Thursday 17 October was our last full day in the Peak District on this Holiday. It was also looking like the weather could give us a rather nice day; with no rain predicted throughout at all.
Up early I planned to visit Dove Dale and wall a sizeable stretch along the river bank. I was also looking forward to visiting Ilam, which is reported to have rather unusual architecture for the area.
Dovedale car park was less than a quarter hour from Rivendale Caravan Park. This turned out to be a private car park with an attendant and cost £2.50 for the day [prices accurate at the time of going to press :P). Parking up it seemed to be quite a popular place with already a good number of car releasing people clearly of the walking and hiking persuasion.
Adorning my day pack and allowing Tikka to hop out of the car there was a distinct sound of a tractor and kids voices. The tractor materialised towing a little house, which they proceeded to deposit on a chevroned area and opened up one side to reveal a cafe - how cool... The kids voices came from a horde of them arriving from I don't know where and beginning to colloid around the amenity block. Hoping first that they were going elsewhere, but at the very least I could get far enough ahead of them to hear the birds in preference to their squeaks, Tikka and I were off and following the stream.
I really must come back and walk these grassy peaks... subject to permitted pathways of course...
Except today it wasn't a stream; it seemed to be running at quite a bore, likely the result of the recent rains and runoff into the valley.
Coldwall Bridge
At cold wall bridge Tikka naturally hopped up onto this old Oak tree stump. She seemed quite happy to settle there for a few moments and so I took the opportunity of taking a few pictures.
Right by the side of the tree stump were these wonderful fungi; all growing happily in their terraced little world. Beautiful.
This walk seemed to be fairly poorly maintained... along the route we saw broken gates and missing fences making the gates / still quite redundant.
However, some parts have recently been maintained, like the addition of this lovely wire fence, which was keeping the bovine herd at bay... and in this instance at a very comfortable distance...
Every the picky git though... if only they'd put in the fence to follow the available walking path, rather than tight to this slippy edge, which several walkers who I passed on the way had warned me about... pity.
Although Tikka can be quite spooked by stuff... like the large black bollard on the entrance to the caravan park on the first night, but she didn't take any notice of on future passings, since she found an embankment as a pup she's since been freaked by small bridge crossings. In the first few days she was quite nervous of them as we encountered them our walks, but then overcame this and would regularly get to and cross them before I had. I guess it was right to assume that she'd cured herself of that... but how wrong I was.
Tikka had a complete flip out at this bridge... no idea why, other than that it only had a handrail / guard on one side... but she's happily walked across other simple plank/beam bridges during our walks before.
While I am now humbled to think of myself living in the countryside, I'm reminded that there are still so many more places which are even more remote and idyllic; like this circa 1970's bungalow delightfully lost and mostly concealed within the edge of the woodland on the south facing slope. Bliss.
Tikka and I walked through the wonderful valley and dales, often with empty fields, but sometimes with flocks of sheep. They noticed us both on our arrived and mostly swished off to one side, although it was comical when one sheep decided to stand his ground and even made a few steps forwards as we approached, stamping their feet as they went... Tikka just kept walking on and the nerve of the sheep eventually buckled and they lept out of the way.
Some of the stiles on this walk were the sprung gated type, but more so they were the traditional wooded two steps up and over. Surprisingly some of these even had dog gates, the poles to pull up to let the dog through. While Tikka managed the dog gates easily, some of the wooded two step provided a little difficult, so she adopted the process of hopping up to the first/second tread and then looked to me to lift her over.
However one stile at the entrance to Okeover Park proved too much for my nerve. Dog, day pack, camera, me... fortunately I didn't have to test my skills at organising the order of transfer and found that the main road gate was open, so we just walk around the fence.
The farm houses along this stretch were wonderful; set back off this lovely quiet minor road with cattle grids either end.
It was just after this house that the guided path sort of vanished. The guide book and the GPS seemed quite adamant that the path was through this field of really tall sweetcorn. Looking for a way around I couldn't see one that didn't take us into a field of cows. The options were the minor road without pavements, or through here... and thought it would be fun through here.
View along the route we'd just hacked our way through
Although initially rather concerned by the enclosed space and the swishing of my day back on adjacent runs of sweetcorn stalk, Tikka was just at the right height to avoid any of their fronts and just kept walking, albeit with some continual calm encouragement from me.
At the end of cornfield I'd rather hoped to have been at the road, however we seemed to have been stopped short, by at least 100ft, by a double barbed wire fence... now what to do...
Fortunately the first wire was really rather high and Tikka could easily walk below it, and the second one I could easily lift her over. But that still meant me, day pack and camera had to traverse it.
With a reasonable amount of effort I managed to get us both through/over this obstruction with only my nerves slightly shredded.
View of the fence after we'd struggled across
Trudging across the next field we had to scramble through another barbed wire fence; this time it was too tall for me to step over, so this time I had to squeeze between the strands... eeek...
View back over the route we'd walked - the house just above middle centre is the nice farmhouse
We were now in the beautiful hamlet of Mayfield; it was clearly that the residents were proud of their homes and the history of the area and there were a number of sign boards with lovely graphics for us visitors to read.
Out of Mayfield I was looking forward to some lovely walks in the fields along Bentley Brook. But this wasn't to be... they were heaving [slight exaggeration] with bloomin cows.
Hungry, thirsty, and just a little miffed we stopping in the cemetery at the junction of Watery Lane and Mayfield Road for a bite to eat. Once again I was faced with turning back or finding an alternate route. And alternate routes are really quite hard to find on the edges of towns. To this end I found myself glumly treading the footpath along the A52 towards Ashbourne, having spotted a way to return to the path just before Mappleton.
Skirting the edge of Ashbourne I soon had us back on the right track, albeit with a not insignificant detour, but at least we were back in the countryside again.
With the hills surrounding the car in sight on the horizon I was looking forward to getting back and sitting down with a drink of something cold and refreshing.
However it appeared that someone had other ideas... you guessed it... cows... AGAIN! The route across the fields to Thorpe was blocked with at least one field of the blighters. The only route to go was around Thorpe along the route, the other marked public footpaths in the area didn't lead to bridges to cross the River Dove... a taxi was a seriously considered option at this point... I'd walked nearly 10 miles by now and I was quite tired... Just to add to my enjoyment the sky was becoming darker and I could see rain ahead.
This soon reached us and I was as wet as if I'd jumped in the river and waded across... well nearly as wet.
Driven on by sight of the clump of trees where I knew the car park was hidden we trudged back along the road towards Ilam; I needn't have gone on the road at this point but I had visions of slipping in the mud that would by now be muddier that this mornings mud, which was muddy enough.
Reaching the car park I could see that the pop up shop was still open and I bought two bottles of water, two bottles of dandelion and burdock and a large double icecream, the latter of which Tikka and I enjoyed together sat in the boot of the Honda; she'd turned her nose right up at the fresh water I'd offered her.
My planned route was going to be via Blore and through Ilam, but we were both too wet and at least I was too tired. Instead I drove the few moments into Ilam, and was pleased I had; it was beautiful. Virtually all of them chocolate/biscuit box type cottages.
And all nestled just in front of some lovely hill walks... on the list for next time definitely :D
The delightful bridge on the Ilam to Blore road.
This brings to a close my Peak District walking trip and blog. Thank you to those who've expressed enjoyment in my ramblings. To those that haven't bothered to read / like / comment... you've missed out on my fun time... your loss :D
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