Farley Moor and more ...

On Farley Moor, above Matlock, you can wander through the Forestry Commission plantation ... and lose yourself, metaphorically I mean.

Park along the road from Sydnope Stand, pass through the gate and head straight away from the road ...

In this woodland, we found a Chinese Lantern that had run its course. There has been talk about these being fire starters ... it makes you wonder.



Keep straight on ...



 ... until you see a wall in the distance ahead of you ...





Benjamin stood at the wall as I explained that my father, his great grandfather, had reclaimed the fields beyond the wall from the surrounding moorland. Dad's hard work still fills me with awe as well as pride ...

It's not the best of land but Dad grew crops on this ground and kept sheep and cattle. I used to be able to wander these fields until he died and the farm was sold.

The only livestock we could see were some Highland Cattle ...



 We left the past behind us and headed into the future ...



 Farley Moor is still a working environment and we took due note of this sign ...



 A largish area had been cleared ... ready for replanting ? If so what with ? Broadleaf trees ?



 We were soon back into the trees. You can almost feel the warmth in these photos ...




  
We reached the boundary of the access land ...



 We looked across the ugly barbed wire fence towards Darley Dale where I live ...



 We had a coffee at this point sheltering under the trees rather than in the glare of the sun. We headed back towards the start though the path was vague ...
 
   

Once we'd found the path it was plain sailing all the way back ...





  This walk was followed on the 23rd April 2011
 
Length of stroll ~ 1.93 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 131.05 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 23rd April 2011 ~ 659.10 miles

  29 of 2011 [which means in 2011 I was averaging just over 4.5 miles a walk.]
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap 

Back to Whitesprings ...

Just a few weeks after I'd first visited Whitesprings I went back there with my grandson. There's nothing that is quite so exciting for an eleven year old as an old ruin ... and I'm talking about the old farmhouse, not me.

The first thing Benjamin had to do was squeeze through the squeezer stile ...

Benjamin's a bit of a photographer like me ...



 After following the clear cut paths/trails we tackled some rougher stuff which brought us to a gate leading onto the moorland known as Big Bumper Piece ...

 

We didn't go onto the moorland though. We stayed in the woodland and visited the pond where I'd seen the frogspawn ...



 Benjamin negotiated a dangerous woodland torrent ...



 Then we reached Whitesprings ...







On the way back, on this short walk, we passed a redundant old squeezer stile ...



We finished at the entrance to Whitesprings Plantation. As you can see Benjamin is rather shy ... like me ...



 This walk was followed on the 27th March 2011 [and I have also added in the 14 mile walk I undertook on the 25th March 2011]
 
Length of walk ~ 1.77 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 90.49 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 21st March 2011 ~ 618.54 miles
 
  20 of 2011 [which means in 2011 I was averaging just 4.52 miles a walk. This from the man who had once walked 56 miles in 24 hours ...]
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap