October 23, 1986: Elton to Ilam
After leaving Elton we make progress on this track.
In fact I had no trouble getting to sleep, though several times I turned over to hear, even through my earplugs, the sound of hail peppering the window. It was extremely brisk outside when we trooped down to make our breakfast. The warden had come upstairs to knock us up. Evidently she had discovered Eden Silverman sleeping on the dorm floor. Eden, who had gone on from sore shoulders to dicky back, had taken her mattress off of the hostel’s rubbery springs in order to sleep on the floor. The discovery of this by our proprietress had lead to a stern lecture on germs.
We were on our own for breakfast preparation. Tosh was jealously guarding a few bags of instant coffee while the boys made toast and Eden dished up scrambled eggs. I don’t believe Lamya ever made it down in time for breakfast; when she complained of the walking pace in the early going, Tosh lectured her on this omission and everything sorted itself out thereafter. I did not shave; I didn’t want to take off the layers of warmth required to get this job accomplished.
At ten o’clock on the morning of Thursday, October 23, we replaced our sneakers with our muddy boots, put on our raingear, and stepped outside. The sky had been brightening and the morning’s drizzle soon lifted. Within fifteen minutes bright sun had returned. It was another glorious day.
I lead us back through Elton and into a tight passage between two houses. We stood milling about in somebody’s back yard while the tail caught up. We crossed two fields and came out on a farm track. This divided in a few yards and I took the southwest fork. Almost immediately a second left turn was offered and this proved to be the walled lane, heading due south, that Haslam wanted us to ascend. It wasn’t easy: portions were overgrown and we had to walk in a field parallel to the lane. We did find the Pikehall signpost at the top, but there was no evidence of any path in the southwesterly direction we needed to go. I braved it out nevertheless, trudging through the furrows of a muddy field just sprouting its crop of winter wheat. Tosh, her farm background showing, started to fret about the effects of this intrusion, but I was uncompromising. When we had crossed under some power lines we could see another sign pointing back at us. We had not varied from the line of the public right of way: if farmers choose to plough out evidence of such routes I have always felt that they have to accept the consequences.
We climbed a stile and reached another farm road, rounded a corner on it and continued due west. We were now looking for two large metal gates at the end of the track. When we found these we crossed another field and used an unplanted furrow to move south. Not all of these variations correspond with the lines on the OS map, but Haslam’s directions were once again proving quite useful. We were now approaching the busy A5012. Having stamped some of the mud from the fields onto this surface we headed west, climbing gradually, for a mile and a half. I told the frontrunners to wait for the rest of us at Pikehill farm and reminded everyone to keep in single file. It was not very pleasant walking along the verge with all the lorries, many carrying milk, hurtling by in the opposite direction. But, in the bright sunlight, it was marvelous being on this green upland. Limestone fences were making their first appearance and we were adding miles at a fast rate. This was important because we had two more to do today, 12.5 instead of 10.5.
Part of our group had already reached Pikehill when our party was cut in half by a large herd of Friesian cows; these animals were being directed, by men on foot, from one field to the next. Unfortunately, the herd, which contained a frisky bull, also succeeded in stopping traffic in both directions. As we inched our way among them I noticed that the first vehicle waiting to get through in the on-coming direction was a Securicor van. Its driver, no doubt sensing an ambush, was gritting his teeth nervously. Finally only one beast lay in his path – the one with the ring in his nose. In some agitation the driver signaled that I was to remove this obstacle. Did he have the wrong candidate! Herd and walkers eventually made it to Pikehill. Our advance guard was sitting on a low fence enjoying a lesson in bovine sex. The cows had by now entered a grassy portion of the farmyard. This brought two farmwomen out to complain. I didn’t see any dogs on this job; they were missed.
We continued uphill a short distance and turned off the highway on a track through Upperhouse Farm. Here a curious sheepdog watched us cautiously. We used a path to cross The High Peak Trail, one of several routes laid down on the beds of abandoned railways. We had a five-minute rest. Everyone had a candy bar and a drink. Then we continued up the track a short distance and turned off to climb beside a stone wall. Anna Levine, elated to be in the lead, missed a stile at the top of this field, and had to be called back. We were almost at the summit of a high plateau now, but there was no evidence of a path in the thick grass and I was using my compass to keep us due west. I had to call Anna back a second time for a brief lecture on trail discipline; it made no sense for someone who did not know where we were going to get a hundred yards ahead of us! It was such a heavenly day that she had just gotten carried away with the adventure of it all, the freedom. She sulked for only a minute or two and was overjoyed when I sent her on small scouting expeditions to find relevant stiles in the walls ahead. She was not even disappointed when, inevitably, she chose the wrong stile. We began a descent to Cardle View.
Here we continued in the same westerly direction on tarmac for a short distance, then climbed the embankment of a second abandoned rail line, this one containing the Tissington Trail. For almost two miles we followed its flat bed south. Views were magnificent in all directions; it was like being on top of the world. We passed through a cutting that provided some shelter from the winds (This Derbyshire landscape would have pleased Cezanne!). Behind us, however, the sky was blackening at an alarming rate. I decided that the next cutting should provide us with our lunch spot for the day. A handsome viaduct spanned this trail and under it we dropped down to consume the lunches packed for us by the warden of Elton.
