A bimble around Baslow, Bakewell, Bradford and Birchover

As part of the CWT preps, which have now warmed up to something quite frenetic, we decided to test the gear and the process with a little backpacking weekend in Derbyshire.  We had originally thought of the lakes but the cost of diesel don't you know and the hours of sitting in motorway queues were not enticing.

I plotted a route which just happened to go though a lot of places beginning with B plus one beginning with A and one with C.  It also went through a lot of places with tea shops.  This wasn't to be on the scale of a daunder in the style of messers Sloman and Lor d'Elpus but it was perhaps going to be a little more relaxed than usual, for we both have dodgy knees and don't want to dodge them any more than necessary before the big event. 

We drove to North Lees campsite below Stanage on friday night, in an attempt to get the early start we wouldn't have got if we'd started out from our respective homes on Saturday morning.  It was midgey and the site was full but the warden lady, who was called Bobby, said she had a cancellation.  It cost twelve quid and there were no lights in the toilets, which was a problem as someone had forgotten to bring a torch.  We should have just camped in Burbage woods.  Anyway a stroll down to the Scotsman's in Hathersage was followed by some consumption of alcohol and a misdirected stroll back up to the campsite in the dark and which involved traversing a beck on a wire fence and thrashing through a patch of nettles.  I really don't remember any of those on the way down.  Oh yes, we had pitched the new tent the wrong way round and had a choice of sleeping with head below feet (no thanks) or nose touching the inner tent (never again).

Saturday dawned midge free and after a really quite poor night of little sleep, Coleman's Deli beckoned for coffee and a bacon sarnie.  However, Colemans Deli was not open at 9, nor was Outside, not was Outside at Carver, so we drove straight to Baslow and abandoned the car outside the village hall.  A tea shack by the car park did a passable brew and sausage roll and with that we headed east to Hassop, where we passed the first two DoE groups for the weekend and then south to Bakewell, where we called in the Austrian tea shop and had the most outrageously expensive caffetiere of coffee and a tea cake. 

At  the cafe in Bakewell where no mis-behaving was experienced.














Then after a steep climb out of Bakewell, we headed south over Haddon Fields to Alport and Bradford Dale where we looked at a scary bit of limestone and decided that climbing on this sort of rock was best left to other people.  The sound of a brass band drifted across the valley from Youlgreave where the annual well dressing was in progress.

Cow paddling in Bradford Dale

We picked up the Limestone Way to Robin Hood's Stride and The Hermit's Cave under Cratcliffe Tor.  Here we watched some climbers struggle on a gritstone HVS and decided that this sort of rock was also best climbed by somebody else. 

Robin Hood's Stride

Inside the Hermit's Cave




















Descending to the road we showed a group of DoEers where they were on the map (about 8km from where they should have been) and gained a sneaky look at their 1:25000 to confirm where our path went off.  Two short climbs got us to Birchover and the campsite, which was awash with DoE groups who obviously hadn't got lost.

Tent, tea and pub followed in leisurely succession along with a better and correctly oriented night's sleep.

The too small tent at Birchover









Over breakfast the next morning, we pondered the question of the tent for CWT.  It's a Vango Banshee 200 I bought for my daughter last month for her DoE.  In the event, she used something else because her friend said it made her claustrophobic.  It has to be said it is very small - it weighs in at an impressive 2kgs.  For one night it's ok but we couldn't help thinking about the misery of trying to deal with rain or midges in something so small over a week - and I started to pine for the Akto.  So two tents it will be.

Setting off from Birchover, we crossed Stanton Moor which had a large encampment at the Nine Ladies stone circle, poised for the Summer Solstice and then bimbled to Rowsley for tea and cake at Caudwells Mill.  This set us up for the long, long (long) climb though Manners Wood and across to the Chatsworth Estate. 

Chatsworth House








We lunched at the top on soup and left over cake (for they had been very large pieces) and observed a DoE girls group head off in the wrong direction to Edensor.  The one that said they had to aim between two groups of trees was correct, she just had the wrong two groups of trees.  We on the other hand, took the obvious worn track between the correct groups of trees and witnessed a stampede of Fallow deer before crossing the river and plodding down a very hot and dusty path back to Baslow for a celebratory ice cream.

A damned fine bimble of 20 miles and 3000 ft of upness.

Burbage and Stanage

One of the benefits of living on the western edge of Sheffield is the ease of getting out to the countryside. Within a few minutes walk of the house is farmland and it doesn't take very long to be on open moorlands. My son had planned a 3 day backpacking trip round the Hope Valley with a couple of his mates, using most of my lightweight gear, but that fell through. So instead he and I decided on a walk over Burbage and Stanage, with an overnight camp at North Lees. Unfortunately, because he had laid claim to all my light gear, I ended up carrying all the heavy stuff.

Farmland above Lodge Moor

It was 2:30 in the afternoon before we finally set off from the house - dragging a teenage boy away from his PC can be fraught. I always feel slightly self-conscious walking through a suburban housing estate with full backpacking gear but that didn't last long and struggling over the first style, we followed the track past the Observatory and onto the back lanes which led us up onto the moors at Ringinglow. This is the road on which a well known, local boxer driving his very expensive car too quickly, wiped out another motorist. Suffice to say, it's a road to cross with caution.

Sheffield - you can just make out the big wheel in the city centre for the next few months

Houndkirk Moor lies behind (east) of Burbage Edge. It has two major tracks crossing it at right angles to each other, which give a satisfying figure of eight route for mountain bikes. Apparently, many of the roads around Burbage Moor were first built as turnpike roads. Houndkirk Road was built in 1758 but unlike the other roads, was never surfaced. As a result it is popular with by 4x4 off-roaders and unlike the track to Stanedge Pole, doesn’t suffer too badly from this kind of usage. What is more troubling is that these guys are leaving the official byway and driving up onto the moor, creating tracks where there weren’t any before. On this day, we only saw one vehicle, a rather cute beach buggy affair, which did look like it would be a lot of fun to drive. So engrossed was I at watching it bounce along, I forgot to get the camera out in time.

