Goyt valley and Taxal edge.

This walk was done on 30 June 2011
Distance: 9.86 Miles
Time 3.35 hours
Weather: Wet start but sunny at end.


View Goyt valley &Taxel edge in a larger map. Walked in a anti clockwise direction.


Very wet start as I parked up by Errwood Reservoir Looking like it needed the rain.

I then headed along Fernilee Reservoir I dont know why there is one directly below the other
 I got a couple of interesting pic's.

I should be gasping for breath here

Once past the dam I had hoped to walk down the river Goyt but the path was higher up the bank and the river was hid by a think wood, bit of a disappointing.
I then left the valley and headed up to Taxal Moor.

 
This a small moor which lead onto Taxal Edge

This rocky ridge formation ( Syncline ) is common with the Roaches hence it's familiar look. The climbers enjoy it.
This path lead to Pym chair and along Cats Tor which was made up of laid stone, I could understand why as even a few of these rocked and floated on the peat.

 

I made my way along the path until I got to Shining Tor and had a view over to the Cat and Fiddle. Just brushing against  parts of last weeks walk.

I then dropped down towards Errwood Reservoir and bless it the sun came out.

This route took me down by Errwood hall so I deceided to have wander around it.

 I soon know I was within the grounds as the Rhododendron started to appear

I don't know why these were so popular on gentry land

As I walked up the old path the stream disappeared under the road in an abrupt manner so the camera came out again.

Looking straight down

Craftsmanship

I then found the hall, which was knocked down for the stone to be used on the reservoir treatment plant. Shame.

I think this is the arch stone off the doorway.

Having read up on the hall when I got back I missed the graveyard and the shrine, next time.
Walking pass the hall up the stream which is a good drop down to the bed.

does not do it justice.

 It was just a short but pleasant walk to the car.

I enjoyed today, the Hall was a good added bonus
There was a lot of people about today, I saw more people today then for all the other walks combined, it must be a popular area and I can understand why, great scenery and not to difficult.

As you can see the track was recorded so that means that the My Tracks App has been broken in the last update.
I did find the ViewRanger not as instinctive as the My Tracks but it did do it's job.
It does not integrate into google maps to well and it's own website needs some more work to allow the route to be exported with all the walk details.

Short walk over familar ground and a fail

Wed 29th 2011
I got a text around midday wanting to know if I was up for a short walk and as I was cleaning my bathroom tiles I of course said "yes"
So it was off up to the Roaches again this time with Jo for a wander across the tops nothing special,except the company.
What it gave me was a chance to test the updated my tracks app. I use to track my walks. It failed again did not even track across the ridge line.
So when I got home I hit the search engine and decided to give Viewranger ago.
See the next post as to if it worked or whether it is my phone that is the problem.

This is bit of a short post so I'll add a bit humour

Shining Tor to Flash Village

This walk was done on 17 June 2011
Distance: 15.3 very approx.
Time 5.15 hours
Weather: Overcast


View 17-06-2011 Shining Tor to Flash village in a larger map
If you click on the link you can see more details. I walked it in an Clockwise direction.As you can see the recorded track is broken again, more on this later.

Today's rambling started at the Cat and Fiddle Inn the second highest pub in England. Heading generally north up to the summit of Shining Tor the highest point in Cheshire at 559 metres. The path up to the top looked like the navvies had spent to much time in the cat and fiddle.

Straight wall builders 1, Straight path builders 0 

  While walking back down to head towards Goyt's Moss the far hill side has been visited by alien crop circle makers who again had spent to much time in the Cat.

Don't know why or what

While walking down to Goytsclough Quarry I came across these signs.

And this evidence that the signs are pissing in the wind.

 
I dont mind mind mountains bikes hitting the moors at all, I'm all for everyone getting out and enjoying it. I do understand why some authorities try to stop it. Individually a bike does cause more damage that a walker,  The damage created by walkers is because of the numbers. A foot step on a down hill bit of peat moor does little more than leave a light impression, but a bike breaking/skidding down the same path rips it up, see picture.
As I said I have nothing again MB's but I do understand that if/when there are as many riders as walkers on some of these paths it will need management.
While walking down I could see Errwood reservoir which supplies Stockport of it's drinking water. If your in Stockport you had best start saving the bath water.

