Wednesday 13 March 6.25 miles
Jane, Tracey, Donna and Hilary.
The weather was not very promising as it had been raining alot! I thought the ground might be a bit drier being high up - but it wasn't!
We parked in one of the laybys on Roach Road. Then we walked quite a long way along Roach Road. There highland cows in a field by the entrance to a farm, so we crossed the cattle grid and took some photos.
After passing a lane on our left we continued on Clough Head Lane until we got to a gate across the road and then we turned off. The green track we joined wasn't too bad to start with but when we got to the gate it was very muddly and wet. It was easier to climb over the gate than try to open it.
Where there was a crossing point in the paths we found shelter from the wind by a wall and had some lunch (before 12 o'clock!). We went down the hill towards the trees, and turned at the sign for Lud's Church. There were plenty of boards to walk on here.
Lud's Church is a deep chasm and has loads of steep steps so we had to be careful.
The return woodland path was very muddy, and we had to negiate every part of it, the path was being made wider and wider just to try and stay out of the puddles and find some drier parts. The rain started as we were going through the woods.
We could hear children playing as we climbed up from the woods to the road. We decided it might be a school, we could see a couple of children playing football with an adult. it is marked on the map as a school.
As we walked up to Roach End we could see the clouds were swirling over the Ridge so we decided to return by the lower road, we took Clough Head Lane. We could see Tittesworth Reservoir in the distance, the optical illusion made it seem closer than it actually was, so I kept wondering if we were on the right road.
We missed out on walking the Roaches which was a shame.
Having returned to the car we went to the Roaches Tea Room and had 3 teas and bakewell tarts and 1 coffee and a rocky road, as the rocky road was quite large half of it went home!
