8 min read

Hartington – Day 2

Our final day's walking on our flying visit

Day two – the final day of our mini break – didn’t start too late as we had another walk planned before the drive home. We had a lovely breakfast, got our bags squared away, and checked out before heading out on the morning’s walk.

The day’s route took us out of Hartington along the lane I headed took on walking day 28, up past the church. And by up I mean up, as the walk out of the village took us up a nice winding lane before we headed out over the fields.

We were supposed to be taking the footpath off to the left, just past a farm, but the field the path was going to take us through was full of cows. I don’t really like cows too much, especially when I have to walk through a field of them, but some of these has some rather large horns. Both of us stood there and contemplated making our way across a muddy field, right through the middle of the cows and decided that it probably wasn’t a great idea.

I took a quick look at the map and figured out we could carry along Hide Lane, coming to another path on the left that would take us over the hill and back down to the original path we were supposed to be on. I warned Shelli that the new route would mean a bit more up and down walking but that was clearly more preferable than the field of cows. So, off we went, following the lane for another mile.

While we made our way to the next footpath we came to a field of sheep. We stopped to say hello to the sheep by the wall, but clearly the other sheep in the field thought something was going on or that they were missing out on something as they all started to come running over. And when I say all of the sheep I mean all of the sheep. Even the sheep from way over on the other side of the field came running over to us, which Shelli caught in the video below.

Things got even funnier when we carried on along the lane as all of the sheep ran along the edge of the field following us. They did this all the way to the end of their field bless them. I caught it this time in the video below.

We reached the path a little further along the lane and then the climb started. The original path would have taken us along the side of the hill but because of the cows earlier we now had to go up and over. And up it most certainly was! You can see what the hill looked like below; look at the DSLR photos after the sheep as I took a picture looking up the hill.

We made it to the top – a little warmer and little more puffed – and climbed over the stone style to look out over the valley below. It has to be said, the Peak District is an absolutely stunning part of the country, and this short break away reminded me why I fell in love with it back in 2010. Beautiful!

After joining the original path we walked along the side of the valley until we reached Pilsbury. There we took a little break before heading over the river, tucking into a bit of my homemade chocolate brownie. So so good!

Once we’d crossed the river we walked up a little lane and then headed out across the fields again. The path wasn’t clear – it obviously wasn’t walked very often – and we couldn’t see a break in the fence or a style to indicate where we were supposed to go. We aimed for an old farm gate hoping that we’d get a better idea as we headed over the field, but it wasn’t until we reached it that we spotted the style we needed to use further up the hill. Great, another steep climb! We got there though.

The route continued up hill until we reached a farm and road. After that it was all flat and down hill – hurrah! – which was great, until we had to try and get down a slippery, muddy hill to reach the valley floor. Thankfully neither of us ended up on our backsides!

Crossing the river it started to rain a bit so the camera went away. Fortunately it wasn’t too much further to Hartington – about half a mile – so we didn’t get too wet.

We popped into the Hartington Cheese Shop to pick up a couple of bits of cheese to take home with us. I spotted the most amazing thing ever! Well, for me that is. I can’t eat nuts so I eat quite a lot of almonds, and in the cheese shop they sold a big round of almond brittle. I couldn’t resist it so I bought myself one even though it was quite expensive.

Still with a bit of time on our hands we headed over the road to the Hart in the Country gift shop to see what they had. There wasn’t much but I managed to find a little card wallet, something I’d been looking for for a little while.

Shopping done we headed over the road to the Beresford Tea Rooms for a spot of lunch before our drive back home. There weren’t any seats inside as it’s quite small so we sat on one of the tables outside. As luck would have it, while we were waiting for our order to arrive someone from inside left so we made a dash inside to get their table; much nice than sitting outside.

The lunch was really nice and we were both grateful for the sit down and rest before hitting the road homeward.

The drive home was uneventful, which is a good thing, and we arrived in time for a lovely home cooked dinner by mum. Lush!

As with all good times it was over far too quickly, but it was just wonderful to spend a couple of days just the two of us, enjoying the awesome landscape of the Peak District.

Again, a massive thank you to mum and dad for looking after the girls and animals for us so that we could escape for a bit!

Photos

There are three galleries below. The first gallery is of photos taken on my DSLR, the second gallery is of photos taken on my phone, and the third gallery is of photos taken on Shelli’s phone.

DSRL Photos

My Phone Photos

Shelli’s Phone Photos

Route Details

If you’re interested you can download the KML file and/or GPX file of the plotted route. Please be aware though that the route was hand-plotted and so may not be 100% accurate.

Walk Statistics

Miles Start (HH:MM) Finish (HH:MM) Breaks (HH:MM) Walking (HH:MM) Pace (MPH) Steps Taken
5.87 10:10 12:55 00:05 02:40 2.20 13,167

Route Map

Elevation Details

Start Elavation (m) End Elavation (m) Max Elevation (m) Min Elevation (m) Total Climb (m) Total Descent (m) Climbs on Route
230 230 352 220 286 -286 2

Climb Details

Rating Start Point (miles) End Point (miles) Length (miles) Start Elevation (m) End Elevation (m) Average Grade
5 0.06 1.51 1.45 229 313 3.4%
5 3.40 4.41 1.01 260 318 2.5%

More information about climb ratings can be found at Map My Walk.