No cycling – but some walking

Not had much time for cycling over the last few days, but I have been walking, which was tremendous again, as I managed to coincide it with another lovely day – this time fittingly the spring equinox.

We had some friends staying over for the weekend, and so drove up to Derbyshire in two separate cars – a minor annoyance but one which gives you the opportunity to string together a non-circular walk.

We parked one car in Baslow, just north of Chatsworth, and drove my car south to Beeley, then walked the lovely track bordering open fields and woodland up onto the high moorland, over a track (pictured above) leading down to the woods above Chatsworth, before having dinner in the cafe and wandering through the park back to Beeley. It was a fantastic day.

Normally when we do the walk we cross over the beautiful bridge near Chatsworth House and follow the river south back to Beeley, which works great as well, but I fancied ending the walk at the old fashioned sweet shop in Baslow, because I am a greedy and puerile man.

This is a particularly pleasant walk for a number of reasons. Firstly, it has all its climbing at the beginning, so you get a good bracing start and then all pleasant easy wandering thereafter. Secondly it’s comprised of very distinct sections – the climb through fields and bordering forest, the high moorland section, then the wander through really varied woodland on tiny paths with mossy rocks and streams abounding, then the landscaped beauty of Chatsworth itself.

The moorland path was host to lots of skylarks – sometimes really noisily. I tried to record them for a friend, but it seems they were louder in my ears than they were in reality. Perhaps they were a mass auditory hallucination. But skylarks or not, the short clip serves to illustrate the pleasantness of the spring day up on the moor.