Back to Dovedale

It was time to revisit one our favourite haunts last Sunday - back to Dovedale.  Somehow we always seem to have a good walk around here, even when the weather's not doing it's bit, and this was just such a day - it was overcast, the rain was only just going to hold off for the day (we hoped), but it was still pretty warm for autumn and we weren't going to be put off that easily.  'Good job we weren't as we had some new visiting walkers to impress!


Rich wisely led us around Thorpe Cloud - well, it's a fun climb but you only have to come straight back down again - and into the steep sides of the valley proper, which did it's usual trick of being sauna-humid all the way up but bestowing a refreshing blast of cool air at the top.  Up on the ridges, the mud wasn't TOO bad and we made decent time to Milldale, where the pasties had just come out of the oven, although we had to fend off legions of over-confidently peckish ducks to hold on to them!

'Til we have built Jerusalem, etc...

Then it was back down the river - literally.  The path on one side is landscaped, cared-for and accessible by the more advanced motability equipment for inclusive access to the countryside - which is great, but a bit too easy for us.  So we headed off to the other side, beside the sign reading 'impassable after rain', just as the drizzle started.  Well, we knew what we were doing.  Probably.  It was only a little bit slippery until we got to the sections where the path, running beside a big solid cliff, was actually under-water, which is where the fun started. Swinging ourselves between trees, tip-toeing on submerged rocks and performing a variety of rambulatory gymnastics we made it, astonishingly, without a single dunking.  Grins all 'round - cheers Rich.