Tuesday, October 25, 2016

A Circular Walk From Oughtibridge

A walk today covering an area right on the edge of two of my Ordnance Survey maps, The Dark Peak, and Sheffield and Doncaster: two maps and two different scales to complicate things for me.

When I got off the bus it was quite grey and misty at Oughtibridge, the only thing interesting that I could find to photograph, and with a bit of colour, was these blue wheelie bins. As predicted by the weather forecast it did brighten up later and turned out to be a lovely afternoon.


I crossed the river and walked up the hill to where I found my first footpath, just at the other side of the single track railway line which goes to the steelworks at Stocksbridge. I think there's only one return trip every working day and I did manage to hear the train going along the line when I was up on the crags...I didn't see it though.

The next two miles or so were easy,  but quite boring walking along a wide forestry track until I was overlooking Deepcar. At this point I turned right and uphill and went past a small pond before reaching Wharncliffe Heath Nature Reserve and then walking along the top of Wharncliffe Crags. There wasn't much for me to see up here, it was still quite misty; even if it wasn't misty the pylons and power lines would have ruined the view anyhow.

This image of a tree turned out alright though.



I walked across some open heathland and then along another forestry track. As I approached a pretty location called Hannah Moor the sun came out for a few minutes; I didn't miss the opportunity to get my camera out and take time with the composition of each shot I took.









I got lost as I needed to pass a couple of farms on the next part of the walk; I ended up in the wrong field...but it was a lovely view from where I ended up. This point was just about the furthest point east I went - well into Wortley parish in Barnsley borough.



I soon found the route of the path and climbed up to the road. I was now walking along the route of the Barnsley Boundary Walk...and hoped to continue doing so for a while yet. Unfortunately the detail isn't very clear on the 1:50,000 scale map and I couldn't find the path where it seemed to pass at the side of a farm. A few minutes earlier I'd noticed a gate that led onto Access Land, so I re-traced my steps and walked across a section of Wharncliffe Chase. It was quite boggy in places and there was plenty of tussock grass and bracken; it reminded me a lot of the Eastern Moors, especially at the location where I took the next photograph...of course what you can't see in shot are the pylons and power lines just behind me.



Although I had planned to go further today, when I reached the Transpennine Trail again I just followed it and then walked back down to Oughtibridge, from where I caught a bus, two trams, and the train back to Doncaster. I went walking with friends in the Peak District on Sunday, and I'm going to the opera at Sheffield tomorrow, so I thought I'd better call it a day.

When the train reached Doncaster it had to wait for quite a few minutes just outside the station as three trains arriving from London and two going south had to clear the platforms. The southern approaches to Doncaster Station really do need improving.



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