ROUND HATHERSAGE WITH THE DYNAMIC DUO!

We've extra company this week. Joining us and our regular doggy pal, Mollie (border collie), is Scamp (not a border collie!!!) Scamp, a rescue dog, belongs to PC's daughter and her partner and today his usual job of joining his master at work has been postponed, so he's coming with us instead.

We park in the car park near the leisure centre and pay the maximum charge. Last time we did this walk we did the same and needed the extra time. We head down the alleyway at the side of the car park and into the village, crossing the road and turning right.

We follow the narrow lane between the houses then turn left, hunting for a path on our right to take us up towards the church.

There are workmen in the church, not that we were going to visit, but we do pause at the parking meter next to Little John's grave. 

We go through the gate at the end and go left until we reach a gate into a muddy field. Nothing for it, we head through the gloopy mess.

The ​path swings right and up to a lane. Perhaps we could have avoided the mud by taking a slightly different route!

We walk up the lane, pausing to admire the snowdrops and the gnarly roots of the trees growing on the bank.

When the path splits, with the right one going towards Toothill Farm, we head in that direction. There are some glorious views towards Mam Tor covered in snow!

We continue uphill, it's a little slippy underfoot but not too grim. Last time we were here we inadvertently followed a right-hand path, but this time we are prepared and keep our eyes open for one on our left. Sure enough, there it is.

We follow it uphill through the next field.

And come to a barb wire fence!

After a quick look around we follow the fence to a wall and a gate into the access land. Again, the views are superb.

We follow the path through the mood and onto a farm lane which leads, in turn, to the road up from Hatersage. We follow this until we reach the road beneath Stanage Edge.

We follow this road down aiming for the picnic site near Stanage Plantation. Here we can sit comfortably with coffee, sandwiches and buns. Or rather, early, cream filled, hot cross buns. Yum. 

We head away from our picnic, retracing our steps to the toilets.

Then leaving the views of the edge behind us we take the downward track toward North Lees Hall.

From here it's steadily downhill, and at the bottom of the sweeping driveway we turn left, clamber over an awkward stile on our right, then negotiate a rather slippery path adjacent to Cowclose with its spectacular metal stag sculpture.

From here it's a pretty direct route across the fields, slippery in places but the sun is out which makes it so much better.

Of course, we aren't long before we are walking back through the churchyard and through the village. And it hasn't taken us anything like as long as we had anticipated.