Just a short walk in the Peak District. Truly I am blessed; Graham has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the Peak and is expert at arranging short (8 to 10km) circular walks with a pub lunch around halfway, and Crazy Nick does the driving. We picked Graham up in Matlock just after a short but savage downpour and set off up the A6, turning off at Ashford in the Water to find a good parking spot at Monsal Head.
After following the Wye downstream for a short way above Monsal Dale we walked over the higher ground towards Ashford, passing the Iron Age hill fort of
Fin Cop. Graham knew one of the archaeologists who had discovered the skeletons of women and children who had apparently been killed, thrown into the ditch and covered with rocks from the destruction of the fortifications. I'm not superstitious, but it wasn't somewhere I would like to camp overnight. Descending into Ashford we passed some spectacularly horned sheep.
After a huge and delicious meal in the Bull's Head we were face with some unavoidable roadside walking along the Baslow road, until we could cut off Northwards through the Thornbridge Estate. Here Nick found some very vocal Old Spot(?) pigs.
A view of Thornbridge Hall from the SE, with Graham striding purposefully past.
Is someone missing a tandem? If so, you can find it in the garden centre at Thornbridge.
Rather than continuing via Great and Little Longstone we decided to follow the Monsal Trail, through the
Headstone Tunnel
and back to our starting point, well, quite a height below it, so we had some more exercise to use up some of the excess calories we'd consumed. This view is at the E end of the viaduct, looking N