The time had come, the Peaks Meet was here, and Friday saw me setting off for Upper Hulme bang on rush hour traffic. The weather deteriorated as I headed down the Country and I finally arrived at The Roaches Bunkhouse at about 7.30pm where I found alewife rustling up a cuppa having got there only about 30 minutes earlier. The weather was, by now, complete and utter tosh – flinging it down with a mixture of rain and sleet.
We both explored the bunkhouse a little and decided to get unpacked and head to Ye Olde Rock Inn for a meal and a few drinks. A couple of Lasagnes and some falling-down-water later we headed back to the bunkhouse and wished we’d lit the fire before going out ‘cos it was bluddi freezing.
Seeing as we were the only ones in the bunkhouse, I moved out of my not really very luxurious 2 bedded room with no window into a 4 bedded room with a wider bunk and a window and settled down for the night, listening to the rain absolutely lashing down on the plastic roof and hoping that it might rain itself out overnight.
Saturday morning saw me up bright and early and, wahooooo, it was sunny. A quick cuppa and dressed and I was out of that door and up the road for a little mooch and snapped this pic of Hen Cloud looking splendid for one of my “ahh, what’s your view like today?” posts on Facebook:
Deb was up and about when I got back and we pottered around a bit, getting sorted for the meet.
Requiem was the first to turn up, closely followed by Domtheone and Handsome Jack who had been chauffeured there by Rhino. We all tried to get our heads around the walk being a linear walk and how the car-shuffling would work. In the end, we all piled into Requiem’s (dog friendly) car for a short journey up to
Flash – the highest village in England at 1,518ft , for the start of the walk. Booted up and ready to go I took the mandatory “start of walk photo” with our end destination in the background…. A lonnng way away in the background:
L-R: Handsome Jack showing his best side, Rhino, Alewife, Domtheone, Requiem, me:
We headed off up the lane for a gentle leg stretch before the start of the up, down, up, down, up downupdownupdownup return to the bunkhouse. After a row of houses we took a right turn up a track and wound round the side of some houses to a very brightly yellow painted gate and signpost.
And so the mud started. We squelched along the flanks of Oliver Hill, then squelched down Wolf Edge. It was very considerate mud. It stuck to your boots then got washed off again in the really boggy stuff. A nice view though from the side of Oliver Hill:
A random rocky outcrop which needed bagging by Requiem:
I think we were all fairly relieved to reach the road at Knotbury (no mud) and enjoyed a bit of easy walking along a quiet country lane and spotting this fine looking chap in someone’s garden:
We headed towards Panniers Pool aka
Three Shire Heads , where the Counties of Staffordshire, Derbyshire and Cheshire all meet on the River Dane. We spent a bit of time here poking around and taking pics and I made sure I bagged all three Counties for my County-Bagging project. I think Requiem might have taken a few pics
of this area so I’ll post only one:
From here, we pootled along the curiously red sandstone track of the
Dane Valley Way :
Some more nice, wide open spaces type views:
We were so lucky with the weather so far – it hadn’t rained once, in fact, it had been quite pleasant with rolling sunshine and fluffy clouds dappling the hillsides, though the wind was a bit chilly. A far cry though from the forecast of low cloud and snow showers.
A quick snack stop out of the wind:
And on we toddled towards Gradbach, and more mud (deep joy
):
As we crossed grazing pastures the mud got mean and Alewife went floor-surfing at one point which spooked these horses:
We came across the biggest pile of horse [censored] ever … take note… it may not be the last time you see this pic (just sayin’
) :
And then followed the river towards Lud’s Church with “skinny folks only” squeeze stiles
. I gave up and walked along the road in the end.
Following the river:
At Gradbach we discovered the Youth Hostel was no more and the area had been somewhat newly re-vamped with a brand-spanking-new tarmac road and walls and this curious seat-cum-watering hole:
We found some picnic benches by the river and sat a little while in the sunshine before heading to Forest Wood where my signpost OCD got the better of me:
Nice mossy, gnarly tree, complete with elf (look carefully ):
A little further on Rhino gave in to his scrambling tendencies and bagged this rocky outcrop:
Dom looking for Welsh Mountains:
After a stiff (for me) climb through more mud we came to the entrance of
Lud’s Church :
Once again, pictures don’t really give the scale of this wonderful, earthy chasm, even with a Rhino and a Dom in it:
… or with a Handsome Jack and Alewife in it:
I was expecting a bit of a scramble out of here to be honest but it wasn’t. Steep steps made the going easy, though the couple with the young puppy probably should have chosen an easier walk for the poor little thing
Once out of Lud’s Church we squelched through the forest, glad of the occasional boardwalk which made the going a little easier – only a little mindst. Requiem, the chap with the local knowledge suggested we could head up the concessionary path to higher ground as the lower route through the forest was “probably going to be very muddy”. I don’t think any of us wanted to argue with that decision so we burst out of the forest and into scorchio sunshine which had us stripping off our jackets, only to be putting them on again once we reached the top.
But ohhhhh, what views:
Once on the top we had another snack stop and I snapped this pic of everyone in the glorious sunshine whilst a snow storm was passing along the valley behind:
Cont'd.....
