Fairholmes to Bamford

I travelled to the visitor centre at Fairholmes today. To begin with I visited the dam, and then climbed up through the woods to Lockerbrook farm.

I descended to the Snake Pass road and started to climb up through the woods at the other side of the valley with the intention of reaching Hope Cross and then the village of Hope where I would have a choice of two tearooms, two cafes and four pubs for refreshments. Halfway up the hill though, at a junction of two footpaths, I saw some mountainbikers coming up the hill in  the other direction, some of them carrying their bikes on their shoulders. I didn't want to get in  their way, and I used this as an excuse for a short break so I found I safe spot a few yards down the path they were using and waited until they passed. Absent-mindedly though I kept on walking down that path but didn't realise what I'd done until a few minutes later when I heard running water.

I was back in the Woodlands Valley, approaching the southern shore of the western arm of Ladybower Reservoir. Obviously there would need to be a change of plan; the change of plan would mean possibly visiting the Angler's Arms at Bamford for tea and cake...only if I wanted to walk down the road for over a mile though.

A few minutes later I saw another group of mountainbikers, this time all of them riding their bikes along the relatively flat track...with a small energetic terrier leading the way.

When I reached the Ladybower Dam I took several photographs featuring one of the 'plug holes.' This is the only image I've decided to include today; a very severely cropped image.

In the end I decided to take the cinder track down to the Hope Valley Garden Centre - there's a nice cafe there.

A bus was due in twenty minutes when I arrived; I would have liked to visit the cafe, but I decided to walk straight to the bus stop instead though.

Bamford, Thornhill, Aston, and Hope

I got off the bus at Bamford Railway Station and walked down the road for a few minutes until I reached a footpath just beyond Hope Valley Garden Centre which took me under the railway bridge and on towards Thornhill.

The bus to Bamford kept good time despite what seemed to be an entire junior school, both the pupils and their teachers, boarding on Ecclesall Road and getting off at Hathersage...they also got on the same bus as I was travelling on, on the return journey.

I left Thornhill by the Aston road, but after not very far there was a footpath in the fields either side of the lane, running parallel to the road. I took the one to the left hoping for better views; none of my photographs was any good though. It's good that these footpaths are here because in sections the road is a dangerous 'sunken lane' or 'hollow-way or holloway' - there's nowhere to get out of the way of passing traffic. I needed to walk along this short stretch...fortunately the road isn't very busy.

The footpath leading up towards Win Hill began right next to the garden of first house I approached in Aston. This was one of the few paths in the Hope Valley that I haven't previously walked along. 

I didn't quite climb all the way to the summit of Win Hill; I skirted the eastern and northern flanks, but the summit was always clearly in sight.

I descended to Hope taking  the steep grassy slope down to Twitchill Farm.

I didn't visit the tea rooms, although if I'd known the bus would be twenty minutes late there would have been enough time for a pot of tea and some cake.

Finally, more photographs of wildflowers and tree blossom that I took on the walk; I'm hoping I haven't misidentified anything.

Red Campion

Cow Parsley

Hawthorn Blossom

Vetch

Bluebell - it's getting towards the end of the bluebell flowering season now

Gorse - there's an old English country saying that states that 'the only time that gorse doesn't flower is when kissing goes out of fashion'...gorse flowers during every month of the year in England.