I can't easily get to the Peak District on public transport at the weekends at the moment; on Saturdays there's a strike on the railways which is limiting the number of services which are running to Sheffield, and on Sundays there's currently engineering work which has closed the line. So, it was another local walk today...in the rain.
I'd got no particular destination in mind when I arrived at the bus station at 7:30 this morning. I scanned the destinations screens and saw that a bus going to Wath was due and so I rushed over to board it.
Obviously the church at Wath wouldn't be open at this early hour.
I left Wath by heading westwards; some women who most likely worked at a hairdressing salon were smoking as they waited for the premises to open and must have been sharing some particularly juicy gossip because as I approached, the woman with the loudest voice stopped mid-sentence and just smiled at me, continuing her tale a few seconds later when she hoped I would be out of earshot.
I soon reached the allotments at West Melton and then found the footpath that goes along the old railway embankment. There were plenty of windfall apples along here; this is often the case alongside former railway lines as the apple cores were discarded by passengers and crew. I looked up at the trees if there might be one just ready for picking and easy to reach - I didn't spot one, but I didn't linger over the task either,
I had to walk along the road for a while before I picked up the TransPennine Trail and then the Elsecar Greenway, which is actually the towpath of the Elsecar Canal, a short spur leading off from the now drained and filled in Dearne and Dove Canal.
The heritage railway that's based at Elsecar Heritage Centre runs alongside, or quite near to, the canal towpath; one of the steam locomotives passed but I didn't have enough time to take my camera out of my pocket...and on its return journey I wasn't able to see it through the trees. I did eventually capture an image of it though as it set off again just as I was approaching the station.
A few minutes later I was at the heritage centre.
Even though it was only 11:15 I still had a cream tea in Brambles Tea Room and sat next to the radiator and imagined it was switched on, it was raining and quite cold outside. By the way, I wasn't the only person enjoying a scone served with fresh cream and jam.
I walked up to the Needle's Eye, one of the Wentworth Follies, walking through the woods and across fields.
I then walked down the lane to the hamlet of Street.
I could pick out two of the other follies as I walked along here, Keppel's Column and Hoober Stand. The road ends just beyond the houses and then continues as a bridleway.
The next place I reached was Hoober; I don't know how Mr and Mrs Hobson manage to persuade their hens to only lay eggs on certain days though.
I walked across more fields to the edge of Upper Haugh, fortunately not too muddy despite the rain, and then traipsed down the road to Nether Haugh, Greasbrough, and finally Rotherham town centre.
Despite the strike there were still some local trains running and I only had twenty minutes to wait for one back to Doncaster.
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