Sunday 6 October 2013 – A Buxton Bimble

Sue kindly organised this walk. She managed to attract a good turnout of 16 random bimblers on this sunny, summery day, despite a few dropouts.

The Trading Post café in Buxton proved a good place to assemble for a leisurely start well after 10.30am. Colin and Paul had walked to the start, and between them exercised the necessary local knowledge to extricate us from the pleasant town and into the countryside along ‘Green Lane’ towards Tunstead Limestone Works.

We soon paused for tea and cake – the latter being in limited supply as we had only expected ten people.

A nearby blast shelter would hardly have fitted all of us – just as well blasting doesn’t take place at weekends!

The Works were bisected by our path, which led down into Great Rocks Dale and across a long bridge.

The ascent towards Tunstead meandered pleasantly out of the dale and up a zigzag path.

From Tunstead, a high path took us past summery Peak District scenes like this one.

We passed farmers chatting in the sunshine outside Hassop Farm, before being drawn through Chee Dale Nature Reserve.

 

The path led down to a bridge across the River Wye, where Paul sighed with relief when he realised that his recommended lunch spot was indeed the idyllic location that he had predicted.

We lingered whilst a skinny mallard bravely sneaked what scraps she could scavenge. A couple of noisy young goosanders then joined the party, and a dipper busily scouted the river. Several buzzards watched attentively from high above.

A steep path then led south towards Priestcliffe, and on across the main A6 road. Local knowledge rumoured that the footpath through Fivewells Farm may be something of a mud-fest, so we by-passed that, and the Waterloo Hotel, and took the Senners Lane/Pillwell Lane route to join the Midshires Way for our journey back to Buxton in the continuing glorious weather.

Colin paused to re-fill his flask with Illy-Willy Water, reasoning “I fancy a day off sick tomorrow”.

Several of the party walked past the Church Inn in Chelmorton before returning to it whilst the rest of us finished off the refreshments we’d been lugging round all day.  Meanwhile, Sue was composing artwork with her camera:

We then set off at intervals, several of us chatting sufficient to miss the Midshires Way path and inadvertently head along Caxterway Lane to what appeared to be a dead end.  The hillside did however provide some reassurance as to our location!

So by the time we reached Deep Dale, we were a bit spread out, with one group leaving the western lip of the cleft as the backmarkers were reaching the eastern lip.  You can just see them in the distance. (If you know where to look.)

We didn’t go into the small cave to the left of the path in the bottom of the dale today, but I understand there is a much bigger cave, worthy of exploration, with a large chamber, just off the path to the south. I think this is Thirst House Cave, an obvious entrance on the east side of Deep Dale that after about 20 metres drops to a second chamber that allows those with head torches to explore the cave up to a length of nearly 60 metres underground. Worth remembering for next time.

We bimbled on, soon reaching King Sterndale’s reverberating chapel.

Amongst the worshippers’ cars, Sue spotted a nodding sunflower in a campervan.

This was the highlight of her day. Some folk are easily pleased!

A field of cows and an unhelpful farmer confirmed that we had entered Cowdale, heralding the outskirts of Buxton. “We can make a living without having to put up with bimbling ramblers meandering across our fields” he muttered under his breath.

Soon Buxton’s railway viaduct lured us through one of its arches,

and onto the A515 road for an increasingly urban stroll back to the fleshpots of the resort, where the café had shut about five hours earlier.

So we went home, having enjoyed perhaps our last ‘summery’ walk of the year.

Here’s our route – about 22km (14 miles) with 600 metres ascent, taking us about 6.5 hours including breaks.

And finally:

Whilst composing this ‘trip report’ I received a request from the marketing agent who has in the past provided me (and hence some of you) with Berghaus kit for review, to “publish an infographic that Berghaus have produced about 'The Ultimate Trail' which one of their athletes (Philippe Gatta) is in the process of completing”.

