Well one of the first things my wife Jacqueline wanted to do when we decided to begin walking, was to visit the areas around Lyme Park.
As a big fan of Jane Austin novels and especial Mr Darcy, Jacqueline felt it her duty to see the hall and walk the hills around the area. So we set off just before mid day with some food from Tesco a couple of books and my day bag.
Now I have a waterproof Peter Storm Jacket but my wife only had a track suit at the time, but the weather looked fantastic so we didn't feel wet weather clothing would be needed, little did we know.
The walk started off fine, we parked the car in the grounds of the house, paid a quick visit to the facilities and set off up a hill away from the main grounds.
After following a footpath that took us round a large hillock we descended into a country lane in effect to the rear of the grounds. The lane was only a mile or so from the car park and all down hill so we felt refreshed when we begun to climb slowly towards the hills towards the east of the Hall.
The ascent to the higher parts of this climb follow the Lyme Park house boundary wall. We skirted areas of light woods and open grassland. The scenery was delightful, and the slope gentle.
We decided to stop at this point and have our lunch. We also caught up with a bunch of school kids who were making a bit of a din so a break to distance ourselves from the
m also seemed a good move.
After a nice lunch and a short read, we set off again, the walk its self is around 9 miles, and I think at this point we completed 4. Now the trail got a bit steeper, and a lot colder!
The climb opened up to grassland and fields, it still followed the boundary wall but became a lot more exposed. Both of us commented on how the weather was changing, when the first few
drops of
rain fell. After that we picked up the pace and hoped for the best.
Unfortunately our fears were realized when the light drizzle changed into heavy drops then persistent rain, this all happened in the space of 30 mins. I swapped jackets with Jacqueline,and
hoped my thick jumper would suffice. Jacqueline now has a weatherproof coat from Millets.
It would of been a lot easier ascending the hills in fully waterproof clothing as opposed to a mixture of Summer, and some light waterproof items.
We stuck at it and eventually the rain passed and the sun broke through again. Much to the relief of both of us, more so to me for obvious reason. We climbed to 480meters above sea level to a fantastic
view over the Valleys of the Peak district. The view got even better when we took a small detour to the point on the map a little further south than the footpath we were on, although at first our
guide book was not clear on why we should do this, but once we got to the ridge line of the hill we were on and saw the view we could see the reasoning behind the sidetrack.With the weather holding we set off on the last stage of our journey back down towards Lyme Park its self and a des
cent into the woodlands and fields of the estate. On our way we saw quite a few dogs and after a slight
discussion between us we both agreed that having a dog with us on these walks would be nice. I am still looking !
The descent was easy, and very enjoyable. some parts were quite steep but short so the knees were not to badly stressed. We made a little error at one point and took a steeper than was needed route down towards some fields, but again nothing to dramatic.
Then after 4 hours we finally arrived back in Lyme park. The section we arrived at is a Deer area, where we saw about 4-6 deer just wandering and eating, a very pleasant sight it has to be said. In fact Lyme Park was one of the main suppliers of Deer to the Royal household and still is I believe.After passing the Red Deer we finally arrived at the back of the house, unfortunately we arrived too late to do a tour so Jacqueline took some time to look at it and we moved on. Never mind we will be coming back to what can only be said was a thoroughly
enjoyable afternoon of walking.
