Miller's Dale, Priestcliffe, Taddington, Ashford-in-the-Water and Bakewell.

Not a good day for public transport.

My day got off to a bad start when I arrived at Doncaster Station and saw a coach parked in the car park; I went into the concourse and the departures board was showing a bus replacement service for the first train to Sheffield. As usual I'd arrived early and had time to walk over to the bus station and catch the 07:45 X78 bus. Although it's an express service it still takes 75 minutes to reach Sheffield: it was a few minutes late and so I missed the 273 bus.

So a change of plan was enacted; the next suitable bus was going to Buxton and so I decided to do a walk from Miller's Dale that I had already planned to do soon.

As I was waiting to get off the bus I could see that one of the information notices was bilingual; printed in both English and Gaelic. Obviously this bus had  previously been used in the Scottish Highlands.

It was still very misty as I began the walk, and it didn't start to clear up until mid-afternoon. I began by walking up some steep steps through woodland; this would otherwise had been very slippery at this time of year with the fallen leaves on the ground. Once I'd reached the top it was open fields and then a country lane to the hamlet of Priestcliffe.

Just beyond Priestcliffe I had a painful accident. I was attempting to open a metal gate which unfortunately was unhinged, and as soon as I pulled at it, it started to fall towards me, just clipping my left thigh as I tried to get out of the way...I now have a very tender bruise there.

I rummaged in my rucksack for my torch so I could safely cross Taddington by-pass; a busy stretch of dual carriageway - one of only a few in the Peak District,    I should think.

Because of the poor visibility, it wasn't a good day for photography; but I did manage to take a photograph of a rather pretty milepost in the village.

The next section of the walk was along another lane and then a footpath which led down a pretty valley, which isn't named on the map. I was soon down to the A6 trunk road; and had to walk along it for about a mile, switching on my torch again. The oncoming cars seemed to move into the middle of the road to give me space in plenty of time, so I'm assuming it has a powerful beam.

At what looked to be a fish farm or hatchery, I left the road and walked along a very easy riverside path to Ashford-in-the-Water, popped into the village shop, and then continued to Bakewell...where the bus to Sheffield was ten minutes late. There seemed to be a lot of extra traffic on the roads, so I'm thinking that maybe there was a major event at nearby Chatsworth House.