I was hoping to be able to have a couple of cheap days out. The webpage says 'from £2' but most of the days that price seems to be limited to specific services in the middle of the day. My choice of destinations was to be Hull and Bridlington; Northern Trains serve many more places from Doncaster though.
The woman at the ticket office wasn't very helpful.
I travelled to Hawks Nest, the first location in north Nottinghamshire, and needed to get off at a different stop because the Worksop bus goes a different route. This worked out for the best though because I was able to visit a small area of Access Land next to the River Ryton called Gibbet Hill. It was a lovely spot to sit in the sun and eat my sandwiches.
The area of Access Land continues at the other side of the Great North Road with better access to the river. There's a bug hotel and some other stuff in this area.
As I approached Scrooby there were some free apples for the taking and so I took one, I have to say it was one of the sweetest apples I've ever tasted.
I walked through the village and then headed south along the Great North Road until I reached a track that goes towards Serlby Golf Course. I then turned left at one of the entrances and continued to the road which goes to Blyth. Along this stretch I met a woman whose two dogs ran into a field to dig up some sugarbeet to eat - I've never seen that before.
Blyth is a pretty village; I would have liked to stay longer to take more photographs but the bus back to Doncaster was due in a few minutes, and then it would be two hours for the next one.
I caught the Stocksbridge bus to a location about a mile north of Wharncliffe Side where the service road for More Hall Reservoir starts. As I got off the bus I tripped up over a raised white line road marking; fortunately I only stumbled and didn't fall. The road continues along the northern bank of the reservoir towards Broomhead Reservoir. For the entire length there was the sound of conkers falling from trees, I've never seen so many before.
Today's walk started at Edensor. After taking advantage of the lovely weather to photograph as many as possible of the pretty cottages in the village I walked over to the Derwent Valley Heritage Way, from where I had stunning views of Chatsworth House.
I continued on to Calton Lees, where there are some more pretty cottages.
I headed south to Rowsley, cutting through the graveyard and the churchyard and then headed up the hill towards the track that goes over to Bakewell.
Today has been the last day of the Heritage Open Days scheme for this year and I was able to visit Kedleston Hall, a few miles north west of Derby, with my support worker. The weather was lovely and I was able to get some good photographs of the gardens and the exteriors of the church and the hall.
On the way back home we called in for lunch at a pub in Brailsford, although this wasn't on our intended route home. We also planned to visit Matlock Bath but both of the car parks were full and so we continued on to the town of Matlock and looked in the charity shops there. The last photo is the only one I took there.
We made one final stop, at the Chatsworth Farm Shop at Pilsley.
