Lathkill Dale Walk

Members: Lorna Marsland, Linda Crossley, Anne Sanderson, Alan (Liverpool) Jones, Peter Walker, Frank and Margaret Williams, Roger Dyke, Iain McCallum, Brian Taylor.

Guests: Kamnek*.

 

I picked up Kamnek at Macclesfield railway station; driving on the Cat and Fiddle road from Macclesfield to Lathkill Dale encountered fog, ice and frozen slush so on arrival at meeting place car park was pleasantly surprised to find a good turnout of 9 hardy members getting ready for the off!

The walk did not contain any real mountaineering flavour but nevertheless proved to be very scenically varied. The first part of the walk was across open fields carefully avoiding cow pats and some frisky horses. The middle section of the walk consisted of the descent down Lathkill Dale and then it was along the river Bradford as far as Youlgreave. The majority of the group stopped for a drink at the inn in Youlgreave, the remainder skipped the pub stop and made their way back to their cars via my recommended route.

The final section of the walk took us further up the river Bradford and then a steep ascent through woodland took us on to open fields before returning to the cars. During the walk we had been fairly lucky with the weather only encountering the odd heavy shower but on leaving the car park to go home the heavens opened.

 

* Kamnek was a keen guest who had only come over to the UK from Mumbai in India six weeks previously. He was only used to tropical conditions and had never seen snow fall. Given the mixed weather and underfoot conditions my pre meet advice to him not to turn up in shorts and trainers proved to be sound advice!

Brian Taylor