Four of us gathered in one of the carparks in Alstonefield [myself, Mike, Lynda and Leon – really sorry you couldn’t make it Hugh] some of us already having donned waterproof trousers as the rain had started. Initially, route finding and navigation wasn’t too challenging on this [as usual] un-recced walk, but missing signposts and unclear paths across the largest fields with no distant guiding stile visible, threw us slightly off-route on a few occasions, but excellent teamwork [and Mike’s compass] got us quickly back on the planned route. The rain stopped and the sun emerged, but It was quite a blustery windy day, so the coffee stop was taken in the shelter of a wall, before reaching the steep edge of the Manifold valley, with its dramatic views. We continued heading south before looping northwards past Castern farm [easy navigation now through small fields and numerous stiles] to stop for lunch in the woods above Hall Dale, with a convenient arched building [possibly an old lime kiln?] to provide shelter from the intermittent rain, Then an extremely steep descent to enter the top of beautiful Hall Dale, leading us down into familiar Dove Dale. Although a footpath is marked on the map, heading directly north from here on the west side of the river, others in this party said they had made the mistake of trying to follow it before, so we took the signposted loop south to the bridge under Ilam Rock, before heading north towards Milldale, where Mike treated us to delicious ice-creams to sustain us up the very steep ascent, and then across fields back to Alstonefield, where we had a brief diversion to its church and the oldest legible dated [1518] gravestone in England.
Thank you everyone for your company, keeping the overly interested large group of horses away from me, and the much appreciated help with navigation. Perhaps today could have been the recce for a walk with no deviations in the future, as apart from in Dove Dale, we saw few other walkers, so a lovely area to revisit sometime? Vanda.
Mike’s pics:
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