Away Day – Darley Dale Loop

Away Day – Darley Dale Loop

Today we headed out to Darley Dale for a nice 10 mile loop. This is a loop stolen from a trail series I did a few years ago and I’ve been meaning to go back and do it again because of the amount of stuff there is to see.

There was only one taker for the away day again this month, partly down to my seeming inability to schedule the runs in (I have now sorted that out, at least for the couple months 😂). So, it was myself and Matty again for this one – I’m not sure how pleased Matty was about that!

I sold this run to Matty as being one of the easier Peak District runs but I don’t think he was really agreeing with me after the first seemingly massive climb which took us up 500ft of elevation in the space of half a mile! I remembered that first climb besting me when I tried running it up it during the race 4 years ago. I ended up having to walk up it back then and I was over taken by another runner who managed to stay in front of me for the rest of the race, eventually finishing 10 seconds in front of me. I remember thinking that if I hadn’t have walked that hill, I may have beaten him.

Once the first climb was over Matty had managed to get his breath back to start talking to me again, although I’m not so sure that was because he had got his breath back or he wasn’t grumpy with me anymore!

There was quite a nice view once we got to the top though.

One of the first things we came across was this pretty cool rock formation that was sufficiently interesting to stop our run to investigate. Naturally, this means it had a plaque for us to read. Shame I didn’t take a picture otherwise I may have remembered what it was called…

A bit further into the run, whilst we were having some minor navigation issues, we went past a guy with gray dreadlocks who asked “are you guys doing yer marathoning?”. I took this to mean he was not very familiar with running and not knowing the best way to respond to this lack of knowledge I simply responded with “nah, just 10 miles today mate”. Who knows, what he thought a marathon was, but hopefully that my response may have dispelled any illusions he may have been under….

We headed on to find some more nice rocks to look at, one of which was The Nine Ladies Stone Circle. There was a few people who had camped out there who were obviously partaking in the most traditional Pagan ritual of smoking weed, drinking cans of beer and chucking their rubbish everywhere.

Not far along from that point we came across an old quarrying site where mill stones had been made and discarded. There was an old abandoned building which may have been an old quarrying building/office.

After this we dropped onto roads and pathways for the rest of the journey back to the start, passing Peak Rail on the way.

For once, I managed to get home early and get a warm dinner!