ford. A group of hikers are sat around having lunch (is it that time already?) but we press on and onto the path which runs along the length of the Dale.

It seems very murky and gloomy in the Dale, although the recent rain has meant that the river is high. We have been here in the past when there has been no water at all, but not today. There are hardly any people about, not surprising since the weather has turned damp again. It doesn't encourage people to get out and we suspect many people will have hung up their boots for the winter. 

It is a pleasant enough walk along Lathkill Dale, even if the weather is grim, and we are able to talk about all sorts of things. One thing we do notice, though, is the amount of broken and shattered timber left over from last week's gales. Glad we weren't here then.

We are getting peckish but there aren't very many stopping points to eat a picnic, especially in the rain. The one place we were hoping to stop (opposite the path we will need later) is already occupied so we walk a little further until we find a comfortable ledge of limestone on which to sit.

We need a small drink of Ramblers first, and this is the last of the batch. Good job I have another bottle at home ready for straining. From the Ramblers we move onto coffee to warm us up before we start on the sandwiches. There's not a lot to say about sandwiches (other than they are very welcome) as it is the bun that excites our interest. Today they are muffins, with cream and a 'spiced fruit compote'. The compote has a few small lumps of fruit it in, not much, but it does make a nice change, and muffins always go down well. A second coffee sets us up ready for the next part of the walk.

We retrace our steps and once again we cross the river, climbing up the limestone path into Calling Low Dale. Thank goodness we chose to do the walk this way around as the slippery limestone requires care and the risk of falling always seems greater when going downhill.

Calling Low Dale is very quiet even though it leads to the Limestone Way, although most walkers in Lathkill Dale probably tend to go 'end to end'. The narrow path forks and we take the left hand, downward path which takes us to a wooden stile and a signpost. Yes, we're going in the right direction, although the sight ahead is not appealing. Steep limestone steps climbing seemingly straight up a very steep hillside. Once again we are reminded of the stairs of Cirith Ungol (Lord of the Rings) and hope that Shelob isn't at the top waiting for us!

We keep our eyes on where we are putting our feet, it is drizzling with rain again and we don't want to slip, but despite the climb we ascend with more ease that we had expected, although it may have been better to have walked up before the muffins (although PC is adamant that she needed the energy from the muffins to get up here). The views are pretty good, but spoiled by the poor weather. We'll have to revisit on a clear day.

We are on the Limestone Way now, and the path is very clearly signposted which is a rare bonus. We pass Calling Low Farm, skirting the buildings via fields and a small copse, then come out to another field. Here an eager horse trots up to greet us, clearly not thrilled with staying out in the cold and wind, and trying its hardest to persuade us to either feed it or take it in. Eventually it leaves us and goes to look over the field gate to the farm, hoping to attract attention.

 

The path across the field is diagonal, with an interesting waterlogged section in the centre, but we're soon over it and into the edge of another small wood before emerging back onto farmland. Here again the signposting is very clear and we are soon within sight of the blue P sign for our car park. Not far to go, and only one final stretch of a stile for us to negotiate.

From here we don't have far to walk before we are back at the cars in the otherwise empty car park. Despite the weather, and the initial problems finding our starting point, the walk has been very good. We've managed to go on paths we've never ventured on before, and we'll be taking a slightly different route home!

Since this is to be our last post of 2013 we wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and an excellent New Year.

WET AND WINDY WIN HILL

We're going for one of PC's favourites this week as it's her pre-birthday walk, so even though we've done it before we're doing it again - and choosing the harder route.

As usual we meet up in the layby near the Yorkshire Bridge Inn, giving ourselves plenty of time for the walk. With the cold, wet weather we aren't surprised to be the only ones out today, although for now the overnight deluge has ceased. And we have Mollie today too.

First of all we walk up towards the huge dam wall then take the footpath sharp left which zig-zags downwards through the trees to the road and the Yorkshire Bridge over the River Derwent. 

We pause for a moment to watch the fast flowing river, then walk up the road on the western bank. We come to an attractive water run-off beside some stone steps. These are the beginning of what will be a steep climb.

This first flight of steps gets the leg muscles warmed up and as we reach the disused railway line Mollie hurtles off to play with a couple of other dogs. Their owners offer dire warnings to us when they realise that we're continuing upwards rather than taking the level track. It's easy to see why.

Once Mollie has come back to us we embark on the climb up the side of Parkin Clough; a steep unrelenting slog up that reminds us of the Secret Stairs at the Pass of Cirith Ungol (Lord of the Rings fans will know exactly what we mean) and has us re-enacting scenes from the film ("Come on, Mr Frodo."  "I can't make it, Sam." etc etc). It's a good job there isn't anyone around to hear or see us!

