Sunday:
Well nobody mentioned breakfast… I’m all packed up ready to go… but thinking it might be a good idea to hang around a bit just in case. Then there are clanking sounds from back of the bar somewhere - okay, seems I’m early, and yes, a full English breakfast is included… I don’t get out much, see – oh yes, and it’s lamping it down out there… give me calories, give me LARD!
Water lashes against the windows in varying degrees of intensity as I fill my face with bacon, egg and sausage - full works, then less so as I cram in thickly spread buttered toast (no Flora today) with as much sweet stuff as I can slap on.
Thankfully I set off up the road in lighter conditions, but as I climb through the trees to the Doctor’s Gate Roman road the heavier stuff is at it again. Once in the open I’m making mental notes – top of list are thoughts of waterproofs... er, and taking less notice of five day forecasts - but the rain’s coming at me from behind now and doesn’t seem so bad somehow…
It brightens up no-end as I weave way up and down Woodlands Valley. I get overtaken by some mountain bikers that I catch up again on the climb to Bellhag. They think they might have spotted a buzzard, we scan the skies in a kind of subdued silence, (me wondering what a buzzard actually looks like – squarish wings, I think…) but, alas, we see nothing. They are returning to nearby Fairholmes and the car park, and speak of meeting a guy who spent the night on Kinder that woke to a white-out earlier on. I must have forgot to mention where I stayed... I hold the last gate open for them and they’re gone, and then it's the final descent of the valley to pass the former Peak Park Hostel of Hagg Fm -
| Journal entry 27/3/78 Day 4: (Started wet - rest of day windy - very strenuous day - arrived Hagg Fm. very tired) |
- end of original stage 4 - cross the A57 (again) and Derwent before climbing steeply at first, then more steadily onto Win Hill, where, beyond, I’ll drop down via Thornhill to the Garden Centre coffee shop… yummy, hmm, tasty tasty delights.
On the short stab onto Win Hill’s rocky summit a lady in front suddenly looks round. ‘Oh a fell runner!’ she proclaims, taken aback, and stands aside. ‘Er, not really,’ I reply, but thank her anyway… well they might just be getting low on coffee at the Garden Centre! C’mon, fair do’s...
‘tis indeed like flying coming of the hill… last time it was so hot here - hottest day of the year it turned out. I remembered begging water from a kind lady rambler, as I was fast becoming a spent force.
And last time I arrived here they’d just put the barrier across. “We’re closed!” said the woman, apron an’ all, rather crossly I thought too. I’d come down quick as you like, but, with a keen familiarity, missed the Garden Centre café by minutes. Desperate, I’d detoured to the garage in Bamford up the road.
Sitting alone in the corner I mull over the failed attempt as I sip my coffee and wonder at my chances this time. With just 3 miles to Hathersage (end of original stage 5) and lunch, this is something of a luxury… well, who cares? It seems reasonable to assume that I can at least get farther than last time… in fact I marvelled at how fit I felt – buoyed, no doubt, by the previous night’s Serpentine comforts!
The path beside the Derwent is, as always, muddy, but today it passes quickly. I stand for a while when I reach the spot where, feeling very much 'out of sorts' from the afternoon's heat, I’d peeled back my socks to reveal the forefoot blisters that had been the final undoing of the last attempt.
| Journal entry 28/3/78 Day 5: (Very windy on Win Hill - worse than yesterday - got blown over! - wet again too and muddy (again) by river...) |
The Pool Café in Hathersage is still thriving, or so it would appear! Trouble is, it takes time to get the calories on board. Are they chasing chickens out back, I wonder? A big plate of scrambled eggs would be good I'd thought, as it wouldn’t lie too heavy. I knew I'd be tempted to open up the pace a bit down the Edges - Stanage, Burbage, Froggat, Curbar, Baslow and below Gardom’s and… well anyway, it’s all downhill, if only psychologically at any rate, to my mates place. Thought occurs though: if arrangements have been just a bit too loose I might have to bivvy under his front window!
A game of cricket is under way as I head up the lane toward the church – nothing seems more ‘English’ than a game of cricket – couldn’t play it mind – but to stand and watch for a while conjures up a little wayside magic.
After the church - where Little John is reputed to be buried - the path cuts across fields in the direction of North Lees Hall and Stanage Edge. A short diversion, (left at the road), would make taking the path beside the Hall a possibility, but the original route turns right and keeps to the road upward to the foot of the edge.
Watch out! climber’s about… it’s well good underfoot – sandy, largely well drained: miles of good track… any trail runner’s dream.
"Well, look ya here…” - an Ice cream van at the top of Burbage Brook. The wind rocks the van and the youth is not overly impressed with my jesting about ice cream sales on such a day. But the novelty is a good ‘un - not easy trotting along with a ‘99’ though, ‘tell thi.’
Once across the Sheffield to Castleton road the route enters the grounds of Longshaw Lodge, where many walkers seem to be out taking the air.
It would have been so easy to take a little afternoon refreshment in the Grouse at the next road crossing… but the next edge – Froggat, is close and I’ve been flying… too much so perhaps, because a few hundred yards onto the edge, all of a sudden… I’m down. The 'wall'? Hmm? Not that down - maybe scrambled egg’s just not got the pedal power… or maybe too much sugar in that ice cream. It feels like missing calories though – reserves all gone. I take on some water – too little, too late? Why didn’t I take more at lunchtime? I chew some nougat but it cloys… I’ve also been increasingly aware of a dull ache in my right foot so it’s a quick ‘shoes off’ time – big toe joint’s a bit red looking. My feet have swelled and maybe rubbing the top of my shoe…
I’m up and off again now though. Take it steady - hey, when was I not? Will I collapse on my mate’s doorstep I wonder...? more to the point, will I make it to his doorstep?! The map tells me I’ve 9 miles to Rowsley and that I’ve covered 68 miles of the route… time to push on.
It’s another runner… he’s taking pictures of a route called the Clover (I can't find reference to it anywhere) - I ask if he's with Dark Peak. He says not, rather emphatically too - and pulls away up the edge. I try to keep up but my legs just refuse to go with any gusto. By the time we get to Curbar Gap he’s well ahead. I'm left hoping my pacer tomorrow doesn't put me through it!
At the Eagle Stone a solitary young Aberdeen Angus refuses to co-operate. I offer him a contract and a share of any royalties, but he's having none of it. South from Wellinton’s monument is a fine view overlooking Chatsworth and the Derwent Valley.
Careful foot placement is called for between the rocks and tree roots down to the road crossing, then it’s pretty straightforward under Gardom’s Edge and I try to identify the Three Men but realise they are probably higher up the edge. To the left here is the Eric Byne camp site and the Robin Hood pub - a fitting end to a good day (stage6) if following the original schedule.
| Journal entry: 29/3/78 Day 6:(Windy on Stanage but rest of day much better - steady day - tired legs now...) |
I continue ahead, over the road and onto the concessionary footpath down past the sawmill (non-existent when the route was devised) to enter the delightful Chatsworth Park and the three quarter way point. It now seems that a successful outcome may become a possibility, though through the park grassland progress seems awfully slow.
Preparations for the Horse Trials are under way as I make a bee-line for the bridge where I manage to eek a little more power from the camera batteries by tucking them into my groin for a while. Visitors to the house returning after a pleasant day in the country must have wondered about that pervert in tights on the bridge…
Had I studied the map more carefully I would have emerged at the little swing gate beside the bridge, instead I kept to the right of the ruined mill and came up by the cattle grid. However, since reading Mike Cudahy’s accounts of his Colne-Rowsley runs, a bonus was to be found in passing the Duke's horse trough (from which Mike drank copiously with just over 2 miles to go) I decide against a swig as a Garden Centre sits a little higher up the bank these days!
When backpacking the route with heavy packs in 1978, we took the road from Beeley down to Rowsley. But, this time, keeping to the original route directions, I cut up into the village to find the footpath that follows a few fields to a wood before returning to the road nearer to Rowsley. Fortunately it wasn’t overgrown and quite easy to find and soon I was crossing the road and looking out for the footpath down to the allotments at Rowsley and the day’s destination.
Charles opens the door as I nearly fall through - "Right," he says, "I'm ready. Are we off!" I feel quite emotional at having got there, and couldn't quite remember the arrangments. "Oh," I reply a little dazed, "er, okay..."
He laughs aloud and swings the door back. "Come in," he says, and shouts indoors: "he's made it!"
Yeah, I made it! I think to myself - 21 miles to go.
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