Tuesday 9 April 2013

In the evening of the day ...

As we parked at the picnic site at Darley Bridge in the evening of the day, with blossom on the trees, a farmer worked in the field next to the car park ... 

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 From the bridge at Darley Bridge a footpath runs directly towards Oaker Hill ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...  

We followed the lanes through South Darley to walk up from the school towards the houses of St. Mary's View ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 Beyond the houses we turned around to see Oaker Hill from the other side.

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ... 

I write Oaker Hill ~ it is shown as Oker on the OS Map as is the village of Oker itself. I've always spelt it Oaker so I'm sticking to that.

We walked towards Wensley Dale with the sun slanting towards us and with the blackthorn in flower. This was early April ... and the blackthorn was in flower. This is not the case this year.

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...  

Wensley Dale [there's another one in Yorkshire apparently] looked delightful ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...  

We had turned back on ourselves by now and we could see a hot air balloon flying over Oker Oaker Hill with its trig point ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...  

Crossing the road in Wensley the path runs between gardens for a short way ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...  

The poplar trees planted by Enthovens were just coming into leaf, a lovely, lively green ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 We followed Oldfield Lane until just before Cowley Knoll we saw that Enthovens had cleared some of the scrub on the south side of the lane ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 ... and they didn't want anyone going on the land ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 We turned northward now towards Warren Carr following the old miners' path ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 The steps were slippery so we walked beside them ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 Judging by the amount of wear and tear the steps have been well used ... more so in the past than now probably.

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 From Warren Carr we followed the lane back towards Darley Bridge passing the Enthoven works on our right. On our left we noticed this sign ...

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 We don't think this stopped some of the local kids using those bumps on their mountain bikes ...

As we walked through Darley Bridge I glanced at this date stone on one of the cottages [as I always do] ....

Darley Bridge and Wensley & Snitterton ...

 The walk was over but let me finish with this photo taken earlier in the day when I went to Peak Village with my daughter and grandson. It shows a pair of Mandarin Ducks that were wandering around the car park with a large flock of mallards ...

A pair of Mandarin Ducks ...

 This walk was followed on the 8th April 2011
 
Length of walk ~ 3.94 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 101.43 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 8th April 2011 ~ 629.48 miles

  23 of 2011 [which means in 2011 I was averaging just 4.41 miles a walk.]
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap

8 comments:

  1. A pleasantly verdant walk, Charlie....nice to see things in bloom. I wonder when it's going to happen this year. We are nearing halfway through April and still barely a bloom or blossom in sight!! Great shot of the Mandarin ducks, I am still waiting to get a shot of them!!

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    1. We seem to have quite a lot of Mandarin Ducks Mitch ~ there were about twenty of themn in one flock recently in a field near the river. I rather assume everything will start to bloom very quickly !

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  2. A lovely evening walk again,makes you long for similar weather I'd forgotten how nice the evenings could be.Love the stone on the cottage,we have friend in Derbyshire who has the name of a knife grinder on her house.Ann

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    1. Yes, it was a lovely evening walk Ann ... and the stone on the cottage is one of my favourites. The name of a knife grinder sounds interesting though.

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  3. Mmm ... very pleasant, Charlie. And the ducks are wonderful.

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    1. I have a short video of the rest of the ducks gathering in the car park that day ... but didn't want to overdo it.

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  4. I can't wait to see some "green" here, spring doesn't seems to wake up yet.

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    1. This was a couple of years ago Diane ... we're waiting for our 'green' to come along too.

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