Tag Archives: walking

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Winnats Pass

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Yesterday morning there wasn’t really a sunrise. Obviously the sun rose, but it was hidden behind a lot of cloud, and sideways rain. So this morning I decided to drive to Castleton, and go up Mam Tor for the sunrise.

Winnats Pass
Winnats Pass, at sunrise

My first problem, when I got in the car and set the sat nav up was that I realised that I’d misremembered how long it would take me to drive there. For some reason, I’d thought it would take me 26 minutes (weirdly specific), but actually it was 47. So that pretty much meant that I wouldn’t be at the top or the tor when the sun peaked over the horizon.

Winnats Pass
Winnats Pass, sunrise

My second problem happened when I got there. You have to drive up the road in the image above to get to the top and park. I could see a fair few photographers (I assumed!) lined up on the ridge, and I was suprised by how many there were. However, I wasn’t prepared for how many people would be stood at the top of the tor! There is a car park there and it was full, as were the laybys nearest the car park. So this, teamed with the fact I was already running late meant I decided I was going to walk to the pass, rather than up the tor.

Winnats Pass

There were a fair few people out overlooking the pass, but far fewer than were up the tor; so I’ll have to do the tor another day. I’m assuming it was so busy because it was “the first sunrise of the new year”. Rather than it’s just always that busy, however I may be wrong!

Winnats Pass
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Padley Gorge

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After a spell of rainy weather, today was clear. So we decided to go out into the Peak District. After a bit of umming and aaahing about where to go, I settled on Padley Gorge because it is close and I suspected we’d still be able to get parked despite setting off a bit later than usual.

Padley Gorge
If I were a tree, I’d be a tree at Padley Gorge. All gnarly and bendy and covered in moss.

It was a bit chilly in the breeze, but quite a nice day out. We followed a circular from Alltrails that took us down into the gorge before going up to Surprise View and across Owler Tor and back to the car (see below).

Owler Tor
Another nice tree. I like trees.

Despite the heavy rain of the last couple of days the paths were more or less clear, with just some really muddy small sections that could be stepped over / around.

Padley Gorge

This is probably going to be the last walk of the year, as the weather forecast once again is not great after today until Monday; wherein I’m trying to decide if to go up Mam Tor, or go around the Ladybower areas.

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Cave Dale

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Yesterday was a nice day; the skies were more or less clear and there was no rain forecast, so we went to Castleton, parked up (free to park on the road in the week if it’s not a bank holiday!) and walked up Cave Dale

The Path Down

I’d set off wearing far too many layers; hat, scarf, gloves, coat, fleecey jumper… And clearly that was all unnecessary and came off half way up!

Clouds

It was nice and quiet whilst we were there and we were trying to follow a route, but we ended up slightly off-piste. When we were back in Castleton we stopped in a café and had sandwiches and a drink before coming home.

Cave Dale
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Curbar Edge, Froggatt Edge, White Edge Circular Walk

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Whilst I’ve been off I’ve been looking a walks. I like walking, but I’m a fair weather walker. But not too fair, because I don’t like being hot. I was disappointed that I got a tan in Norway, and it still hasn’t really gone!

The other week I went with my mum to the Peak District, and we did a walk from Surprise View car park, to Higger Tor, to Padley Gorge. It took us almost 3 hours, and it was quite a nice walk. A bit hilly in places, but my legs and knees were fine. We found the route on www.walkingenglishman.com and used his GPX file. It was the first time following a route and we didn’t do too bad, although we did end up a bit off track in Padley.

I’ve been looking at doing another walk with kB this bank holiday, and we decided on Curbar Edge and Froggatt Edge. We couldn’t find a GPX file for a circular route, so I made one. You can download it here.

I decided to not take my camera and just use my phone. Lugging around 12kg in a backpack isn’t the most fun, and often I take my camera and don’t use it.

We started at Curbar Gap car park. It’s £1.50 for two hours, £2.60 for 4 hours and £4 all day. It was a bank holiday Monday, and the weather was good; but we got there at 10am and it was pretty much full. We nabbed one of the last parking spots, paid for 4 hours (just in case) and set off.

View at the start of the walk, at Curbar Gap

The route is really easy (probably why there wasn’t a GPX file for it) as the path is pretty obvious and wide. The only time we got a bit lost was at the end of the Curbar Edge/Froggatt Edge walk, and connecting to the White Edge part of the walk. Another couple who were doing the same walk also got a bit lost as well though. To  be honest I knew where we were heading, and I think had we just walked towards White Edge we would have been OK.
We tried to have a drink in the Grouce Inn before we walked up to White Edge, but it was too early – it didn’t open until 12.
Once we were back on the route to White Edge it was straight forward again. Wide, easy to walk path, with sign posts too.

View from a short way into the walk.

At the end of the route, back in Curbar Gap car park a ice cream truck had appeared. Then we went to the pub.
Total length of talk 19.36km (Including back tracking and being off route). It took us 2 hours and 25 minutes to walk the whole thing.

I spotted some deers at White Edge, but they were miles away. Besides it’s a bit early for deer season, and I didn’t have my camera.

We also spotted this little guy on our walk! ^_^

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The paths we walk

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The paths we walk

260 // 365
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Nine days to go until day 1000 of taking a photo every day.
Today has been a rough day at work, but it has been lovely to come home and put creativeLIVE on and be inspired by other people.
I love checking out the work of others, but it’s really hard to not look at others work which is better than yours and then feel upset because you think you will never be that good!