Despite the steepness of the path, and the slippery stones, we do make relatively good time and aren't struggling as we did some years ago when we last came this way (and yes, we did the Sam and Frodo scenes then, too!) We may be getting older but we must be getting fitter by way of compensation.

A couple of women walkers pass us going down - we don't envy them making their way down the slippery path - then PC remarks how unusual it is for us to see women walkers out. She's right. It's very rare for us to see pairs of women (even rarer to see single women) out on the hills. It's usually men, or women with men, or mixed groups.

After pondering that for a while we press on upwards, and the path becomes less challenging once it has been crossed by the Ladybower to Aston footpath. It's still uphill, though, but we soon pass through a small gateway and onto the slope of Win Hill.

There are neatly laid steps here for erosion control. They do a good job protecting the path, but are less gentle on the knees. As we press on up the steps the full force of wind - which had only filtered down to us earlier - starts to make itself felt. We drag on another layer and plod on.

As we are struggling to find armholes that are flapping around in the gale a single walker (male) strides past us on his way to the top. He only has on a thin waterproof jacket and we both bet that he's feeling the cold. We're wearing about 5 layers each and we can still feel the chill.

The last time we were up Win Hill we had walked up from Hope, it had been snowing and the wind was howling. It was quite a feat of endurance back then, but today we only had the wind to contend with even though it was constantly buffeting us and trying to blow us off our feet.

We slipped over the top of the hill, ignoring the Trig Point, and found a hollow in which to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee (and a nip from the secret flask). We had a lovely view over the reservoirs and the long ridges beyond. It feels really good to think, yes, we've walked there, and there, and the views from that spot are wonderful.

We can also see the lone walker now running down a path below us, heading for the trees. We wonder if, perhaps, he is running to keep warm!

After our coffee we set off again and on our way down the western slope of the hill we see two more walkers coming towards us from the Hope Path. And they are two young women. So that's twice in a day that we've encountered women walkers. Excellent.

We find the narrow, indistinct path through the heather to our right and turn onto it. The peaty path is quite slippery and we manage to put up a grouse from its cosy spot, it rises clucking and chuckling with annoyance as its stubby wings propel it a couple of feet off the ground.

As we reach the bottom of the path we come to a fence, and a choice. Straight ahead is the path directly down to the reservoir, but we know from experience that this path can be muddy and slick at the best of times. Also, it will takes us back far too soon - we've made extremely good time and it isn't even lunch time.

So instead we turn left and take the path that skirts to the top of the wooded valley. We decide not to walk right next to the fence line but keep to the moor path which, whilst being less well-trod, is more direct, cutting out a sharp up-and-down that we're happy to avoid.

There are a couple of 'interesting' bits (PC's words, not mine) where we have to cross small streams, but the ground isn't as boggy nor the streams as deep as they could be.

It's quite a long way, on the map, to our turn-off path but we find that the reasonably level ground (if you discount the heather, stones, rocks and general moorland obstacles) makes for easy walking. We're contouring rather than climbing so we cover a lot of ground fairly quickly.

We turn right through a gate in the fence line which takes us back into the woods. There's plenty of grass beneath the trees here, the plantation isn't too dense, and we soon find ourselves a fallen tree on which to sit and enjoy lunch.

I did say it was PC's pre-birthday walk. So out comes the (small) bottle of wine for a toast. It's nicely chilled - naturally! - and we enjoy it in not-quite-cut-glass plastic cups. Doesn't affect the taste one bit.

We eat our sandwiches quickly, because we want to get to the puddings. Fresh cream and jam scones - PC confesses that she likes scones in all their many varieties - and these are good ones. Loads of cream and very stodgy. Yum. Mollie is allowed to lick out the carton they came in - makes a change from her dog biscuits. We follow the scones with coffee then, because it's birthday time, we each have a small tiramisu. By the time we've managed that we are well and truly full and feeling in need of a post-lunch nap to sleep off the excess calories.

But we can't have a snooze, so we pack up - rucksacks much lighter - and set off downhill. The light seems to be fading. It's a lot darker under the trees but maybe the clouds are gathering too, and of course dusk does fall much earlier at this time of year.

We walk down the rutted path and through the large gate at the bottom, turning left on the wide bridleway. Very easy walking now as we go steadily downhill until, at last, we reach the broad track which flanks the long arm of Ladybower. From here it's a straight, easy to follow if not quite level walk back along the length of the reservoir and around to the dam wall.

By the time we reach the dam the light is fading fast and the wind catches us anew as we leave the shelter of the trees. We don't think we've ever been out so close to dusk and we can see the lights of cars and houses clearly. As we walk across the dam path the wind is howling, and it is blowing through the hollow railings making an eerie, whistling sound - our very own wind orchestra!

It isn't far from here back to the cars, and by the time we have removed our gear and prepared to set off we have to use our headlights. It's been an excellent, long day and, for the time of year, a remarkably fine one too.