Peak District day 2: The Manifold Valley and Dovedale

After Saturday's scones and jam, we had high expectations of breakfast and most ordered the full English.... We were not disappointed, except perhaps that we didn't all finish the large plates of locally-sourced food put in front of us. When we'd finished, Christine put the fruit salad we hadn't finished into a tupperware box for us and we were given a choice of cake for when we returned.

We headed off to Illam for to do the Dovedale walk I'd originally planned for Saturday. Ilam's an attractive village, but very busy. However, Illam Hall is a National Trust property (used as a Youth Hostel), so we were able to park there. After some consultation, other members of the party found the way to the river that I already knew because I had a new hi-tech device know as an O/S map.

There was a lovely wooded path along the River Manifold through Ilam Park that eventually emerged into more open countryside and climbed up the side of the Manifold valley, this was quite a long climb that eventually reached a large farmhouse. We could see some 4x4s around some rocky outcrops above the farm and assumed that this was a shooting party. As we got closer, it was clear that this was actually a gathering of 4x4s - they were taking turns to drive the steepest sections. There were marshalls (who were even friendly to us townies) and safety wardens and very many more vehicles than we originally saw.

We soon reached the escarpment along the top of the Manifold valley with a lovely views (that would have been improved for a little more sunshine). It was a super walk along here, that then turned into a gentle climb to the highest part of the walk, marked

by an isolated and deserted farmhouse (cue the quips about whether Ocado would deliver).

There was then a longish descent to Wetton where I'd planned a lunch stop at The Royal Oak. We walked into the car park as the church clock struck noon, and the latch of the pub was raised. The food looked great but, after the mammoth breakfast, none of us was hungry enough to eat, but we needed a rest. Some of us were obliged to sample local beers from the Wincle brewery while we listened to (and debated relative the merits of)  Abba's greatest hits.

The post-lunch stretch needed some tricky navigation, by the person who'd drunk most beer, through several fields with indistinct paths and little signage. However, we made it successfully to Stanhope and then soon to the head of Dovedale. By this time, the sun had come out and it would have made good place for a picnic. As expected, Dovedale got busier as we got further down the valley. It was easy to see why- this is a lovely place, with easy paths and with good connections. And it was a Bank Holiday Sunday. We stopped for fruit salad before it got too crowded.

We knew we'd reached non-hiker territory when we reached a rock covered in picnicers, some with pushchairs. Thorpe Cloud, a sizeable limestone hill, came into view after more crowded paths. The stepping stones at the base had a big queue and, at the other side, there was a ambulance. Civilisation had been reached. We soon got the the car park, which was completely full and had a long queue. This was clearly an afternoon to walk to Dovedale, not to drive.

The views back to Dovedale during our walk back to Ilam were spectacular, even with sheep or humans in the way.

We drove back to Bakewell in time to have tea and cake in the garden. A perfect end to a classic walk.

Dinner was a little quieter this evening - we chose Le Mistral based on the menu outside. As it happened, there was a 'two mains and a bottle of house wine' deal. Although the wine was served in smaller measures than the previous evening, fun and good conversation was had.

I wimped out of full breakfast on Monday and successfully assembled a good sausage and tomato sandwich, despite Christine's doubts about whether it was possible with the soft bread. After a stroll and a cup of coffee in the sunshine around Chatsworth, and a visit to their farm shop to buy a excellent chicken and ham pie, we set off home. My attempts to avoid the traffic at Matlock Bath resulted in  us spending an hour to queue to get through Ashbourne.

A super weekend. Where next year?

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Peak District day one: Lathkill Dale

Even though there was no Royal Wedding or Jubilee to avoid, we planned another long weekend away with Alison and David - this time to the Peak District, staying in Bakewell.

We made a 7am start, planning to stop for breakfast around 9. Despite the rain, we made such good progress that the place  I had in mind (where we joined the A38) before its opening time and so had to find somewhere else. There are plenty of places to eat when you don't need one. But not on the A38 apparently. We even pulled into a signposted Little Chef, only to find that it had closed down. In the end, we found a 'transport caff', without much expectation. It turned out to be pretty good and very cheap - my doorstep bacon sandwich was just fine. It even had a Italian-style coffee machine.

I'd planned to do a Dovedale walk, starting at Ilam. However, it had a significant amount of ascent and was around 10 miles, so I was persuaded to postpone that one and find a alternative. I had a Lathkill Dale walk up my sleeve, so the main challenge was refolding the large double-sided map in the back of the car.