I’ve not come across either ‘The Ultimate Trail’ or the term ‘infographic’ before, and I suspect Philippe Gatta would feel as out of place on one of our bimbles as most of us would do on one of his days out.  But it may be of interest, and whilst basically being an advert for Berghaus, there are links to other similar ‘high energy’ escapades which may be of interest.  Click here for the link to the ‘infographic’, and here to ‘follow the trail’.  …Enjoy!?

Here are the links (click on the underlined text) referred to in the comment attributed to Paul F:

"Infographics" - this Wikipedia article explains in the overview.

This recent cartoon (from the popular xkcd blog) satirises the trend nicely.

Moving On

When I first came to Manchester in 1967 I spent a couple of hours every Saturday afternoon at a place called Maine Road, where some mainly local lads (many still live in the area) kicked a football around with great theatre and skills.

The alternative to visiting the old stadium was listening to the roar of the crowd from my nearby lodgings, so it was better to be part of the event than to be on the fringe of it.

Once I moved away from the immediate vicinity of Maine Road, and the game seemed to me to be less attractive to watch, I slowly lost interest.

A new stadium was built for the Commonwealth Games, held in Manchester in 2002, the magnificent City of Manchester Stadium.  It was brilliant, and our visits to watch the athletics were memorable.

Since then the stadium has been adapted for other purposes and is currently known by the name of a foreign sponsor. Last week I received the kind offer of a pass into the stadium for a prestigious event.  I was curious to visit and made my way to the evening match.  The vantage point was excellent.  I watched for an hour and a quarter as some (mainly) foreigners in blue passed a white ball to some other foreigners in red, who then passed it amongst themselves and occasionally kicked it past the blue people into a net, before graciously handing it back to the blues to repeat the performance.  There was a large contingent of very red and very noisy supporters at one end of the stadium.  The rest were silent and blue. (And masochists?)

I wasn’t the only person to leave early.  I shan’t be going again.

Trentham Gardens – 8 August 2013

Yesterday I sorted through some pictures taken whilst I was in the Pyrenees.  Sue must have sneaked off to Trentham Gardens when she should have been working, and she hasn’t got round to downloading her photos until now.

There’s no evidence as to whether she went alone, or in company, but there is evidence of the visit…

Meanwhile, I was in the Pyrenees amongst herds of izard, flailing along the switchbacks of the Noufonts ridge.

1 October 2013 – Some Anniversaries, and Jessica

The first day of October is usually an active one for me.  Tuesday was the tenth anniversary of my becoming a part timer before winding down and retiring.  It’s also the sixth anniversary of the start of these pages in 2007.

This year all I could manage was a local, flat, ten mile bike ride.  That was ten miles more than I’d have managed a couple of weeks earlier.  Hopefully I’ll return to the hills during October.

I’d hoped to post a photo of newly born granddaughter Jessica with her mum and dad, but they seem to be camera shy at present, so step-grandma and big brother will have to do for the time being.

Sweeties… all of them!

PS And it seems I now have 100 ‘Followers’, thanks to Conrad, who has actually been following the blog for a while. Only a small proportion of those ‘Followers’ do actually regularly look at the blog, though I know there are a few other ‘anonymous’ readers.

Google reckons the blog has enjoyed around 322,000 page views in those six years, whereas Statcounter has ‘counted’ just 236,000.  Who knows which is correct. July 2013, whilst I fumbled with postings from the Pyrenees, seems to have produced a peak in the readership.

Grandad (Again)

I reported some time ago on Jacob’s arrival, with a none too flattering ‘Gollum’ picture.

He’s pictured above, last weekend, with Sue - modelling a bench in Newton Park (don’t ask!) after his first night out in Timperley.

Tonight he gained a sister, Jessica, coming into this world at a weight of 7 pounds, at 20.24.  She will be forever grateful for my failure to place a similar ‘Gollum’ like picture on these pages.

