B2B Day 76 Thorpe to Hartington: Revisiting the Peak Pilgrimage

Revisiting the Peak Pilgrimage

For an OS map of today's walk (9.05 miles; 14.56 km; 1,541 ft total ascent), click here.

Today we planned to revisit some of the areas we covered on the first day of the Peak Pilgrimage, which we did in 2018. The highlight of that walk and of today's was the same: the lovely valley of Dovedale—famous for its beauty and angling associations from Isaak Walton's The Compleat Angler.

We slept well, though we were awake fairly early. Ken woke up feeling not great yet not too bad, all things considered. I talked with our hosts and although Ken volunteered to eat upstairs, they said it was okay, so we both went to breakfast, with Ken sitting facing away from the other guests. He took an antihistamine and had a Coke with breakfast to try to counteract the slight sleep-inducing effects of the antihistamine. I had a Devonshire oatcake as part of my breakfast and really enjoyed it. The morning rain was pelting down as we had breakfast.

We went back to our room to pack and had one last enjoyable time of watching the lambs on the hillside. Ken noted that one of the lambs had a hitch in its gait, and I said that maybe it had pulled a lambstring. [Groan!—Ken]

After a farewell to our hosts Sarah and Steve, we set off at 10:05 a.m. I still had a bit of vertigo, and was quite stiff and slow. Because of all the rain earlier in the morning making things slippery, on Steve & Sarah's advice we decided not to climb Thorpe Cloud, a lovely mountain that had been tentatively on our route today. However, as we passed, the rain had stopped and it was beautifully sunny; it looked lovely in the sunshine. 

Shapely Thorpe Cloud

A close-up from another angle: note the climbers on the peak

 

There were beautiful views in all directions...

 ...and even the lambs were smiling.

 

Because it was a Saturday, there were many people out enjoying the beauty of this area. We aimed just to the right of Thorpe Cloud and walked down Lin Dale, with lots of stops for photographs of the peak and the emerging views of Dovedale as we descended.

Lin Dale: walkers ascending to Thorpe Cloud whilst we descended to Dovedale

 

We proceeded down Lin Dale and eventually arrived at the stepping stones, which we fortunately didn't need to cross. The stepping stones had been displaced by storm debris in late winter and, although they had been reset, they were not as easy to cross as they had been in 2018 and were "offically" closed by the National Trust. But as we rested at the bottom we admired the view and watched as a few people carefully picked their way over the River Dove on the stones.

Dovedale and The Stepping Stones

We thoroughly enjoyed walking through Dovedale again; it was so beautiful in the dappled sunlight ("Glory be to God for dappled things"—G.M. Hopkins) with its weirs, pinnacles, caves, and its character changing seemingly every quarter mile or even around every corner.

Entering Milldale: Viator's Bridge

Eventually, we crossed Viator's (i.e., Wayfarer's) Bridge and arrived at Milldale around 12:45 p.m. A visit to Polly's Cottage, a take-out cafe, yielded a ham and tomato sandwich for me, an egg mayo sandwich & a genuinely ice-cold Coke for Ken, and Pipers crisps for us both to share. The man who served us at Polly's was efficient and cheerful.

Snacking in the (cold & partial) sunshine

We sat on our plastic bags on a grassy bank with lots of other people around and ate our lunch looking at the river. The man next to Ken borrowed Ken's map briefly. When the wind died down and the sun was out, it wasn't too bad, but it was generally quite cold, probably only about 14 Celsius (57 Fahrenheit). Despite the cold, I felt it was important that we have an ice cream, so we shared a vanilla waffle cone, which was delicious.

The steep path down from Gypsy Bank

We finally got going again at 1:45 p.m. Walking a slightly different path from 2018, we enjoyed a different dale, at least in name. (Like some British street names in cities, we were following the same river Dove, yet the name of the valley changed several times.) Later, the steep path down Gypsy Bank which we had descended in 2018 on the Peak Pilgrimage joined us.

As I mentioned above, every quarter mile, it felt as though the scenery would change. And this time the name of the valley changed: we entered Wolfscote Dale.

Entering Wolfscote Dale

The previous time we had walked through Wolfscote Dale, it was quiet and peaceful. We had passed a few fishermen and several sheep with adorable black lambs. This time there were no fishermen, no sheep, just lots of people out walking. One couple had their dogs off-lead, and one dog went into the water to chase a duck. We didn't like to see that. They did put the dog on a lead after finally getting its attention.

We also started to see groups of six to eight early-teenagers. The first group had orange pack covers, then we saw ones with teal pack covers. Much later we saw a group with blue pack covers, and I joked that next we'd see red pack covers . . . the words were barely out of my mouth when we did! We ended up also seeing fluorescent yellow and then pink.

A less pastoral but still favourite view in Wolfscote Dale: Peaseland Rocks (L) and Drabber Tor (R)

Heading to Hartington with the tired youth

 

The character—and name—of the valley changed again and we entered the dark woods of Beresford Dale. They were beautiful too, but we did enjoy emerging from the woods and seeing the sunshine, with a very pretty retrospective view of the hills to the south as Dovedale broadened out into a wide valley near Hartington. 

Broad and beautiful Dovedale just south of Hartington

 

When we got into Hartington, we could hear live music at the Charles Cotton Hotel, so we were glad we weren't staying there that night (a Saturday). Ken got a pint of lemonade at the Devonshire Arms across the way, and then we made the walk uphill to the YHA where we had stayed in 2018. 

Our reception at the YHA in 2018 had not been great, but this year it was really good. People were cheerful and helpful. We rested in our bunk beds before heading down for our dinner reservation at the Devonshire Arms for 6:30 p.m. For dinner, Ken had sausage, mash, and Yorkshire pudding, and I had a vegetable frittata, fries, and salad. The food was good, and our server James was very nice. We decided to order dessert, a sundae with coconut ice cream, cherry sauce, and chunks of waffle. It was excellent.

We walked back in the cold to the YHA. I sat in the library and emailed a bit, and Ken came down but felt so tired that we just went back up to our room so that Ken could rest. His cold was definitely getting worse.