The ladies now find a unique method of descending
into the dry valley that will lead us to the River Dove.
After half an hour we continued round a few final bends and made a perilous escape from the Tissington Trail down a steep embankment. Some of the girls and Tosh stayed behind for a little privacy. Rodney and Nick were sent ahead to find a route into a nearby dry valley but they neglected to get down into it at its head, and I had to call them back; they would have stayed on its rim for another mile. By this time the rest of our party had rejoined us. I began a crisscrossing descent of a steep hillside, having spotted our path well below us. Behind me the women chose another method of descent, a long slide on their bums. In excellent spirits we then turned down this path and entered the confines of a charming dry valley that lead directly to beautiful Dovedale.
The gents did it up against a tree while the girls waited for once. Then with the Dove on our right we followed an easy riverside path around several bends. The dark clouds had again disappeared and the sunny blue skies provided a marvelous background to Derbyshire’s famous river valley. We crossed a road bridge and followed the other bank of the river, the Staffordshire side, as far as the hamlet of Milldale. I had read about a cafe here and I was delighted to discover it was open. “Are you serving tea?” I asked the helpful gentleman behind the counter. When he nodded in the affirmative, I said, “In that case I’d like a table for thirteen.” Actually it took quite a while for all of us to troop in, and our pile of packs had grown to alarming proportions before the last girl had gotten herself out of the loo and ordered coffee, tea or some soda pop. Julie Galun, a delicate eleventh-grader with a sweet face and intelligent eyes, was suffering from stomach cramps and complained when she was jostled by a rambunctious Anna Levine. Everyone else seemed to be enjoying the stop. It was three o’clock.
With Tosh on the far right our group poses for a photo on the bridge into Milldale.
After snacks and postcards and more visits to the loo I proposed that we continue. Tosh, our paymaster, settled with the manager, and we crossed Viator’s bridge and continued on the east side of the river. It was a little hard to know precisely where we were on this very popular stretch, but every now and then I got a clue from a pinnacle or a cliff face. The river was an absolute delight and so was the autumn-speckled foliage. After Ilam Rock I sent the boys ahead to see if they could find Reynaud’s Cave. None of them knew what I was talking about when I told them to look for a natural arch. When they found it anyway, however, they were enchanted. They rushed up the steep incline and climbed to the top. Anna nagged me to let her go too and I gave in. The rest of us watched from below.
It was just as well that we had saved our energy, because we now had a short bit of uphill to the top of Lover’s Leap. A censorious Anna argued that such a name romanticized suicide. Not to be outdone in argument, her brother fell to quarrelling over whether or not the angels who used Jacob’s Ladder had wings. We had only a little way to go now before reaching some steppingstones across the Dove. We all enjoyed this very much. Now all we had to do was follow a track to a car park. There were many cars about – no wonder this last stretch had been full of people and their dogs.
Some of us used the public toilets. Then we climbed a hill behind the Isaac Walton Hotel and crossed several fields covered in wet grass. This was our last bit of uphill for the day. The boys were sent ahead to look for a kissing gate and we descended to the Ilam road. I slipped a bit here and was glad I had my boots on, for my foot gave a twinge. The restored village was a delight, but, unfortunately, I had just run out of film. We entered the drive of the National Trust property where one section of Ilam Hall had been turned over by the Trust to the YHA and here, amid ancient cloistered surroundings, there was a very modern superior grade hostel. What a welcome change after last night’s spartan regime.
We took our boots off and I checked us in, answering all the questions put to me about age, sex, sheets, meal and packed lunch requisites by an avuncular character in half-glasses. On the top floor the gents had a small dorm, with only one other elderly visitor to share it with. This did mean that I had to send Paul Herzog up to the top bunk again – I drew the line at having to climb a ladder at my age. We had arrived at 5:20 and there was plenty of time to unpack slowly and go down a floor to a glorious warm shower. I had remembered to bring some athlete’s foot powder too.
Ilam Hall had close to one hundred guests on this night and the din was unnerving. There seemed to be quite a few church groups present and kids of all ages. One young lad, interviewed by an inquisitive Tosh, was doing his history homework in the quiet room. We ate at seven, ten of us at one table, and three at the next. The food was quite acceptable, though those sitting on the end had to do a lot of bobbing up and down to serve the rest. We drank a lot of tea. Ah the modern youth hostel – at the end of the meal everything went into a giant dishwasher and we were free to relax.
There was no place to go in Ilam, so there were only a few requests to leave the premises on this night. I played a game of pool with Anna Levine in the game room. It was fun but we were both awful. Every successful shot seemed to be an accident and the easy ones went askew. I was defeated in my first attempt at this game, to the lip-smacking satisfaction of the competitive Anna, but we agreed on a rematch at the next hostel.
Back in the quiet room Colonel Mustard was evading the lead pipe in the drawing room and Eden Silverman had a new malady, a twisted knee. I loaned her my ace bandage and some Deep Heat, but Tosh and I were quite worried about how to manage this injury if she couldn’t walk the next day. Tosh even started making transportation inquiries. This provided something of a gloomy note on which to end an otherwise outstanding day. Screaming brats dashing around the halls outside our dorm also failed to amuse. I was able to get to sleep, but I did not enjoy my rest as much as the night before.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: