Sunday, 13th October 2019
After a horrendous drive due to torrential rain (localised flooding) and road closures/diversions at Myton Bridge I set off to meet up with a couple of people off the forum for the first forum meet for a while that I've been able to go to.
After being stuck in traffic at Myton Bridge, at last, I was on my way.
Driving conditions were grim with standing water on the A63 and the road
spray plus the rain making visibility practically zero.. Then I turned my wipers on…
SatNav took me via Rotherham and Sheffield (which was nice)
and I finally found a spot to pull over and text Rich to let him know I was
running late.
Scoffing the banana part of my breakfast as I pootled down
the A57 and arrived at the car park to see 3 soggy figures stood forlornly in
the rain. I leapt out of the car,
apologised profusely for being late, phart-arressed about a bit, got my feet on
and finally, we were off.
Oooh, the views.
Despite the mizzle and murk to see hills, cloaked in autumnal colours,
tis a wonderful thing. I think I managed
about 100 metres before I had to stop and take a photo!
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| View along Ladybower Reservoir towards Win Hill |
We got halfway across the second bridge when I, having been
convinced I’ve walked “around here” before, asked “what’s that hill there?”
pointing at what I now know was Bamford Edge.
Rich obligingly unravelled his map from its case to inform me of
this. There then followed a quick lesson
in map origami as the pressure was on for him to get it all folded back up to
how it was with 3 pairs of beady eyes watching.
You wouldn’t have this problem with an electronic map….
Eventually, we got off the road and onto the permissive path
on the western side of the upper “prong” of the reservoir.
Time for a group photo:
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| Rich, Rob and Ed on the Ladybower Permissive Path |
Hot topic number one – fitness and age. Somehow this ended up with Rob taking a guess
at my age. He is now my New Best Friend. Rich left it about 3 seconds before
bursting my youngness bubble by piping up with “that’s right, it’s always good
to guess well below what you really think”.
Yeah, thanks for that. Ed (sensibly) kept quiet.
So, with Rich on the Naughty Step we continued along the mud
track. And then, a voice piped up; “one
point four seven” (or something) it said, randomly, out of nowhere. Rob looked a bit sheepish and ‘fessed up it
was his new watch talking to him. There
followed a “hard sell” sales pitch as he tried to flog me his old fitbit type
thingy.
Hot topic number two – which forum members have you
met. I was quite surprised when names
(past and present) kept popping up and I was “yes, I met them on such and such
a meet”. Thinking about this later, I’m
quite surprised at how many folks off the forum I have met – all thanks to
forum meets.
We kept spotting “green things” half buried in the ground:
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| Reservoir Valve housings |
Hot topic number three – what are they? The writing on them said “DVWB” which we decided
stood for “Derwent Valley Water Board” and similarly decided they were “something”
to do with the reservoir. Hey, there’s
nowt gets past us you know!
We wandered through lovely, leafy woodland sporting some
fine autumnal colours:
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| Lovely woodland path sporting autumnal colours |
… and had a bit of a discussion of how grim it would be “up
there” (the Hurkling Stones on Derwent Edge) in today’s weather:
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| Hurkling Stones on Derwent Edge |
Apologies for the splodges in the pic, I guess my camera
lens still isn’t fully clear of the Shacklesborough Sheep Poo.
Arty-farty pic:
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| Arty-farty pic of autumnal colours across the reservoir |
After negotiating the hardest part of the walk – the steps
down and up near the aqueduct – we arrived at Fairholmes where the option for a
comfort break and cuppa was declined by all.
Hot topic number four – an activity which involves cars,
parked, in lay-bys. Ed took the lead
on this conversation and knowledgably updated us with what interior light,
headlamp or indicator setting meant what.
Oooh, Eddles, you durrrrty dawwwg.
As we headed around the corner we were confronted with
this. Derwent Dam:
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| Derwent Dam in full flow |
Wow. It was in full
flow and just….wow.
I stepped off the righteous path to go and have a closer look
and, just, Wow (with a capital wubble-yoo).
Some pics:
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| Pano shot |
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| Useful instructions! |
The Three Amigos were stood patiently waiting for me:
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| The Three Amigos patiently waiting |
Easy quiet lane walking now:
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| Private (vehicles) lane |
Looking across the reservoir to the side we’d just walked:
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| Looking back towards the aqueduct |
Hot topic number five – flora and fauna. We kept spotting these small, dark purple
berries. I wondered if they were
blackcurrants or something:
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| Dogwood |
… so I ate one. No,
they’re not. And I’m still alive.
Herein started a berry-nibbling session. Everything we passed, we nibbled on and
discussed the correct way to identify if something is poisonous or not,
apparently a procedure none of us were following. We didn’t nibble on the Yew berries though.
We wandered past and eeee-nORmous bracket fungi and I can’t
believe I didn’t get a photo of it.
We also wandered past the “Effluent Sampling Point”. Although we were sampling the fruits of
Mother Nature’s labour, we decided against taking up the kind offer.
It was about time for a snack stop and The Law of Sod came
into play. Not a suitable place to sit
was to be found. The only bench we spotted
was occupied by other people. How dare
they! Anyway, we loitered long enough,
taking photographs and reading the info board (and discussing Hot topic number
6 – what the area looked like before it was flooded) for them to feel
uncomfortable and move on.
Excellent. Not only did we have a
nice seat to sit on but they’d dried it off too.
Our lunch stop view:
 |
| Atmospheric view along the reservoir |
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| Info Board |
From here it was a relatively short walk back to the road
and, soon enough, one of the bridges came into view:
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| Mist swirling on the hills above and 2 men fishing in a boat |
Some nice mossy stones on the hillside (me likey mossy
stones):
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| Mossy rocks |
Once back at the road we retraced our steps to the car park,
but not before me sampling a bright red berry of some sort. Eeeeeauuuch, ye gods it was sour. I’m still alive. After googling “sour red berries” it came
back with Cranberry?
And then our detour to see the plugholes. Rob thought we were pulling his leg when we said we were going to see the plughole in the reservoir!:
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| Plughole |
Short video of the plughole in action:
As we returned to our cars it was time to check the
mileage. Posted as a 6ish mile walk we
were all gobsmacked to find we’d actually walked 9 miles. At first, Rob thought his new talking wrist
gadget thingumabob maybe needed calibrating but my dedicated GPS phone with ViewRanger
app is pretty accurate and confirmed it was 9 miles.
I certainly didn’t feel like I’d walked 9 miles, that’s for
sure and I feel quite chuffed with my little self for doing so with no tendon
ache whatsoever and only “normal” hip/thigh muscle fatigue. We all agreed it must have been the good
company and chat and chuckles that made the miles pass effortlessly.
Parking: Heatherdene Car Park (£3.00 for all day)
Distance: 8.93 miles
Max height: 799 ft
Thanks for looking 😊