Kinder Scout

I've finished the Little Rivers but I'm not happy with the neckline so I'll have to think of changing it a bit. At some point. Then I'll post a photo.
In the meantime summer has arrived finally, so I'll be out of the house for a while.

Yesterday decided to take our first real trip of this year, on the Kinder Scout mountain, in the Peak District. I'm not sure if it can be considered mountain at 700 m ? Anyway. Sunny day but extremely windy.

Did a bit of research in google then decided to start in Hayfield, which is not very far from where we live anyway.

The standard walk through William Clough starts from the Bowden Bridge car park. A word of advice. Make sure you are in the right car park and not in the village car park, otherwise you will have to walk another two extra miles - like we did. And that was because I live with a native and British people never ask anyone for directions, as it's considered cheating.

The Bowden CarPark is quite famous, as it was the starting point of the Mass Tresspass in 1932 - when a large group of ramblers decided to force the law for the right to roam on Britain's mountains and moorlands.

Five of them have been arrested but in the end the result was that the law was changed, the land was opened to the public and Peak District became the first National Park in Britain. This is the plaque on the car park stone wall, in their honour.

Have you paid and displayed?

Right, the walk starts with an easy part towards the Kinder Reservoir.

...then another half an hour along the reservoir till the bottom of William Clough. At the wooden bridge, carry on left ( do not cross the bridge). The other road, crossing the bridge, goes up on Kinder Scout as well - it was our 'escape' route down.

From here, the real climbing starts soon and it's really a bit difficult but definitely rewarding, as the scenery only gets better and better.

Looking back towards the reservoir and cursing the vicious cold wind, which delays us to no end.

Just look at the erosion that is affecting these moors. The direct effect is the disappearing of the peat bogs - the peat bogs are storing ten times more carbon than a normal leaf forest and that's why the local authorities decided to run programs to restore it as much as possible.

At the crossroad on top, turn right and start climbing again.

And this will be the view looking down. No, we're not on the moon.

The first road to the left is the one which we just came from and the one across the hill in front is the famous Pennine Way. We'll carry on on the Pennine Way, up on the plateau.

The Seal Stone.

At this point we had a choice of going further or taking an escape route down. The wind won the fight and we took the path down.

And here is the Mermaid Pool and the Kinder Downfall which is quite spectacular when it rains and the river goes down in a waterfall. Some other time maybe.

Two hours later we got home safe (and just in time for the Eurovision contest ;)) but as it's easy to imagine, today we could hardly move from one sofa to another, and the walking around the house was only related to locate the bloody aspirins.