The Peak District Hills :: Number One

Hello lovelies,

I'm interrupting my holiday posts today as I want to chat about walking...I do hope you don't mind.

Many of you will know it's a major hobby of mine these days. 

I love my weekly outings with my walking group ( though I have missed quiet a few of these in the school holidays) and this is the second year running that I've challenged myself to do the Walk 1000 miles challenge

Over the summer I've also challenged myself to walk everyday ( that's outdoor miles only) and it's been good fun. I have missed a few days, but really hardly any at all. 

Reading about walking you come across lots of talk about hill "bagging." A strange sort of term, but I suppose it just means that once you have walked up a certain hill it's in the bag.

In Scotland all hills over 3000 feet are called Munros and lots of serious walkers challenge themselves to climb all 282. Munro bagging is a big thing ( How do they find the time!) 

In the Lade District there are lots of different ways of classifying the peaks. For example there are 214 Wainwrights  

Getting into walking later in life I'm ashamed to say I have walked Zero Munros and Zero Wainwrights. And these places are such a long way from where I live I can't imagine being able to change that statistic very soon. And any way I find really high peaks quiet intimidating. I've been to the top of Snowdon (on a train) and it was scary.

But you lovelies know how much I love a hill. So I decided to find some hills that I can "Bag". 

The more modest hills of the Peak District seemed to fit the bill.

  

Close enough to home to travel to in a day ( well some of them) and hopefully not too frightening.

I found a great list HERE of the 27 highest peaks in the Peak District ( those over 1000 feet) .
Twenty Seven...yay. That sounds doable. Looking at the list I have walked Zero of these too.

Time to change that. At the bottom of the list ( at 1,053 feet) is Stanton Moor...ohhh a Moor, in August ( heather time) PERFECT!

And so today we found ourselves parking in pretty village of Birchover near Matlock and heading out to do THIS walk I found online.

The area has many interesting natural rock formations ( with man made climbing holes) ...

and after a steady climb we got to the very un-frightening and flat summit.

How I loved the mass of purple......

The Cork Stone........

As well as the natural rock formations there is evidence of quarrying in times past.......

Far from seeming like scars these areas were so pretty.....

Looking across the heather and Gorse......

 more deep Quarry holes.......

and bees on Heather......

Man made cliffs I presume.......

all swathed in purple.....

There were well worn paths across the moors that eventually led down into pretty Silver Birch Woodland........

I was looking forward to seeing the Bronze age stone circle in this area. It looked so pretty in pictures I had seen. As we approached I could see it was very busy though. Can you see it at the top of this image?........

 There was a group who were doing Yoga I think...fair enough. But they had draped their coats over the stones and were being watched by larger drinking campers. Quiet odd!.......

We didn't hang around.

 I loved the view across the valley here.......

If you click on this picture you should be able to read the information about the moor and see how the stone circle used to look........

Another plant, along with the Heather, I was happy to see were the bilberry bushes. They are tiny fruits but remind me of many happy childhood hours spent gathering  these for jam making........

At the tower we stopped for a drink and a small snack but I wished I had brought more food as it was lunchtime.......

Soon we were off again, peeping through the trees.........

negotiating the paths........

Staring at the view.......

We descended  from the moor and came upon a busy campsite......

It had so much going on. Archery lessons and a climbing wall were both busy with children. And happily there was a van selling hot dogs for the hungry boys, phew.......

Loved their Hydrangeas too......

Back in Birchover the sun was shining and the stone cottages looked extra pretty.....

 Thank you Stanton moor for being so beautiful and easy to "bag". Now, I wonder which hill will be next?
  I'm not setting myself any time limit on this challenge. It's mainly a way to discover some new places and varying upland landscapes.

Jacquie x