Bradford Dale and Lathkill Dale ...

I walked along beside the river from Alport passing Rheinstor Rock ...

The sun shone on a cool spring day ...



I reached the delightful packhorse bridge as I drew near to Youlgreave ...

Someone who had passed this way before had lost or mislaid a camera ...



After crossing the road in Bradford [part of Youlgreave] I continue upstream with the river now beside me on the left ...




  ... and crossed the old clapper bridge ...



The cottages and gardens of Bankside rise in an unplanned fashion above the river ...



I turned around further along the dale to take in the path behind me, there was no one around ...



The river can be very still ...



As I walked up the dale I wondered how many other dales have a manhole cover in the path ?



  Looking at these photographs I can almost feel the chill in the air ...

I swung right over the bridge towards the top of the dale ...

 

The path on the western side of the dale rises up to the car park in Yougreave ...



Once I had got to the top of the main road running down through Youlgreave I followed it to reach the old Co-operative store ... now a Youth Hostel ...

 

The Church of All Saints stands at a staggered crossroads in the village, rising high above the road ...



  Depending on where you look parts of this church date back to the 12th century ... or is it the 13th or 14th ?

Walking down Coalpit Lane towards the River Lathkill, a couple of nosey so and sos interrupted my reverie ...



Coalpit Bridge takes a bridleway across the river before climbing steeply up the side of the dale into the fields above ...



 A heavily used footpath took me back to Alport. There was a time, not so long ago, when this path was unfenced ...




This walk was followed on the 18th March 2011
 
Length of walk ~ 3.85 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 66.57 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 18th March 2011 ~ 594.62 miles
 
16 of 2011
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap

Beyond hills and by the Blue Waters ...

Back in December 2010 they hadn't tried to stop people feeding the wildfowl in Bakewell so there were plenty about ...

... including some real wild gooses ...



There's a footpath that runs beside the Wye, then across the park and eventually along the back of some houses ...



... between hedges and fences ...



... to bring you to the A6 on the southern side of Bakewell.

If you take Intake Lane on the opposite side of the main road you can soon leave the hustle and bustle of Bakewell behind you ...



Looking back we could see the mist lying in the valley.



We continued to quietly squelch our way along along the old track ...



At the end of the lane we walked south and then across the fields to the small pull-in above Conksbury Bridge. In the trees I found another one of these ... no, it's not a bird box ...




There's more about it here ~ http://www.alecfinlay.com/letterbox.html ~ and this was the circle poem on the rubber stamp inside the box ...




I wonder whether this project has fallen by the waywide [no pun intended] as the website seems incomplete. I would be happy to be told otherwise.

The options then were to either head up the dale or down the dale ... or you can go up the country lane ... 

We chose the north-western path into Lathkill Dale.



You can't blame us ...



Not quite sure what this couple were doing ...



It could have been a couple of Derby County footballers I used to watch. We reckoned that one or two of them could walk on water.

Now the incredible thing about Lathkill Dale, apart from the fact that my family originates from Over Haddon, the village above the dale, is the colour of the water ...


  
Well when I say the colour of the water I probably mean the clarity of the water. In the photo above and in the short video below I reckon it's probably five or six feet deep ...



Isn't it weird ?



I have learnt today that this section of the Lathkill is known as the Blue Waters and you can see why. I have never seen anything like this anywhere else in the UK.

Near Lathkill Lodge [the house in the bottom of the dale below Over Haddon] it looked as though the ground had been laid waste ...



This would have been where the river had been flowing until it went underground ~ it tends to come and go ...

We passed the Lodge ...



... noting the warning on the back gate ...



We climbed up the zigzag lane out of the dale into Over Haddon. To the north of the village we could see Bakewell church spire and the mist beyond ...



We even found some snow !



We reached Bakewell and wound our way towards the cemetery and started to lose height ...



Part way down this lane [Butts Road ?] a path cuts to the left and you're into a quiet little area in the middle of the town ...



... and a hundred yards later walking directly towards the church.



This walk had one more point of interest ~ an 18th century rainwater hopper complete with a date of 1743 and with a swift to boot. Delightful ...



The walk featured above was followed on the 31st December 2010

Length of walk ~ 5.7 miles *

Total mileage walked so far in 2010 ~ 395.3 miles

Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 30th December 2010 ~ 529.05 miles

83 of 2010

* distance calculated by OS Getamap.


So 2010 ended [before dark] with me having walked just under 400 miles at an average of just over 4.75 miles a walk. Hardly what I used to do ...

What will 2011 bring ?