Once down through the small wood I had a wander around Goytsclough Quarry.

Interesting for 2 minutes sort of

The directions I was following for this part of the walk said to cross the bridge, It was a vague guide at best. I found this lovely looking aged bridge and crossed over. By the looks of it, it is a Packhorse bridge

 

 I had to head up the valley but the path was non existent which I found a bit off as the walk had been along good paths so far. After a few hundred metres up the stream bed I came across this bridge which must have been the one I was suppose to cross as the paths were good to it.

However I still preferred my old built bridge over this more modern metal and wood effort.

I climbed out of the valley and up onto Axe Edge moor where I stopped to have a bite to eat. I had a visitor for my meal.

As you can see I'm no Steve Young.

Once across Axe edge moor I broke from the guide I was semi following as I wanted to head to Flash Village Which is the highest village in Britain. I had a good look around, I did visit the church with some very old headstones in it. What I found odd was that even in the early 1700's people were living till 60+ and one was 92. There were some a good number of children as well. I would imagine that it would be well to do families that could afford a big headstone so they would live longer than the underprivileged bog worker. I did not take any picture of the church as they were setting up for what I thought was a funeral with flowers all over the place and I thought that might be in poor taste. On the way out I saw a sign for the flash flower festival so I could have. I also did not take a picture of the Wesleyan chapel built in the 1700's However I did take a picture of this

I now headed for Three shire head. On my way there I passed

I was looking forward to seeing them but I saw nothing until I climbed out of the valley and stopped for another lunch break. Looking back across the valley I saw them

And yes they do look like sheep from this distance but if they were sheep they were bloody big sheep.

I got up to Three Shire Head I got a little wet while wandering around taking my pictures as it was the only substantial rain all day.

 

In reviewing these photos I now realise I did not get both bridges fully in any picture. Photo fail number two of the day.
From here it was a walk out up to Danebower Hollow. On the way up I came across a lone chimney not doing much at all

I checked on the map and there was a quarry across the valley

I dont know if it was for some winding gear or if it was a airshaft for some underground mine but it took a bit off effort to build  so it must have served a use once.
Crossing over Whetstone Ridge I spied The Cat & Fiddle Inn. And breathed the sign of relief I always do when I see my car is still where I left it.

Needless to say I had built up a thirst so I had to partake in a small one.

Todays walk was a good one,the weather was clouded up all day and I'm suprised of some of the colours in the picture as all I remember is overcast grey.
I had planned to do this while walking along Ramshaw rocks earlier in the week as I had not been to Flash for years.I think I have now covered most of this area this week.

Now into Rant mode
I use My tracks App. on my phone to record the walk, which worked fine until it updated last week. Now as you can see from today's and from Mondays walk it's missing parts of the walk. I know it's not a lost GPS signal because it's happened on top of some bare arsed moors.
When I got home I was going to look up another app or to see if I could roll this back to the previous version. However I noticed there was an update for this version which had a load of bug fixes in it.
So I updated and will give it one more chance.

Sorry if it's not much of a Rant todaybut I had a good day and really not upto a good one plus I got to save my strenght for the night shift I'm on tonight. I'll sleep well tomorrow.

Blog loading speed check

I was visiting a friend today and loaded this up to let her be amazed at my literary skills but it took a good while to load up, 30 seconds plus.

Can you please post in a comment to this post how long it took for you to load up. To two decimal places will be ok ;)  and if it was quick enough or to slow etc.

You can post a comment without having to log in. Can you use a name or location I can recognise so I try to fix it if it is bad.

I've used this site Stopwatch and for me it only takes 2 seconds which is OK for me.

Thanks


Nick

Ramshaw Rocks and The Roaches

This walk was done on 13 June 2011
Distance: 8.3 recorded but more like 9 miles Approx.
Time 4 hours
Weather: Overcast  with a little wind but warm.


View 13-06-2011 Ramshaw ridge,Roaches in a larger map
If you click on the link you can see more details. I walked it in an Anticlockwise direction.

I started out a little later in the day today, so I cut the journey time down and kept it closer to home. I have walked and Run the Roaches a few dozen times but I had not Ramshaw Ridge which runs very close and I had often thought of doing it so oday was the day.

