Garlic & Orchids, cathedrals and monks.

Again, the weather man gets it wrong! Today was supposed to be white cloud & overcast all day, with maybe some showers later. We woke to a glorious, sunny summer morning! Although we started a little late, the beginning of the walk was only about 15 minutes drive from home. We parked up in a small lay-by next to Cressbrook mill. This walk is just on ten miles, with about 2,000 feet of ascent.

We were glad of the tree cover as we plodded uphill towards Ravens dale. Small patches of garlic wafted their scent to us as we walked. Then there was more...... and more..... the air now VERY heavy with the smell, which we love. It was intermingled with the many flowers now at their best, plus the hawthorn blossom. This walk was chosen deliberately to see the garlic and hopefully later on, the wild orchids which flourish in Cressbrook dale.

You can use the young leaves of wild garlic (Ramson) to cook.

Fish is particularly good when wrapped in the leaves and steamed.

The towering face of Ravenstor.

A monolith that looks down on the dale, and a favourite with climbers. Sue & I have stood on the top, and the view is awesome.

Ravenstor holiday cottages.

A welcome tap to fill water bottles, complete with old stone trough for your dog to slake his thirst too.

More and more garlic as we head towards Cressbrook dale. Again, VERY sunny above, so the shade of the trees was comfortable to walk in.

 You can join me, walking through masses of wild garlic in Cressbrook dale, click here; http://youtu.be/8KZBZyBTPh4

After the lower part of the dale, things open up to the expanse of sky and greenery that is Cressbrook dale. Buttercups now replaced the garlic as the dominant species.

Cressbrook dale, with Tansley dale just visible on the left.

Hard to capture, small, brown butterflies were dancing so fast.

I caught this pair doing a bit of courting!

Lots of little Bird's foot trefoil flowers here too, standing their ground with the buttercups and orchids.

AND ME, ME – DON’T FORGET ME – LITTLE SPEEDWELL.........

But here’s the star of the show, and the reason we came – carpets of orchids.

My favourite, iconic shot – a proud orchid with peter Stone in the background.

Peter stone lies unseen by SO many people, and yet, it’s just a five minute easy walk from a main road!

Here, you can see it’s JUST around the corner, yet SO close to the road.

This map is scale 1:25,000,

At the end of Cressbrook dale, we turned left and climbed steeply in the hot sunshine to the small village of Litton. We came across two friends who were eating outside the village pub. With the quiet, the village green, and the warm sun, is was the perfect place to be. We chatted for a while, and then headed on to our next goal (and our own lunch stop) – Tideswell, and the ‘Cathedral of the peak’, as it’s church is known.

We passed some stunning wild flower meadows.

Litton, through the buttercups, with Litton edge (left).

It makes you just want to get down amongst them, and roll around!

Sue and I LOVE lane-walking at this time of the year. I can’t describe the scent of all this flora – amazing!

Set in a dip, Tideswell ‘surprises’ you, as it only comes into view when you're literally on top of it.

The famous church tower is first to peep over at you.

The breath-taking interior.

 After a pleasant lunch on a bench in Tideswell, watching the world go by and eating a salad with a beautiful fresh loaf from the local bakers, we set off into the fields, making for the Limestone way.

The fields have now been stripped of their grass for silage,and were being re-fertilised.

It’s one thing Sue & I don’t agree on – she loves the smell, and I HATE it :-)

Another superb, summer lane for us to walk down. The Limestone way takes the high ground, but we followed this quiet road to drop to the top of Monks dale, part of the Derbyshire national nature reserve.

You can read about the project here; http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/designations/nnr/1006046.aspx

Monks dale. NOT an easy dale to negotiate, as it’s undulating damp rocks can be treacherous. You have to look where you're going at all times. Always good to stop and take in the surroundings though.

This has to be one of the ‘mossiest’ walls I've ever seen. The ubiquitous garlic looks well beneath it too.

And, on fallen trees, amazing little plants and fungi.

This clump of clover caught my eye.

We walked to the end of the dale, then climbed up and over towards Millers dale.

We crossed the stream to leave Monks dale by a new bridge, but could see evidence of the old, now defunct, way of crossing. A meandering set of stepping stones.

Millers dale. A mill has been recorded here as far back as the Domesday book in 1086, now THAT’S history!

They ground grain for flour, and also animal feed. This mill, and another close by, was run by one of two brothers. After they died these, and many other, mills ran into disrepair, due to the new steam-powered mills coming online.

