Past few years since I gave up my season ticket at Manchester City me, Uncle Fester and Geordie Munro have had an annual boys weekend away in Manchester. Tradition dictates a Saturday with a fried breakfast in a cafe, pre-match beers, the match, post match beers (involving visits to pubs from our University days) and then a curry. Sunday is a day for walking in the Peak. A classic weekend combination. This year the weather was kind to us and so were the football (City beat Everton 3-1), the beers at various establishments (a couple too many if I’m honest) and the the curry in West Didsbury. This year I even got my first ride on a Manchester tram so all boxes were ticked.
Sunday was a fine and sunny day and after another fiesta of fried pork products we headed out to the Saddleworth Edges for a walk.
The views across Manchester from Uncle Fester’s place were grand
I’ve not been up here since my university days in the 80’s (a cold, snowy day if memory serves) when we used Public Transport to get about. I must have got the bus to Dove Stone, walked over to Black Hill and back to Glossop to get the bus home. As per one of my recent posts my memory in fact does not serve me well these days so who knows the actual details.
Times have changed though and we drove across this time, parking in a lay-by to avoid parking fees (we’re all prize tightskates) and, as it happened, to avoid a wasted drive into said car park as it was absolutely packed. Seems Dove Stone reservoir is now a well-known and popular spot. There were huge numbers of people and families walking and cycling by the lake shore and the lake itself was crowded with sailing boats.
Our route was to follow the Chew Brook up to Chew Reservoir and then along the western edges to Birchen Clough and Greenfield Brook before completing the circuit past Greenfield, Yeoman Hey and Dove Stone reservoirs. Turned into quite a long walk of nearly 11 miles.
11 miles
Once we started up the road we left the crowds behind.
It’s metalled road so it takes something away from the remote surroundings but progress was easy and after a snack stop at Dish Stone Rocks we arrived at bleak moorland Chew reservoir complete with Helicopter in attendance.
After crossing the dam and the soggy expanse of Dish Stone Moss we hit the edge and the walk from here is tremendous, peering down over the reservoirs and across to the Tower Blocks of Oldham and the City centre of Manchester.
We were also under the flight path into Manchester Airport so I tried a few shots of the passing planes without much success. More practice needed at photographing fast moving objects through a zoom lens
We lunched somewhere near Little or Great Dove Stone Rocks and pressed on round the edge.
GM left us to head home after we crossed Ashway Clough and me and UF completed the route following Raven Stones to Birchen Clough. This section was airy and elevated and real delight as were the dark confines of Birchen Clough itself.
The cloughs of the dark peak are some of my favourite places in the UK. It’s a pity that I get to see them so infrequently these days. I think a few weekends up this way are called for
After scrambling down the sides of the many waterfalls, we followed the long return besides the reservoirs. The sun that we lost in Birchen Clough returned and the views of the sun shimmering off the water were sublime.
As we approached Dove Stone so did the crowds so we pressed on back across the dam to the car without pause to complete what had been a really great walk and top drawer weekend.
I await the football fixtures for next season to plan the next boys weekend 🙂
surfnslide 