Light in the Hope Valley

This Saturday was one with a difference. The difference was not because I decided not to travel - I did travel, but, for the first time, I went on a guided walk. And, this was also the first time I was in the heart of a National Park - the three earlier trips being to the fringes of different NPs. That said, I will describe the day from the beginning.

I did not have a great night, I must say. I was unable to find sleep till it was half-an-hour past midnight and I had to wake up at four thirty in order to be ready to take my train. And it turned out to be a windy night; I do not know how strong the winds were, but I know that they were strong enough and lasted long enough to slow down my North-bound trains in the morning. I could hear the wind whistling inside the permanently closed Victorian fire-place in my room. On a different day, I would have just decided to call off the trip and curl up under my warm (and sometimes hot) duvet. But not today! Fortune favours the brave, they say! I decided to be brave and went to the train station, as usual.

I was headed to Hathersage, a little village in the Hope Valley, on the railway line between Manchester and Sheffield. My first train, at 5:50 in the morning, was from Cambridge to Peterborough. From there I was to take the train to Edinburgh and get off at Doncaster, then transfer to a train to Sheffield. From Sheffield, it was 15 minutes in a local train to Hathersage. Just before my first train arrived at Hathersage, some official in the train came and told us that there were some power failures north of Peterborough and we should expect problems. Good start to the day, I thought! But the problem was not as difficult as I imagined it to be. The winds were strong and as a result, the train towards Edinburgh could not run as fast as it should and ended up reaching Doncaster about 20 minutes behind schedule, which meant that I missed the train I was supposed to take to Sheffield. But luckily, Doncaster and Sheffield are well connected to each other and there was a train just leaving in another 10 minutes or so and I took it. This train would reach Sheffield just five-six minutes, if it ran on time, before my local train into the Hope Valley was to leave. It did run on time, Congratulations! And still I had to walk as fast as I could in order to find and get to the platform from where my train would leave. And all is well that ends well. Soon I was standing on the platform at Hathersage station, waiting for 10AM to arrive so that we could get on with the walk.

At this time, things did not look rosy at all! It was gray and there was an incessant drizzle falling and being driven on to my face by the wind, which was not as wild as it was earlier in the day. It was under these circumstances that the walk leader, John Howson and the walking group organisers (TransPeak Walks, http://www.transpeakwalks.co.uk), Peter Wild and Angela Ritchie, came to pick us up, on time. John had even brought a couple of nice dogs too! One thing that I immediately noticed was that out of the 20 odd people joining the walk, no one except me seemed to be under 40 and I am under 40 by a long way (phew!). To see relatively old people going on walks along cliffs (albeit not high) on a blustery morning was amazing to me.

Our first stop was in Hathersage village, just to give people some time to visit the restrooms if required. At this time, I got talking to Peter, who kindly offered to take my tripod and attach it to a special provision in his rucksack (I have made a mental note to get a bag of that kind for my future trips). And given the time I had, during the walk, to take pictures, I never once felt the need to use the tripod on this day. And once people were ready we set up on our walk. We walked along the village streets where I got my first view of the greens before cutting on to the grassland and muddy paths.



The first object of interest was what is called the Bronte Cottage, for the literary Bronte sisters (Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre). I cannot recollect why this cottage is called so, but it was only a non-descript and run-down little structure. But close to this cottage is North Lees Hall, which is thought to be the inspiration for Thornfield Hall, which features in Jane Eyre.


After viewing these buildings from the outside, we continued on our walk along paths on pretty woodlands and the valley towards Long Causeway, which is the ruin of an old cliff-top Roman road, and Stanage Edge, which I had read earlier affords some exceptionally beautiful views of the Hope Valley. The walk is definitely not the easiest and is not suitable for wheelchairs - there are too many stiles to cross. But, what really made my day was the fact that the grey clouds had started clearing and streaks of sunlight was lighting up the valley. And I just had to look over my shoulders to be graced by this view.


Soon, we were on the path with a gentle incline and on to Stanage Edge. Stanage Edge is a 3.5 mile long gritstone escarpment that overlooks the Hope Valley. The Long Causeway Roman road is just somewhere near the mid-point of the edge. It is not very high - at only about 30 meters - but attracts a number of rock climbers. (I was told that some students in Sheffield University learn rock climbing just because they are not too far off from Stanage). And we did see many of them, some of them even taking shelter from strong winds in little caves on the rock face.

While walking along the cliff, I was able to take some telephoto shots of the valley floor, with the combination of the clouds and the sun orchestrating a special performance of lighting up patches of the valley, while leaving other areas in shadow. This is what I would call picturesque and amenable to some creative Black and White conversions as well. What one gets to see is the gritstone rock outcrops of the Stanage Edge forming strange and sometimes funny shapes in the foreground and beyond is all the magic of the beautifully lighted and green valley floor. It not being a very clear day, the distant valleys appear to be mired in mist, offering only low contrast views through the curtain of sun light formed where there is a break in the clouds. Of interest is what I learnt - that the landscape that had unfolded in front of my eyes was not all natural, but was a product of a thousand years of human activity, sheep farming in particular.




Soon it was time for lunch. I was not going to spend my time eating food while there was some good light, strong foreground, middle-ground and background to be photographed. And, having shifted to my wide-angle lens, I set about taking a number of pictures, some of which were to my satisfaction. It is also worth mentioning that though it was dry by now, it had rained earlier and so the grass had retained water and this water was being sprayed around by the wind to such heights and with such a force I had not imagined anything less than a cyclone to possess.



Post lunch, we started on our walk downhill and back towards Hathersage village. While walking along the plains, one again had to just turn back to catch lovely views of a pair of peaks rising above the ground, one seemingly covered in green and the other in drier brown! And that too with the storm clouds having largely withdrawn and with some fluffy white clouds floating around under an otherwise blue sky. A sight to behold!

Finally, on the walk back we also went to a small church which is where Little John of Robin Hood and Co. is supposed to be buried.

I must say that during this walk, I got chatting to Peter and Angela, the organisers of this walking group. And following the walk, we went for a coffee together and then they took me on a car ride through other towns of the valley, Hope and Castleton, before dropping me off at the Edale train station from where I took the train back to Sheffield. During this car ride I did get a brief overview of various aspects of the Peak District and its attractions. And I would definitely visit the Peaks again, on a more-than-a-day trip, possibly in the third week of April, when there will be a Peak Distrct Walking Festival going on there! And I could join in on another of TransPeak Walks guided trek.

For more pictures, see http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/PeaksHope_valleyStanage_edge and http://www.flickr.com/photos/achoos/sets/72157604048026345/. The latter has only a selection of my personal favourites. Write to me if you like any of the original hires images, which have had some more attention from me since they were uploaded to the above album.