Look at this! A route so damned long, I cant show you a picture of the entire route without it going off the edge of the screen! 17 miles. 17 GODAMN MILES!
A bit of the route
So todays objective was to walk the first leg of the Dane Valley Way, which begins at Buxton and goes to the source of the River Dane and follows the river all the way through Congleton, to Middlewich, 40 miles away. Here for reference, is the Source of Dane (we didnt know at the time!).
So this was N's second attempt to kill me, with his perverse love of the Long Distance Path (and ducks). The start point was to be Buxton which involved two buses to get there....
Congleton Park on a fine spring morning.
Bus 1 - Cong - Macc
Bus 2 - Macc - Buxton
As it turned out, the buses werent the piss stinking waiting rooms for the homeless and geriatrics waiting to die, they were both very modern and clean, left right on time and everything. That blows my preconceptions out the water then! The bastard things do insist on stopping all the time though, grrrr.
Is this the start of the DVW? Nope!
Anyway, once alighted in Buxton, the start to the Dane Valley Way is what you might call 'inauspicious', i.e. nigh on fooking invisible! It starts somewhere in the Pavillion Park, but the early morning mist and lack of any signage meant we only had to guess which way to go.
So out through the park, past Pooles Cavern, we eventually climbed out of the mist towards Solomons Temple....
Solomons Temple in the mist
Source of Dane somewhere near here
Bleak Moors
Controlled Fire
Three Shires Head
Three Shires Head
Three Shires Head
Three Shires Head was idyllic in the warm spring sunshine, so the urge for a paddle was hard to resist. However, bearing in mind its still March, ye God was that water cold! Any more than knee deep and I think my legs would drop off. Good for the feet though and felt more than ready for the next 10 miles...
Collapsed cliff Nr Danebridge
Danebridge
Loads of frogs!
Disused canal nr Rushton Spencer
Didnt know of this canal before the walk, most unusual. It was apparently built to feed water from the River Dane to Rudyard Lake.
It was at this point, on the Danebridge to Wincle leg, that fatigue reared its ugly head. Just as it did on the Gritstone Trail, it comes out in a rush, one minute fine, the next minute, dead. At least this time it was a lot further on (in terms of mileage) than previous. However any thoughts of plodding the extra ~4 miles back to Congleton soon evaporated. Besides, it was only supposed to be 13 miles to this point, and already N's Star Trek Communicator was showing 16.....
"A" looking embarassed
So it was to the Knot Inn in Rushton Spencer, to call in a lift, where it just so happened 'A' was walking through as part of her DofE training. Couple of pints and the sanctuary of my settee soon followed....
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