From Moscar To Within Two Miles Of Sheffield City Centre

I bought a couple of pairs of 'action trousers' [that's what it actually says on the labels] from a charity shop at Otley last week, for £2 a pair. I wore one pair today; they are very useful because of the number of pockets fastened by zips or velcro where I can stow the things I need ready at hand; pen and paper, loose change, compass, mobile phone...and chocolate.

Well...the trousers saw a bit of action today, a ten mile walk across the moors and down towards the city centre, getting wet and muddy as I was soaked during a heavy rain shower and then later sank up to my knees in a peat bog. I was happy with them though, they were quite comfortable, very practical and should  keep me warm during the winter.

I ended up missing my stop at the start of the walk. A woman got up out of her seat and pressed the buzzer; I assumed she was getting off at the same stop as me, Moscar Lodge, but she didn't; she wanted the next stop but had got up early, not knowing exactly where she was. So the bus went straight by my stop and I had to walk back along the road to the footpath. I wasn't really concentrating though, I was busy putting on my cagoule and distracted by her shapely legs and very short skirt; I blame the vitamin D tablets and my increasing testosterone levels for this.

It was drizzling as I approached the northern end of Stanage Edge only a few minutes after getting off the bus; visibility at times wasn't too bad though and I could see pretty well all the way to the horizon.

Along the top of Stanage Edge there's a series of numbers and channels cut into some of the rocks; these were made in the nineteenth century and are drinking troughs for grouse. Maybe as an hommage to one of my favourite films, Drowning By Numbers , I don't really know, but I decided to photograph every drinking trough I noticed, and did manage to shoot most of them along the section of the Edge that I walked along.

These two images were the best...to be honest, most of the photographs looked very similar, and not very interesting to look at.

By this time a heavy rain shower was overhead and so I took shelter in an old abandoned shepherd's shelter not too far away. Further on there's a renovated roofed shelter for the climbers on the Edge to use, I think the funding and the labour was provided by the British Mountaineering Council...I might well be wrong though. 

About fifteen minutes I saw a large group of hikers approaching across the moor and noticed that they didn't seem to be struggling too much. I assumed they were using a path and so set off in that direction. All the moors around here are Access Land and so we're free to wander as we please.

As I hoped the path led to Stanedge Pole. I'm using the official Ordnance Survey spelling, but as you'll see on the next two photographs, the recently added plaque at the base of the Pole spells it as 'Stanage Pole.'

I walked down the track towards Redmires Reservoirs but took a path that I've not used before across the moors to Fulwood Lane, where it was only a short walk to the head of the Porter Valley and an easy walk down to the end of the walk at Endcliffe Park. I stopped at Forge Dam Cafe for tea and a fruited scone and had a quick look inside The Shepherd Wheel, a restored working watermill, which hasn't been open on previous occasions when I've been here. There isn't much to look at.

There wasn't much opportunity today for me to soak up some sunshine and have my body produce some vitamin D, it was raining or cloudy most of the time. It probably wouldn't have made that much difference if had been sunny though because the nurse at the surgery reckons that my hair is too thick, so thick that no sunlight can reach my scalp, the area where most people produce their supply of vitamin D. She says that I'd need to strip down to just my shorts and have as much of my body exposed as possible. She might have been joking, I don't know. I will not be walking the streets of Doncaster in a semi-naked state though.

Lodge Moor, Redmires, and Whirlow Bridge

The number 51 bus was ten minutes late today: during the thirty minutes I was therefore waiting for it on Arundel Gate in Sheffield nearly a dozen number 120 buses going to Crystal Peaks must have passed me - they seem to be everywhere in the city centre.

I rode on the bus all the way to the terminus at Lodge Moor and then took the path which leads northwards and downhill into Fox Hagg Nature Reserve. After a few minutes I turned left and headed towards the Peak District. The path remained quite high and I had occasional glimpses of the Rivelin Dams through the dense silver birch woods, which had now nearly lost all their leaves.

I reached the furthest west point of the walk, and was briefly inside the boundary of the National Park for a few hundred yards, in an area that I know as Redmires; local Sheffield people might call it by another name though. I came up from the woods, crossed over Redmires Road and walked along Soughley Lane - I don't know which pronunciation is correct, a quick look at the Google search results didn't help.

I walked in an easterly direction along Brown Hills Lane, passed Bole Hill, where I got a decent photograph a bit further on, and then turned right at Bennett Grange.

I then turned left down a very narrow enclosed lane where I would have had a lot of trouble if a car had been needing to use the road at the same time, fortunately none did.