We started on 'Long Rake' above Youlgreave, and headed downhill along the Limestone Way in overcast conditions with some drizzle. This cleared gradually, and it was bright by the time we reached Halls Dale. By this time, we'd passed a large number of teenagers, some carrying packs as large as themselves, on a DoE training weekend. We descended steeply into Halls Dale and, rather than turn along it towards Lathkill Dale, we climbed out the other side and through a  farm, then crossed a few fields to join Lathkill Dale at its start.

This stretch of the dale was narrow and enclosed, and seemed significantly warmer than the surrounding fields. There were plenty of Wood Anemones, and a very pleasant path amongst the limestone, but no sign of the river at this stage. This certainly felt like upland Britain.
The dale gradually widened and signs of the river emerged, eventually becoming wide enough to need a bridge. The river is crystal clear, shallow and quite fast flowing. No sooner had I mentioned that we should keep a lookout for Dippers, than we saw one on the opposite bank, along with some grey wagtails.There were lots of Butterbur on the banks too.

Having had a cooked breakfast, we decided to skip the detour to the pub at Over Haddon and press on in the hope of finding a tea shop (mostly for cake) in one of the villages. The botanical highlight of the walk was in the next stage - snakes head frittilaries.

The route crossed to the other bank, and a little further from the river, until we got to Alport, at the confluence of the Lathkill and the Bradford, only to be disappointed that it didn't have a tea shop. Never mind -  Youlgreave was only a short distance along Bradford Dale. It turned out that Youlgreave doesn't have a tea shop either. However, the first of its three pubs advertised afternoon tea, so we gave it a go. The coffee was apparently OK, but I choose beer, which was good. The 'cakes' were of the Happy Shopper brand, very cheap and of the quality you'd expect. Not what we had in mind.

The last stretch of the walk was up a long but well-graded 'quiet lane' (a road on which drivers should expect to encounter walkers and rider), regaining all the height we'd lost at the start of the walk.
It was a short drive from there to Castle Hill Farm House B&B, a charming small cottage run by Christine. Within minutes of arriving, Christine asked us if we'd like tea and scones. As the pope is indeed catholic, we said yes. These were served with jam and cream and were perfect.

Christine recommended The Peacock for dinner. This was lively and very busy. We shared the 'snug' with a couple from Newmarket. Although the drinks on our side of the room were slipping down pretty quickly, the half of the conversation coming from the other side of the room was getting animated and slurred, especially when they found out Rosie is a Norwich girl and we could have an 'accents' discussion. The food at The Peacock was just what we wanted - proper pub food. We all chose pie (three chicken and ham, one steak and ale). Excellent!

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Tiddington, Shabbington and the River Thame

We'd had a late night, and a few drinks, at David's party so Sunday started somewhat slowly and without a plan for a walk. Rosie suggested that we should venture into Oxfordshire and devised a route starting at Tiddington, close to junction 7 of the M40. This feels like quite a long way away, but it actually only took us 20 minutes to get there - much less time than some of the Chiltern walks we think of as close to home.

Most of the route was on one of the three local 'Promoted Routes': the Oxfordshire Way, The Thame (not Thames!) Valley Walk and the Bernwood Forest Trail, with a section at the start across a golf course. Although it stayed dry, the sun didn't come out. That was a shame because the blackthorn was in flower and would have looked lovely with some light on it!

The signage of first part on first part of the walk was poor. The Oxfordshire Way signs were hard to see, faded and, in one case, upside-down. What's more, some of the stiles were wobbly and others very high. Both the signage and the stiles improved when we entered Buckinghamshire.

As Shabbington (great name!), we took a slight detour to avoid a field of cows with calves and soon were walking alongside the River Thame on way back to the car.

We were home by around 1:30 for a delicious lunch of sausages (left over from Friday evening) with mustard on spelt bread, followed by  leftover chocolate brownies that I'd made for Saturday's party.

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Rickmansworth to Xerox along the Grand Union canal

Linear walks take a fair amount of planning, not least because they usually involve some public transport. Rosie has a particular interest in the Colne Valley because the proposed HS2 route cuts across it on a viaduct in the stretch between Rickmansworth and Uxbridge. As the Xerox Uxbridge office (with free car parking) is alongside the Grand Union canal that runs between the two towns, and there's a hourly bus service to Rickmansworth, we had ourselves a plan.

We happened to wake very early, so were able to get to Xerox, put our boots on (new ones in my case) and walked to the bus stop in plenty of time for the 8:32 bus. It was sunny, but still cold, so we weren't too impressed that the bus was 15 minutes late. We eventually got off the bus one stop too early, and almost immediately came across one of Alan's colleagues out for his morning run.

