Stoney Middleton, Glebe Mines, Housley, Rowland, and Bakewell.

The first few trains from Doncaster to Sheffield this morning weren't stopping at Meadowhall due to engineering works and so they were being sent along a diversionary route which is usually only used by freight trains. This was something new for me, something different to look at; although I've actually travelled along this route two or three times before it's always been on a late night service from Sheffield to Doncaster...this was my first time during daylight hours.

I got off the bus from Sheffield at Stoney Middleton and walked along the road until I reached a footpath that looked as though it was leading somewhere interesting.

I ended up walking along the bottom of the cliff face, and sometimes climbing higher, for about a mile until I crossed the road and headed up a quarry road that's also a footpath going towards Glebe Mines. Near to the top I took the opportunity to leave the quarry road and head across the fields which overlook the valley and some old quarry workings.

Glebe Mines is a blot on the landscape; there's nothing there but run-down industrial buildings, rusting vehicles and equipment, lots of pipework, piles of rubbish, and lagoons of polluted waste water. I hurried up and quickly reached the next footpath which lead across the fields.

There are only about half a dozen scattered houses at Housley, so nothing to see there. I took the footpath which headed off in an approximately southern direction, walking mainly across more typical White Peak limestone grassland landscape, on one occasion doing a fifteen minute detour to visit an old lead mining rake on the lookout for wildflowers.

I then walked along the road which leads to the top of Longstone Edge, and continued using the track and footpath which drops down to Rowland.

It was then a relatively short and easy walk across the fields and along a short section of the Monsal Trail to arrive at the bus stop at Pineapple Farm on the northern edge of Bakewell with only five minutes to wait.

The bus arrived on time, unfortunately I had forty minutes to wait for a train at Sheffield Railway Station because the Newcastle service had been cancelled.