Last weekend I had an increasingly rare opportunity to go for a walk. A proper walk. Not just an out of the door after work walk. A walk that involved packup, a rucksack and boots (though with hindsight the boots weren’t really necessary). A walk that involved a little planning… and a map!
So Sunday dawned bright and sunny and saw me heading off to the Peak District for a spot of “edge-bagging”. It was a route taken from a Woodland Trust pamphlet, promising gorgeous Autumnal colours. Sounded good to me
I parked up at the layby near The Grouse Inn and headed off across the field to the side of it down to Hay Wood:
There were lots of leaves on the ground and it was a pleasant start to the walk, albeit still a bit too close to the noisy traffic on the A625. This road noise was to carry on a while longer as I dropped down to cross a little brook, only to re-ascend the other side and pop out onto the main road.
Crossing over that had me wandering up what looks like a private driveway – until you spot the little hidden gate to the left which takes you onto Froggatt Edge.
In a little clearing there is this boulder. It looks like a profile of a face to me:
Good views were hidden walking through the woodland but it became very peaceful as the traffic noise vanished:
As the woodland ended there is a stone circle to your left:
Continuing on and you start getting some views to your right across the valley:
And then you get onto the edge “proper”. The path is a good few feet from the true edge of the edge(!) but I chose to walk along the true edge of the edge as much as possible. Up and down and in and out of the boulders:
Now, somewhere along this path Froggatt Edge morphs into Curbar Edge. I think it’s here:
I’m willing to be corrected though!
Looking back from the other side of that rise and you can see plenty of folks making the most of a lovely Sunday afternoon:
Spot the rock climbers!:
I think I was a week or two too early for the true Autumn colours as promised but, you can see the potential:
Looking along the rest of Curbar Edge:
As I’m bimbling along these cattle come into view, right on the path. Never have I seen more dis-interested creatures in all my life!:
There was a family perched on one of the boulders and I could hear one of the girls wailing “I don’t want to walk past the cows”. I pointed them towards a path through the bracken and a boulder a little ways ahead and said there’s a path through there that avoids them – aim for the boulder. Even though the bracken path was only about two feet further away from the cattle than the path, the fact they were “hidden” by the bracken seemed to do the trick!
Before long, I dropped down to Curbar Gap car park and spotted a tea van. Jolly’s tea van. Jolly good I thought and bought a cuppa and slab of lemon drizzle cake and sat at one of the tables and chairs. Not the best of views (a car park) but a nice stop for an almost halfway point.
I got chatting to a couple who were doing the same walk as me but in reverse and it was here I learned of the stags rutting up on Big Moor. Now, I’ve never seen or heard this before and I was quite excited by the prospect of experiencing this “in the wild”. The couple told me there were loads of them to the right of the trig point.
Fuelled up on tea and cake I set off out of the back of the car park and up on to what turned out to be the steepest part of the walk onto White Edge. Passing this curious stone:
Mandatory signpost pic:
Heading up onto White Edge and I was disappointed that my eyes and ears hadn’t been assaulted with rutting stags everywhere
:
Lovely views though
I get to the trig point and it was almost as if someone opened a door. What a racket
Burbling and bellowing shatters the silence
Now, the picture isn't brilliant and really doesn't do what I saw and heard any justice whatsoever, but almost dead centre is a stag, and he was having a few “words” with another stag a little further along and to the right. The other stag (I think) was saying “ha, but I’ve got the girls and you haven’t matey-boy” because what you can’t really see on the picture is about 20 does:
I spent about 20 minutes just standing and watching and listening, awestruck.
There’s probably stags in this picture too, or I might just have liked the view in the afternoon sunshine!:
All along the edge the burbling and bellowing got louder and I quite expected (hoped) a stag would wander along the path (there was certainly evidence that they do). Though I’d probably be terrified and leave my own evidence that one did
I spotted this much less terrifying doe hiding in the undergrowth:
Probably avoiding this fella (yep, another grainy splotch which you’ll have to take my word for when I tell you it’s a stag):
And so to what I think is the Hurkling Stone – and the beginnings of a sunset which reminded me I needed to get a bit of a wiggle-on if I wanted to get to the pub, err, car before it was dark:
A left turn through the wall and it was downhill all the way, still to the sound of honking, burbling and bellowing of stags. What a fantastic, unexpected experience
Found Tinkerbell’s house in the woodland:
Arriving at the pub had me ordering steak pie and a cuppa and I spent my time waiting for it to arrive watching a fantastic sunset:
As I walked the, oooh, hundred yards back to the layby where my car was parked and changed out of my boots, with the traffic quieter, the sound of the stags STILL at it, was echoing around the valley. Fantastic
A really lovely, leisurely walk of about 6 miles. No ankle twinges and no hip pain made the walk all the more pleasurable.
Thanks for reading
Mel