I arrived at a small group of buildings which isn't named on the Ordnance Survey map; there's a Methodist Church, an old school which is now an environmental study centre, a postbox, and a row of cottages a few yards away down the lane I took, identified as 'Workhouse Cottages' - I've not come across this term before; maybe this being a rural area, these cottages were used as the actual parish workhouse. I'm quite interested in workhouses; I was actually born in one: in truth it was a local hospital by that time...but if no-one asks for clarification, I don't volunteer the additional information.

I continued to walk across farmland pastures until I reached the Porter Valley at Clough Lane. There's a waterfall here with a drop of about eight foot, after the recent heavy rain it was looking quite impressive today. As usual my camera's automatic settings couldn't cope with the fast moving water, and I couldn't cope with the camera's manual settings.

It was quite sunny when I reached Forge Dam Cafe; there had been a couple of light showers earlier though. I went inside although there were people sitting outside, and it was pleasantly warm. I ordered a cooked breakfast; I thought it was a bit more expensive than the last time I visited a couple of years ago...in particular, £2 for a mug of tea is a bit much.

It was raining again when I left the cafe, quite a bit heavier this time and so I got a chance to wear my new trapper's hat...it was very warm; probably too warm for a mild day in October. The sun was shining again only a few minutes later though, and this was the best weather of the walk. I found the path that I was looking for that leads uphill towards Cottage Lane. I kept stopping to admire the spectacular views of the western suburbs of Sheffield behind me, spotlit by the sun and framed by a complete semi-circle rainbow: I took several dozen photographs, and here are the best two.

In my enthusiasm to get the best camera angles I lost the track of the path and had to climb over a wall to get onto another path, which fortunately would take me in approximately the same direction.

I stopped to eat some chocolate, sitting on a bench with a nice view towards the city centre. It was right next to horse chestnut tree and conkers were regularly falling about me; one landed on my left shoulder and another landed on my right boot; no damage though...no young boys excited by this easy bounty though either. Do children still play conkers now?

It was a short stretch of road, then a short cut across some fields and I was at the covered reservoir on Ringinglow Road. The path then went dead straight across grassy fields for a few hundred yards; I was quite high up here again and the visibility was good - the horizon was populated by power station cooling towers and several dozen wind turbines glinting in the sunlight - you'd think the cost of electricity in Yorkshire would be relatively cheap compared to other parts of the country; we certainly seem to generate a lot of it.

I had some steep steps to climb down to reach the bottom of the Limb Valley; by the time I'd reached the well-maintained bridleway going alongside the river it had started raining again. I had intended to finish today's walk at Abbeydale, but it was clear that I'd already had the best of the weather and I couldn't imagine that I'd be missing out on anything by not walking through Ecclesall Wood in the rain.

I got to the bus shelter on Ecclesall Road just as the number 272 bus from Castleton was arriving; it looked like that it had been delayed by a couple of cyclists that it couldn't get past.

Perfect timing for me!

Sheffield Railway Station To Fox House.

At the end of June I walked the Meanwood Valley Trail in Leeds with a friend who's from Leeds; so today it was time for me to reciprocate and show him what I consider to be the equivalent walk in Sheffield - from the railway station out to Fox House, via the Porter Valley. Unfortunately it doesn't have a name though as far as I know...of course it's a much nicer walk,  my friend even admitted that.

I had planned to walk through the old cemetery but got a bit confused with the roads; so we walked along Ecclesall Road until we reached the entrance to Endcliffe Park: from this point the walk really begins, with nice parkland, industrial heritage and then open fields...and finally, high moorland.

I was surprised at how quickly we reached Forge Dam Café; a lovely spot.

I was hoping to at least stay and have a cup of tea, but my friend was on a schedule: he needed to meet his wife at the Meadowhall shopping centre later. So, after stopping briefly to eat our sandwiches on a nearby seat we continued on.

Our next pause was at the toposcope at the head of Porter Clough. We could clearly identify the plumes from the six observable power stations in the Aire Valley and the Trent Valley...and the TV mast at Emley Moor. I estimate the visibility to have been over thirty miles; pretty good, but still a bit too hazy to see the Humber Bridge or Lincoln Cathedral, which are both included as landmarks. In the other direction, to the west; the only landmark identified is Chicago!

Beyond this point we entered the Peak District and were walking across open fields, quite muddy and boggy in places, and then across Houndkirk Moor...with a gentle descent down to Fox House.

The Meanwood Valley Trail, Leeds.

I just walked along this route with a friend from Leeds Adult Asperger's Group.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meanwood_Valley_Trail

The terrain and scenery is a bit like the wooded valleys that lead down into the urban areas of Sheffield, the Rivelin Valley, Porter Valley, Limb Valley and Loxley Valley ...naturally it's not as hilly though, but the countryside is fairly open towards Golden Acre Park at the end of the route.

One thing I did notice is that the footpaths are not as clearly marked as they are in Sheffield.