As you can see from the route plot above my track did not start until I got to Dains mill for some reason, my best guest is a slow GPS lock so next time I must make sure it's running right. The app. I use is my tracks which updated itself recently and I just get the feeling that its not a good update and it's a little unstable(=crap).

So to fill in the gap,I parked at the bottom of Hen Cloud and I walked down the road a few yards then turned left onto a track which drops down to join the small stream where my GPS track starts. For such a short lived stream it was very full and lively. I came across a small mill I did not know was there.

 
The hillsides here are steep and you could hide a Zeppelin in the valley here(more on this in a minute). I wandered around Dains mill and found it to be recently renovated which struck me as odd as it was not open or showed any life. To put all that money into it in a hidden location was odd. It made more sense once I got home and googled it, see link above.
 

looks fully functional

From here I headed up the valley knowing that a right turn was needed. I made my move up a steep slope only to get my bearing at the top to find out I had been a bit premature by 300metres (see map)

This was fine except for the fact that the field contained longhorn cattle with calf's, which made me a little weary off worrying them and I gave them a wide berth. Forgot to take picture as well. 
The route then took me down a small but well kept track and dumped me straight into a well kept farm garden, I expected at any  moment to be met by the owner and their shotgun.When I got back I reviewed why I had deviated it does appear that the track is through the garden. After this is was a sort climb up to the ridge

Once I got onto the Ramshaw Rocks. I spied a large rock with a photo opportunity from the top so I took it.

looking towards Leek

Towards Buxton

Further along the ridge

I now know why they are not as popular for walkers, TBH it's a boring walk, they sit with higher hills around them, because of the formation of the rocks the path is below the ridge line so not a lot to see.
I can imagine that for rock climbers and bouldering it's a great place to go.
The evidence of the recent  moor fire is still strong in the nostrils even after the rains we recently had but it was good to see green growth poking though.

Leaving the ridge line I then dropped down to the Black brook nature reserve Now you may call me an old cynic but reserve area looked no different then anywhere else around but I'm sure there is a very good reason this area was picked. 

The reserve, excluding the conifer plantation, lies almost entirely within the Leek Moors Site of Special Scientific Interest. The whole SSSI covers an area of 9000 acres. Most of the reserve is also notified within a Special Conservation Area (SAC) and Special Protection Area (SPA). These designations highlight the European importance of the area for moorland vegetation and associated birds

Large tracts of land like this are essential for wildlife if we are to sustain viable populations of key moorland species and allow species space to move and adapt in the face of current pressures including loss of habitat, climate change and greater land use pressures. Many of our upland birds require large open spaces and this part of the Leek Moors is becoming a hot-spot for species like snipe, which are nationally declining, and lapwing.

 Reading the sign as I entered the area, it stated it's "upland habitat restoration project" while walking through this area it made me think about the hight of the area.
To me it's just somewhere I've always been for a bimble or run around and never considered it to be that high but the Trig point on the Roaches is only 95metres short of been a mountain and Flash village which is the highest in Britian is only a ridgeline and a mile away.
It gave my next few miles some interesting musing.
 I followed the stream down towards black brook which it joined

All together now - aarrrh

It is obvious why it is so called, must be all the peat water running into it. A short walk up out of the valley brought me to roach end. There is a converted farm here which I always though was a well to do place as it always had cars parked and was well kept. I have never passed on this side of the build ing before, I now saw a banner stating it was an Ofsed outstanding school. Ofcourse I looked it up when I got home ( I do this a lot ) and realised it was accually a school. What a great place to learn.

This just left a walk along the Roaches back to the car, I took so many photos off here I did try this time for some different views but they came out pretty much the same.

  I would call today a big sky day. The views went on and on, I think the lower cloud make it.

The colours in the rock came out nice

One thing I did notice was the water level in Tittesworth Reservoir was low already. The top end is all mud where it should be full of water.

 Even though Ramshaw ridge was a disappointment I enjoyed the walk, the rains over the last few days had wet it all up which is what it needed. Across the Roaches was like an old friend again. The walk gave me an idea as to the next walk. You will just have to wait in anticipation as to what next weeks exciting episode will bring