On a clear day from up here, you can see the cooling towers of a number of power stations sited along the rivers Ouse, around the A1 and Doncaster, and the Trent, south towards Nottingham.

Burbage Edge looking towards Higgar Tor

Our route wasn't going as far as Fox House, instead taking a right turn out to Burbage Edge where we'd planned to stop for a very late lunch - more like afternoon tea really. However, the midges had the same idea (with us on the menu) so we pressed on and strained our eyes to spot if the ice cream van was at Burbage Brook car park. It was and our pace quickened, though in my case, this was barely perceptible and I sent Joe off ahead with instructions to throw himself in front of the van, should he decide to pack up for the day! We needn't have worried. The guy was asleep with his feet up on the dashboard when we got there. The midges were far from asleep and it was but a brief stop for two very welcome ice creams and pop but with lunch still intact. While we were there, Range Rover man arrived in his f' off 4x4 and parked himself between the grass bank where we were sat and the ice cream van. Leaving his engine running, presumably because he hadn't the strength in his wrist to turn the key (which was surprising as he was clearly a complete to$$er), he walked all of two yards, bought a 99, walked another two yards back to his car and drove off. We left shortly after and walked over the road to the track up onto Stanage Edge.

Top of Stanage Edge - looking back to Burbage

As we gained some height, the breeze kept the midges down and we soon reached the trig point and pressed on along the edge. Up to this point there had been no need to look at the map and I continued with this misconception as we dropped off the edge just after Robin Hood's Cave onto what should have been a bridleway. I walked up this route in April and remember thinking then, that the track was a bit vague - I didn't look at the map then either. This time, the track was hidden below dense, chest high bracken. I don't know what's happened this year but the bracken has gone wild. It's positively Jurassic and I wouldn't have been surprised if we'd seen a herd of raptors running towards us. I'm relieved we didn't - we had enough to deal with as it was. We spent the next 15 minutes fighting our way down to the road. Bear Grylls would have been proud of us but then Bear Grylls would probably have had his feet up by some hotel pool. Eventually, the moor released us and we stumbled out onto the road with boots full of bracken and a somewhat less than moderate disposition. Of course this wasn't the bridleway. It wasn't any track marked on the map, it wasn't even a track - just like it hadn't been in April. I finally sorted out where we should have been on the way back the next day. It seemed time to call it day, so we walked the final quarter of a mile to the campsite along the road.

Something else which has gone bonkers this week is insects, in particular the St Mark's fly or Bibio Marci. I Googled for that, in case you have the impression I know something about insects, which I don't. In fact it was the campsite lady at North Lees who told us they were St Mark's flies. Up to that point we'd been calling them 'Evils' because with their large bodies and long dangly hind legs, that was how they looked. Anyway, we encountered them shortly after leaving the house and there just seemed to be more and more. As well as St Mark’s flies, this seems to have been a good week for butterflies and I spotted some white ones, a pretty blue one, some small brown ones and a Tortoiseshell.

The midges at the campsite were pretty dreadful, so it was a quick tea and then escape to the tents to read. Any plans to walk down to the pub were abandoned. I got around 1am to attend to a call of nature and the sky was almost completely clear. The previous night was supposed to have been the best for viewing the Perseids meteor shower, so I hung around outside for a short while and was rewarded quite soon with a sighting of a meteor heading from Cassiopeia towards Lyre, which tracing it’s trajectory back would have it emanating from around the constellation of Perseus. I stayed out for a while longer, until my neck started to get stiff but didn’t see any more. The midges were still bad in the morning, so we left the tents and walked into Hathersage for breakfast at Colemans Deli and a tour of the gear shops before returning to the camp site to pack up.

The plan was to head back over Stanage, past the pole and down by Redmires reservoirs back home. This time I was determined to find the bridleway we missed yesterday. To reach it we had to walk past North Lees which is said to be the inspiration for Thornfield in Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, where the demented Mrs Rochester was locked away in the attic. Approaching from this direction, the start of the track is obvious but Joe decided to bail out at this point and call the cavalry, in the form of his Mum, to come and collect him in the car.

North Lees

This is a very pleasant route up onto Stanage Edge and comes out a short distance from the main Roman Causeway to Stanedge Pole. The Pole is for some reason spelt differently from the Edge and is an ancient guide for travellers. Although the current pole is unlikely to be the original, the rock plinth is reported to have the year 1550 carved in it (though when it was carved in another matter!). Suffice it to say, it’s old and to my mind lends a special feel to the place.

The 'lost' bridleway onto Stanage Edge

The old Roman Causeway east from the Pole to Redmires, is flagged up to and just beyond the gate at the edge of the plantation and I’ve just read that it is thought to have been laid in the late 18’th century when it was a packhorse route. In Roman times it was part of the road from the Roman fort at Navio (Brough near Bradwell) to Doncaster and a few years ago I found a sketch map in local history book showing the old road as running close to my house - but I’ve yet to find any Roman remains in the garden.

The Roman Causeway, looking east towards Redmires

From Stanedge Pole, it’s downhill all the way home. The top of the three reservoirs at Redmires has been drained for some months now and the middle one is only half full. There were even more St Mark’s fly than on the previous day - swarms of them, on a biblical scale but only up to the edge of the housing.

Redmires Upper reservoir

Sheffield to North Lees: 8 miles, 1200’ ascent

North Lees to Sheffield: 5 miles, 900’ ascent