We stood on the lovely bridge that crosses the river Wye in Millers dale. The sense of peace and tranquillity here is tangible. No words are needed, it just gets into your soul.

After a while, we began the steep climb up to the Monsal trail. We walked along it until we reached the first tunnel. Instead of going into it, we left the trail and climbed onto the ‘alpine path’, as it’s known locally. This is one of our favourites, and gives a commanding view over the lower dales. This is a very green and verdant Water cum Jolly dale.

The path curves around that lump ahead. Not for the faint-hearted, if you stumbled and fell, you could end up in the river, far below!

One of the rose family, I think – so simple, and yet so incredibly beautiful.

Cressbrook hall above water cum jolly dale.

The car was down in the bottom of this valley, so a quick drop down, over the bridge, and we were back at the start again.

You can take a walk across the mill race bridge in Water cum Jolly dale with me, click here; http://youtu.be/cOHtrGjVmGI

Monsal snow walk

Although we'd had a walk the previous day, this was Tuesday, our official day off, so we geared up for another, longer snowy walk, this time around Monsal dale, Water cum Jolly dale, and Tideswell dale.

We parked up at Monsal head, and cast our eyes over this very wintry scene, looking up to Longstone moors. We can see these moors from our cottage, and it often acts as a weather forecaster to us.

I've just looked out of the window as I write this, and it’s still a blanket of white.

Oh no - the ice cream man has gone home!

This shot is ALWAYS a good one, the iconic view of the Monsal viaduct.

Not for the faint-hearted, the snowy and slippery path down to the bottom of the dale. Actually, as the snow wasn't frozen, but still a little powdery, it wasn't too bad.

Sue has a breather before continuing down.

Monsal dale, with a white skirt and a fair sky. The cold, blue river cuts through the white picture.

We dropped down onto the Monsal trail and viaduct, walked to the tunnel and, just as we were about to drop into Water cum Jolly dale, a woman told us there were some really good icicles in the tunnel. 

Cressbrook mill looked very good today.

This mill gets FAR more sunshine than its neighbour, Litton mill. There, they don't see the direct sun for three months of the year.

Now then, these icicles. Of course, we HAD to investigate, and I’m glad we did. It was incredible. Not just normal icicles, but ones that looked like curtains. 

That's one BIG icicle, Susie!

Looking back to the entrance with the initial icicle field.

This is what I mean by 'curtain icicle'.

We left the tunnel and stepped back into the bright sunshine. We followed the steep path down to the mill race & weir in Water cum Jolly dale.

Teasels doing an impression of an ice cream (vanilla, of course).

The robins were out in force today, and this one posed nicely on a branch for me.

The huge bowl of Water cum Jolly dale weir pool. You can see where the water has carved curves in the limestone walls over the millenia.

Walking up Water cum Jolly.

A smaller weir higher up, with icicles above it.

Berry nice.

Litton mill, now, like Cressbrook, private apartments.

Crab apples with crowns.

This looked amazing! I've never seen anything like this before. 

Even this plant which was up the wall vertically had an icy dressing. Click on it to see a larger picture.

We left the confines of the mill, walked up the dale a little before turning right up Tideswell dale.

A cold perch for this robin.

We saw more robins too, this one was in a hurry, and I JUST got the shot as he was leaving.

We sat in Tideswell dale in a surprisingly warm sun and had our lunch on that bench you can see on the right (after clearing the deep snow off it). It really could be described as ‘balmy’ sitting there.

We didn't cool off at all. It was really quiet and serene, just what we needed.

You can see a video of this peaceful scene here; PEACEFUL

It was hard to tell these were bracket fungi, they too had a topping of snow.

Deep snow all around.

Even the mineworkings were softened into pleasing mounds by the snow.

This avenue leads out of Tideswell dale to the road. We stayed in the fields, and headed for Litton but turned into the fields just before the village.

Now we were seeing some serious drifting on the exposed ground around us.

When I say deep, I mean DEEP!!

A panorama in the fields above Litton.

Click on it for full effect.

The scene from here onwards was very wintery and bleak-looking. This tree stood stark against the almost sepia backdrop.

Some of the stiles were made easier by this new 'snow step'.

A tractor had left beautiful imprints in the deep snow.

You can see a short video HERE

We made our way over the top of Cressbrook dale, with only one other set of footprints to guide us. The going was hard, as the path was at 45 degrees, so there was a lot of slipping and sliding going on. We ended up in Cressbrook village, and we then made our way back up to Monsal Head, with the dying rays of daylight picking out the viaduct.