Frisky Cows

Although Deep Dale was a picturesque and interesting place, I was glad to leave its confines. I'd been walking in cool shade for most of the dale and now, at its top, I surfaced into the glorious glow of the sun. I'd planned a rather intricate route, beyond Deep Dale, that involved crossing a large area of farmland. I could see from my elevated position that this looked a maze of stone walls and fields, many of which contained cows. This was definitely dairy country. I started field hopping. The first field was full of cows but didn't seem interested in me. The second field had a footpath sign that was twisted and bent over, so that one of the direction arrows was pointing to Hell, and the other direction arrow to Heaven. Well, that wasn't much help. In the next field the farmer had corralled the cows away from the farm track with a single electric wire. I started walking down the farm track and the cows started following. Eventually, I had 20 or 30 cows near to me mooing ominously. My only protection from these 30 tons of hormone fuelled beef, was this flimsy electric wire. This didn't look like my way anyway and I started making my way back up the farm track to the footpath direction post. The cows followed me. Not exactly a stampede, but more of a stalking jog. I rechecked my map at the signpost. I figured out which field I needed to get to, but I noticed a farmer in a tractor dumping some hay near to where I thought the stile should be. Dozens of cows were making their way over to it. Life shouldn't be this difficult. I was only four fields into a twenty-six-field marathon; something had to change. The good thing about walking on your own is that you can make Executive decisions. My Executive decision was to do a bit of road walking,

Long Road

The roads weren't busy. They weren't that exciting either. I like mountainous open land, and I was walking through a flat farming landscape. Looking at my OS map I got rather excited when I saw that at a forthcoming junction there was something that looked like a 100 metres square lido. That's a funny place to have a lido. I thought. It turned out not to be a lido, and was in fact Taddington Moor High Mere, a small nature reserve. As I went down to the fence to take a photo, a 4WD parked at the farm track that ran alongside the reserve. The woman driver appeared to be watching me. I started making my way back to the road. As I neared the car, she drove off. I'm not sure whether she thought I was up to some nefarious activities. I must have a dishonest face.

A little later I spotted a group of people congregated at the front of Moor Grange Farm. Looking through my camera I could see that there was some sort of falconry demonstration going on. I wondered if I might gate-crash the event, but then thought that these country folk have their own ways and might not take kindly to such an intrusion from an outsider. A mile further on, I spotted two large raptors on a stone wall at the other side of the field. They were massive. How I wish I'd brought my long lens. From the size and feather markings they looked like Hen Harriers. I took about 20 photos, but because they were too far away, they were too blurred to make a definitive identification. They were certainly impressive though.

Cherlmorton Low

On the path down to the village of Chelmorton I walked by a small well known as Bank Pit Spring. A sign says that it used to be the source of Chelmorton's water supply and was know as the 'Illy-Willy-Water'. I'm not sure about you, but I'm not sure I'd be drinking Willy Water, especially if it makes you Illy.

The problem with the Ethel Chelmorton Low is that you have to go down to the village, in order to go back up to the summit. I effectively climbed twice its height to bag it. In fairness, it is a very low peak and so it wasn't much hardship. The actual summit is just beyond the open access area and is on private land. There is a dilapidated stone wall between you and the top, and so it would take a person with morals better than mine, to stop at the wall and not walk those last few yards to the top. There are apparently two Bronze age barrows at the summit, presumably the two lumps that are on the top. There is a reasonable view westward from the summit, although the three massive quarries detract from the aesthetics of it. I had my lunch, and then went down to Chelmorton village again, to then make the climb back up again, on to the path to Sough Top.

Sough Top

Some field hopping was involved in the walk to Sough Top although none of the fields contained any frisky cows. A group of Duke Of Edinburgh kids past me, going the opposite way, I'd see two more groups before I got to Taddington. Sough Top doesn't seem much of a peak from the Chelmorton side. The trig is on private land although you get pretty close to it from the footpath. The path from Sough Top gradually descended into the village of Taddington. Rather than lose height going into the village, I followed a path that contoured along the hillside along its outskirts. This brought me to my second well of the day, known as High Well. I continued on my contour of the hill and came to a field with one of those circular man-made water reservoirs. I've only seen these in the White Peak and they never appear to have any water in them. Further along the path I came across an enclosure with a couple of mini horses. One of them came across to me to say hello. I scratched its head for a while, and I got a snort of thanks as I departed.

I gradually descended back down to Deep Dale and I put on my oily soap shoes again. This pocket of nature was still alive with squirrels and birds. I walked into the car park and past that bloody ticket machine. That lost £1.75 had cast a shadow on the day, and so had those frisky cows, but overall, it'd been enjoyable