It was a lovely mid-March morning - bright and sunny, but a bit chilly, with pale green buds forming on the canal-side trees. It's a shame that we had to wait until mid-April for it!

It wasn't too far to get to the start of the planned walk at Rickmansworth Aquadrome - a local nature reserve formed around two lakes. These lakes were formed by the extraction of gravel for the original Wembley Stadium. We hadn't been aware of this place before, but would certainly have taken the boys they when they were young if we had.

We were soon at the Grand Union Canal, and remained on it for the rest of the walk. Like parts of the Kennet and Avon, many of the moorings are occupied by residential boats. These seem to be gathered in groups, forming small alternative communities. In some of these, narrow gardens have been planted  on the other side of the towpath.

A fair amount of flora was in evidence, notably Butterbur, Marsh Marigold and Ladies Smock. There were plenty of birds too. In particular, we could hear a cuckoo very clearly. There was also a very tame heron that almost seemed to pose for photos.

We made very good progress (and saw relatively few anti-HS2 signs), and were back in the Xerox car park by around 11:45.

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Spring at last - Reading to Shiplake

The sun came out as predicted on Sunday. Rather than re-tread familiar Chiltern paths, we drove to Shiplake  (South of Henley), took the bus to Reading and walked the seven or so miles back to the car.

The start of the walk repeated the start of one of our Kennet and Avon walks - along the Thames-side park to the start of the canal. We crossed the canal and carried on along the Thames. The number of cyclists and dog walkers reduced as we got further from Reading.

We got to Sonning Lock quicker than we expected. I don't think it's racist to remark that I've never seen a rastafarian lock-keeper before. We stopped for a snack on the other side of Sonning Bridge and to the compulsory photo.

Not long after re-starting, we reached a wooded section just before Shiplake College boathouse that was very muddy underfoot. A few years ago, we turned back here when walking in the other direction because of flooding.

It is further from there to Shiplake village then you'd think, with the Thames Path swinging away from the river, emerging near the station, not far from the car.

Here's hoping for more sunny weekend days!

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Still cold - snowdrops at Radnage

I think we've had enough winter now. We had light snow on an overcast Saturday, brightened up only by England's win over France at rugby, so postponed our planned walk to Sunday in the hope of better weather. There was less snow on Sunday, but it was still cold, so we donned many layers (that well-known Greek king*). This was the first outing for my new 'Fig Leaves' thermal long johns (not a brand usually associated with such functional wear), and jolly warm they were too. Highly recommended, especially when bought half-price with the weekly Ocado grocery order. I'm not making this up by the way.


Our target was Radnage churchyard to see more snowdrops. We parked at The Three Horsehoes at Bennett End. Our band, The Bottom Line, has played at their beer festival in the summer. We were surprised to find that the 'stage', a few pallets nailed together, was still in place in the field.

We headed west on a level track, passing a group of men who were assembling their metal detectors, not, as I'd assumed, assembling their guns for a shoot. The northerly leg on the route was the most strenuous one, involving two steepish ascents. It was then a simple, but somewhat muddy, walk eastwards along an enclosed path, and then a track to Town End, from where we detoured to Radnage church to take some snowdrop photos in the chuchyard.

As we'd parked in the pub car park, we needed to pop in for a drink by the open fire. The fire was rather more welcoming than the staff. But the beer was good.




* Menelaus - joke courtesy of Eddie Izzard

Boots back on at last for some snowdrops

Apart from a walk to the cinema in the snow, we'd not walked in 2013 so we were pleased that Saturday was sunny. It seemed likely that there would be snowdrops around, so we chose a route that took in Swyncombe Church - known as a reliable site for snowdrops. We'd had a nice lunch at The Crown at Nuffield recently, so started from there.

Although it was sunny, there was an icy wind, so Rosie put her cagoule on at the car, so she was wearing all the clothes she'd brought. I decided that my fleece with a scarf and hat would be enough. The start of the walk was downhill on a wooded path on The Ridgeway. Once we got to the bottom of the incline, I realised that I'd left the rucksack in the car. It only contained my cagoule and our drink so, as it rain didn't seem likely, we carried on without it.

We saw a few snowdrops near the path on the way, but I wasn't prepared for the display at Syncombe Church - not only were there lots of snowdrops, but plenty of aconites too. And all in a lovely setting.

We had a couple of options for the route back, and choose the shorter one - The Crown was advertising a 'roaring log fire' when we set off, and that was quite a temptation. The fire, the BLT club sandwich and the Brakspears were all very welcome.


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