Three Shires Head and Axe Edge

My relationship with the Peak District has been like a complacent lover; slightly bored and taking it for granted. However a now long standing "We must meet up" with Nina and Fiona who I met online through Twitter, gave me a firm nudge to rekindle this affair and to pay more attention.

Sometimes paying more attention, maybe focussing on a different aspect or adjusting expectations, does wonders and so we decided on visiting the western side of the Peak District, it being more equidistant for us which seemed only fair. And what a great decision that was. New landscape, new terrain, new geography, new people!

We met at the famous Cat and Fiddle Inn, the second highest pub in the UK after Tan Hill, and after enthusiastic greetings and getting booted up we set off down the obvious path heading down across the moor.
Where I had driven through some very thick fog to get here, now the sun was trying to warm (the word 'burn' would be a bit overkill) through the clouds; they started to lift and views started to appear, the horizon receding further. Walking was easy and good fun as we quickly got to find out more about one another and our conversations were punctuated with a lot of laughter.

We continued on this path, ignoring one that spurred off to the right, and continued downhill along Danebower Hollow to negotiate a stile, cross the road, over a crash barrier (very picturesque, or maybe not), over another stile and down past Nina's chimney (she made it her own) to a young River Dane. In fact now we were picking up the yellow signs of DVW, or Dane Valley Way, which we were to follow for a while.

The valley seemed to be considering showing us the faintest hint of green: spring? Maybe. And just to provide that contrast, a small group of walkers were stepping down the hill on the right, a couple wearing red jackets that just accentuated that beautiful, hopeful colour.

Following the brook, which wasn't grand enough to be called a river to my mind, the valley walls closed in before opening at Panniers Pool and the packhorse bridge above it, connecting paths used by walkers now but which has been used since at least medieval times to transport goods, coal etc. The small group of walkers had stopped on the far side of the bridge and seemed to be a friendly bunch as they paused over their flasks of tea to exchange hellos with us.

We stopped for a few minutes. I thought Nina was going for a dip as she went out of sight to photograph the pool leaving me and Fiona chin wagging.
This was going to be our planned lunch stop, but it was only about 20 past 11 so we continued on, allowing some horses to pass before we walked up the beautiful valley with pockets of pine trees and fascinating rock formations on the stream bottom.

Moving out of the picturesque greenery towards Orchard Farm, we met a metalled single track road which we followed uphill for a while before striking off on higher moorland again, on Axe Edge Moor. The eastern side of the moor gives rise to the source of the River Dove, one of the major rivers of the Peak District and celebrated in style a few miles south wards at Dovedale (a different Dovedale to the Lake District one). In fact this is the same River Dove that Izaak Walton wrote about fly fishing in "The Compleat Angler".

Very steadily getting to the top, and pausing to examine mole hills and deep, black groughs in the hillside (ie we were a bit out of breath), the conversation continued, focussing more and more on food! The hill flattened out into a boggy top. I was reading off the map, trying to work out exactly where we were as there wasn't really a defined footpath to follow. A bit of a wobble off route took us slightly eastwards of where I'd planned, though of no issue. Seeing that it looked to be bog for the foreseeable future we picked a likely looking spot on the other side of a back road, supporting a wooden barrier; a potential seat. I sat on the ground and fired up the Caldera Cone (yes, of course I brought it with me, with meths this time) so I could boil water to make coffee. Fiona expressed an element of wonder at it, more so when I lifted the lid of my kettle to see steam billow out. The coffee wasn't up to 'Service' standards but Nina still had some served not very decorously to her. Sandwiches and coffee stashed in our stomachs we didn't linger too long before setting off on the last leg of the walk.

Crossing the last main road, the A54 that goes to the Cat and Fiddle, we were so busy chatting that we walked too far North for about 200m, passing what I thought could be a "Pixie Parliament" (or maybe a well of some sort), until Nina asked, "Where's the pub gone?" We looked at each other and consulted the map. Yes, we'd gone too far and decided that although we could extend the walk and add a bit of road walking, instead we'd backtrack to where we were supposed to walk, and to follow a "broken wall".

This section was surprisingly close to the road but thankfully it veered away. Before long the path joined a road section which we amused ourselves with by forming a click clacking, pole tapping caterpillar by walking one in front of another, me relaying which songs were stuck in my head, various inspections of the broken state of the wall and keeping check of the proximity of the pub.

Surprise, we didn't go in, but instead parted the walk with promises of meeting up again in the Peaks or maybe Wales and sampling some wares then.

All in all it was a great walk, with an added, extra post-walk Twitter analysis and befriending on Facebook. I hadn't laughed so much for a long time and even writing this walk up is putting another big smile on my face, to remember such excellent company.

Fiona can be found on Twitter at @Fionascot, and Nina at @Smirnie71.

And finally, for anyone wanting to see the route, including the extra spur, I used Social Hiking for the first time on this walk and you can see that here.