Congratulations, Kate and Simon, and I hope you can largely avoid the world of sleep deprivation this time…

Wednesday 25 September 2013 – An Evening Stroll Around Alderley Edge

Last night we managed a brief outing, starting at the Drum and Monkey in Alderley Edge.  Sue and I were joined by some usual suspects for a very leisurely amble up the Edge and along towards The Wizard, before crossing the B5087 and failing to find the mine entrance near the site of Hagg Cottages.  We couldn’t have gone into the mine, but a visit is planned for the future.

An archaeological dig was carried out on these cottages in 2003.  They were occupied until after the Second World War, and were only demolished in the mid-1950s.  In fact, some of the former residents were frequent visitors to the dig, re-living their childhood memories.  There’s not much chance of anything being rebuilt hereabouts, as there is contamination from sulphuric acid used in the extraction of copper.  The whole area is riddled with mines.  Is it just a matter of time before a nearby footballer’s mansion subsides into one of them?

Having managed to avoid most of the mud on the descent to the cottages, we followed the easy path to the north of the barking dogs of White Barn Farm, before turning right to head along the narrow field path to the B5087. The slippery cobbles of Squirrel’s Jump provided a challenging route for those who wanted to stay upright and unbruised before returning to the Drum and Monkey for a welcome pint of Unicorn.

5 km in rather less than an hour and a half.  Thanks for joining us, folks.

Here’s Alistair’s take on the evening. (Click on this text.)

France – Quiz Night at SWOG

The other night Sue and I had the pleasure of attending one of the first Wednesday evening sessions of the ‘season’ held by Stockport Walking and Outdoor Group (SWOG) at Hazel Grove Civic Centre.

‘Bring along a few photos’ they said. So we did. But there were some timing and technical issues that meant the memory stick stayed firmly in my pocket.

However, given that I’d taken the trouble to pull out a few images of France, and entries on these pages have been rather sparse of late (I haven’t been anywhere other than that SWOG meeting), I thought I’d post them here, and offer a small award for the person who can send me the best answers to the questions:

‘Where were we?’, and ‘What were we photographing?’ That is – what’s in the picture, where was it taken from (not necessarily France), and can you provide any additional information about why we may have been there?

For all I know, the information is embedded somewhere in the pictures and may be what is preventing all my efforts to upload them to the internet in any other way without causing Internet Explorer to crash.

The pictures are numbered 1 to 17, and entries should be sent to me at francetest@topwalks.com by 13 October.

5 January 2014

There were no entries.  So it's just as well that I enjoyed compiling this sequence of pictures.  The answers are:

1. Carcassonne - la Cité (2004)

2. Hendaye - at the starting point of GR10 by the casino at Hendaye Plage (2013)

3. Nice - Bernar Venet Sculpture - Garden Albert - 1988 "Arc of 115°5" (19 metres long)

4. Nice - Place Massena - 7 statues in white resin, 10 metres above ground.  Illuminated at night in different colours.  Sculptor – Jaume Plensa

5. Monte Viso from Colle Guillian (2451 metres) – with France just in view on the far right (19/7/2008)

6. Carcassonne - la Cité, from near the campsite (2004)

7. Forclaz – the Hotel/restaurant at col de la Forclaz, on the Tour de Mont Blanc and the Walkers’ Haute Route from Chamonix to Zermatt

8. La Flégère Refuge, with peaks across the Chamonix valley

9. Mont Blanc and Glacier des Bossons, from Chamonix

10. Chamonix and Mont Blanc from the balcony path between Chalet de la Flégère and Les Chéserys

11. L’Aiguille du Midi – 3842 metres – from Chamonix

12. Ibex on the French/Italian border near Colle ouest de Sabbione (4/7/2008)

13. Mont Blanc massif from Rifugio Bonatti

14. Mer de Glace and Les Drus from just below Lac Blanc

15. Glacier d’Argentière from above the Chéserys lakes

16. Relaxing at a small lake on the path to Lac Blanc from Flégère

17. Panorama from Rifugio Walter Bonatti, with Grandes Jorasses – 4208 metres