Walk 9:45am to 2:30pm - 8 miles
Well yesterday's BBC Online weather forecast showed lost of sun today, mixed with some sunny intervals, but no rain at all - great forecast and really looking forward to the walk. This morning though, I thought I'd check again, and it was sunny intervals in the morning, with heavy showers around mid-day, and then nothing but sun through most of the afternoon. Not too bad a forecast, so off we set to track down Alport Castles - for those that don't know, they aren't actual castles but rock formations. We've done a few walks recently in this part of Derbyshire, but as it's not too far a drive (about 1hr) it's near enough to keep petrol costs down and a great area to walk.
We arrived at Fairholmes car-park at the top end of the eastern fork of Ladybower Reservoir just after 9:30am, and our plan was to walk up the western 'shore' of Derwent Reservoir, then past Howden Dam and around the western fork of Howden Reservoir where we could pick up the path between Green Clough and Fagney Clough which would take us directly up the steep incline to Alport Castles.
The path along the reservoirs took us around 3 miles, and whilst the sun was out for much of the time, unfortunately the path is almost all in the trees so we couldn't take advantage of the sun and get a little colour in our cheeks. It's amazing to see just how low the reservoirs are, I can only imagine the situation in the east and south-east where they are having serious issues with low rainfall. What was really good to see as we walked along this path, was the remains of'Tin Town' which was a town built for the workers who built the dams - when it was there it was literally like a small town with all the amenities you would expect. The first part of the path that takes you up to Alport Castles is through dense woodland, but about half-way up the incline we found a nice log to sit on and have a sandwich, and as a bonus the log was bathed in sun. However, within minutes of sitting down and opening up our rucksacks, it was on with our coats as the rain started to come through the trees.
We had a couple of sandwiches and decided to carry on up the hill through the trees, and to our surprise it then started to hailstone, which continued for around the next 30-45 minutes until we reached the 'castles' Well, it was certainly worth the walk, the rock formations were great to see, with the steep drop down into Alport Dale a great view. It was fantastic to see the glorious lush green dale in front of us, with great views both up and down it. The weather had now started to clear - not the clear blue skies that BBC Weather had 'promised' but it was now dry with breaks in the cloud.
We continued along the path along the edge of Rowlee Pasture towards the wooded area at Hagg Side, where after a short - yet steep, drop down through the woods we emerged only about 300m from the car-park, and time for a sit down. We were quite fortunate to get back to the car when we did, as we had noticed that following us was a large black cloud which decided to dump it's contents on the area as we were finishing the walk.
A really nice walk, unfortunately my back problems had returned even though I was rattling with prescribed drugs, and had maximum strength Ibuprofen Gel rubbed into my back by my wife before we left home - very enjoyable I must say! It wasn't as bad as it usually is though, so a bit of a bonus and it took nothing away from the walk. I had also dabbled with using some different settings on my camera, not a great success with some photos either wrongly exposed or out of focus - so not the usual array for photos for uploading. The first few shots in particular around Derwent Dam were a mess - schoolboy error I must admit though, I had been messing with my camera settings last night and left the camera on manual focus. Not a problem if you remember the fact, but a problem if you don't!
As usual, more photos here
Well yesterday's BBC Online weather forecast showed lost of sun today, mixed with some sunny intervals, but no rain at all - great forecast and really looking forward to the walk. This morning though, I thought I'd check again, and it was sunny intervals in the morning, with heavy showers around mid-day, and then nothing but sun through most of the afternoon. Not too bad a forecast, so off we set to track down Alport Castles - for those that don't know, they aren't actual castles but rock formations. We've done a few walks recently in this part of Derbyshire, but as it's not too far a drive (about 1hr) it's near enough to keep petrol costs down and a great area to walk.
We arrived at Fairholmes car-park at the top end of the eastern fork of Ladybower Reservoir just after 9:30am, and our plan was to walk up the western 'shore' of Derwent Reservoir, then past Howden Dam and around the western fork of Howden Reservoir where we could pick up the path between Green Clough and Fagney Clough which would take us directly up the steep incline to Alport Castles.
The path along the reservoirs took us around 3 miles, and whilst the sun was out for much of the time, unfortunately the path is almost all in the trees so we couldn't take advantage of the sun and get a little colour in our cheeks. It's amazing to see just how low the reservoirs are, I can only imagine the situation in the east and south-east where they are having serious issues with low rainfall. What was really good to see as we walked along this path, was the remains of'Tin Town' which was a town built for the workers who built the dams - when it was there it was literally like a small town with all the amenities you would expect. The first part of the path that takes you up to Alport Castles is through dense woodland, but about half-way up the incline we found a nice log to sit on and have a sandwich, and as a bonus the log was bathed in sun. However, within minutes of sitting down and opening up our rucksacks, it was on with our coats as the rain started to come through the trees.
We had a couple of sandwiches and decided to carry on up the hill through the trees, and to our surprise it then started to hailstone, which continued for around the next 30-45 minutes until we reached the 'castles' Well, it was certainly worth the walk, the rock formations were great to see, with the steep drop down into Alport Dale a great view. It was fantastic to see the glorious lush green dale in front of us, with great views both up and down it. The weather had now started to clear - not the clear blue skies that BBC Weather had 'promised' but it was now dry with breaks in the cloud.
We continued along the path along the edge of Rowlee Pasture towards the wooded area at Hagg Side, where after a short - yet steep, drop down through the woods we emerged only about 300m from the car-park, and time for a sit down. We were quite fortunate to get back to the car when we did, as we had noticed that following us was a large black cloud which decided to dump it's contents on the area as we were finishing the walk.
A really nice walk, unfortunately my back problems had returned even though I was rattling with prescribed drugs, and had maximum strength Ibuprofen Gel rubbed into my back by my wife before we left home - very enjoyable I must say! It wasn't as bad as it usually is though, so a bit of a bonus and it took nothing away from the walk. I had also dabbled with using some different settings on my camera, not a great success with some photos either wrongly exposed or out of focus - so not the usual array for photos for uploading. The first few shots in particular around Derwent Dam were a mess - schoolboy error I must admit though, I had been messing with my camera settings last night and left the camera on manual focus. Not a problem if you remember the fact, but a problem if you don't!
As usual, more photos here
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