It's been a busy stretch for us here in Melbourne. Kristine's parents were in town for a couple weekends. We did the Center Parcs trip last weekend. We might or might not have Kristine's brother in town this coming weekend at the start of the Easter holiday break for the girls. Easter weekend we go south to visit some of my Dad's family. Squeezed into all of that was a single Saturday with no plans. Clare has been doing much better with the transition out of diapers, but she's still not entirely trustworthy. Kristine graciously offered to watch her for the afternoon while I took the older girls for a hike. I decided to do the Black Rocks hike in Derbyshire Walks with Children. It's supposed to be 2 miles long, which I figured would be about Charis's threshold. It's also only a modest drive (~45 min) from Melbourne.
Part of the hike goes along the High Peaks Trail, which is a trackbed from one of the earliest railways built in England. It starts at the ruins of the Cromford Moor Mine, which dates back to lead mining in the 1500s.
Here's the RunKeeper record for the hike. RunKeeper says we walked 1.7 miles. The red and green spots don't line up, so maybe it would have been closer to 2 miles if I'd stopped tracking back at the information center where we started. On the other hand, DWWC says that we're supposed to do the last mile of our hike along the High Peaks Trail. We clearly didn't. The red squiqqle close to the beginning is all the wandering we did around the Black Rocks. More on that later.
Once you leave the information center and start the hike in earnest, the first portion is to climb the spoil heap from the Cromford Moor Mine.
We stopped to look at the horses. They didn't seem to care much that we were there looking at them. The cattle and sheep we saw later were less nonchalant. They turned around and walked away as soon as we approached the fence. Here's the conversation with Clare when we got home and I showed her this photo.
Me: Clare, what's that?
Clare: Cows!
Me: No, those aren't cows.
Clare: It's black and white, so it's a cow. And that's a horse (pointing to the brown horse on the left).
I realized when we got home that I didn't take any pictures of the entire Black Rocks outcropping. I'll have to rectify that next time we go. Both girls had fun climbing on the rocks, so there is definitely going to be a next time.
Elise spotted this narrow spot in the rocks and wanted to climb up. I was able to squeeze in, give her a boost, and lift Charis up.
I couldn't get up the rocks in that narrow opening, so I took a hero shot and made my way around and up the path on the other side. Charis took a small tumble on these rocks as she climbed up to the top to meet me. I'm blaming it on a father who put her in Wellies when he should have bought her hiking boots. I'm sure it has nothing to do with her cheerful 5yo playfulness, lack of attention to where she was going, and rocks that were slick from all the rain we've had this past week. Fortunately, she only slid a couple feet, and she landed on one of the many grassy areas between these rocks. She was more scared than hurt. Credit both girls for working together to help her recover. By the time I walked around, they met me at the top with Charis not crying. They'd decided that she slipped because of the gloves she was wearing. Elise gave hers to Charis, Charis gave hers to my backpack, and Elise went without (which she probably wanted to do anyway).
The girls named this one Pride Rock, after the Lion King. They told me they didn't want to climb out onto it. I told them that was fine, because I didn't want them climbing out onto it.
We spent a good 35 or 40 minutes exploring these rocks. They've seen rock formations at Turkey Run State Park in the US, but I think this was a first as far as actually getting to walk around on them.
There were a couple different ways to get down off the rocks. The girls picked the easiest one, which still involved getting hands and trousers a bit muddy. Insert sigh of relief that I wasn't exploring these rocks on a rainy day with a couple of energetic boys.
The landscape after we left the Black Rocks felt very Tolkien-esque, as interpreted by Peter Jackson. This part reminded me of the LOTR scenes where Frodo and company are leaving the Shire. The girls, having diligently studied their father's independence from walking on paths while at Center Parcs, spent most of this portion climbing over rocks. Their father, having diligently studied his daughters' obedient walking on paths while at Center Parcs, spent most of this portion walking on the path.
I mentioned we've had some rain this past week, didn't I?
The high point, literally, of the hike is this marker at the top of Bole Hill. Both girls were a little tired of climbing by the time we got here. It was also starting to mist, so I had visions of getting caught in a rainstorm. I'd learned enough from our Tissington hike to make sure we had boots, hats, and gloves. It completely slipped my mind that I should have also brought raincoats. That's what I get for believing the online weather forecast for the day.
We distracted ourselves from the mist by letting both Elise and Charis have a go at using my camera. My phone pictures on our hikes have been pretty fuzzy, so recently (Center Parcs and today) started carrying the Canon EOS I bought a few years ago on advice from my brother Daniel. Unlike me, he is both a competent photographer and familiar with different options for gear. The camera's probably capable of far more than its current owner can do with it, but its current owner still appreciates it as an upgrade over this phone. Its current owner also appreciates the humor of seeing his 5 yr old daughter trying to take a picture with a camera that is large enough that her fingers struggle to find the shutter button.
Charis was very happy that she got to take a picture with my camera.
Until she realized I was serious about the need to keep walking.
Did I mention that it's been raining in the Midlands for much of the past week?
I had a hard time figuring out when we left the forest whether this area we walked through has been cleared by man, nature, or a combination. The trees are chopped up in very uneven patterns, which doesn't seem like it would be man-made. Continuing the Tolkien imagery, I thought this would maybe be the outskirts of Mirkwood.
One more forest to walk through. I'm proud of the girls. They pretty much left me in the dust (or mud) once we left the summit of Bole Hill. My gimpy knees were starting to complain a bit by this point in the hike, so I was glad to reach the flat portion when we joined the High Peak Trail.
We stopped at the mine ruins back at the trail head. Elise and Charis had a make-believe world they created while walking around this mine. I didn't catch all of it, but I know there was at least a summer house involved.
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