Report on Thursday 21st October walk

After a bit of careful reorganising and re-positioning of the 13 cars to squeeze them all into the slightly limited parking area of Millthorpe, and the donning of wellies or boots [we’ll gloss over mentioning the person who had brought 2 left boots with them!] 16 of us set off uphill in glorious sunshine to Cartledge [it always feels strange/wrong when the path actually passes through someone’s drive and garden]. I’d led an almost identical walk to this in February 2020, but parts of it I couldn’t remember at all, so it was a relief to arrive at the familiar ‘teletubby’ mounds on the outskirts of Dronfield for an early coffee stop. Then heading south towards Common Side, passing a very new ‘Grand Design’ house, for lunch in warm sunshine on a grassy bank [all of the very convenient 5 benches had been removed for some reason] overlooking the the ponds with a clearly visible mini-shoal of fish. Then we continued across fields west of Barlow, through Newgate towards Oxen Rakes, prior to which the well hidden stile was successfully found despite mutterings from those at the back battling with the mud and brambles. Some of the stiles on this walk were of quite unusual designs, but the gate here was just very rusty and required the efforts of 3 of us to get it open. This perhaps should have been a warning that the path was seldom used and I was actually off-route [but not lost!] so adding an extra 1/2 mile to the walk and requiring a bit of road walking to get back on-route again, but now on familiar paths through Rumbling Street back to Millthorpe. Thank you to those who spotted and quietly pointed out the distant stiles across unfamiliar/forgotten fields for me [you know who you are!] and for the rest of you who shared this lovely walk, with stunning views, blue sky and autumnal colours. A total 8 and 1/2 miles.
Vanda Boyd