family gatherings and weekend shift working. At last we've been blessed with a free weekend. Unfortunately on the brighter of the two days, Keisha was feeling unwell so we took the opportunity to do a few jobs and to get Keisha better.
This morning Keisha suggested that adventures are spoilt by going walking, given Keisha's comment and the fact that we had not been out walking for a while we decided to moderate our ambitions.
We went for a short walk along Dovedale, the southern end of the Peak district. We parked just outside the village of Milldale (grid. ref SK136548 ). Walking back along the road and into the village we found a path leading up the hill side on the right hand side of the road. The detailed map (grid. ref SK136548 ) shows that this path leads upto a farm track named Pasture lane.
The evidence of spring is obvious from the milder weather and the flowers as shown below. Despite not going out as much Keisha sprang easily up the hill. It got quite chilly and exposed as we climbed higher.
We finally came across Hall Dale, the shelter afforded us by the dale was welcome and we started warming up. Having easily made it to the top of the hill Keisha enjoyed gravity's assistance and started running down. She did allow us to keep up and took an interest in reading the map leading us into Dove dale and to the bridge near Ilam rock (below).
After a lunch stop, Keisha led us along Dovedale and we continued to the Doveholes where we explored the caves. On our walk back along Milldale we had frequent navigation stops and had to take turns at opening gates, Keisha skipped, hopped and ran along she seemed to enjoy pretending that we were on a school trip.
Louis is enjoying being carried around and encourages us to run as soon as Keisha insists that we should skip or run.... I guess this is good training... Louis is getting quite heavy for the carrier hopefully he should be able to make some use of the carrier when we visit Austria in the summer.
The bridge at Milldale
In the evening Keisha said "walking is boring but she liked the caves"!She seems quite excited about the plans for our summer trip, we're all feeling enthused.
