Weekly roundup – dog friendly news in the Peak District

Challenging weather for dog walks

This week has been a bit challenging from a weather perspective. I don’t mean huge snow drifts and difficult driving conditions – we’ve already had all that. I mean how quickly the weather changes. To demonstrate what I mean, I thought I’d show you some pictures of a dog walk that I did earlier in the week.

I decided to walk along the Monsal Trail before doing the school pickup, and was enjoying a pleasant winter sunshine walk. It was so cold, I had resorted to wearing cycling shorts underneath my jeans and I had no less than 5 layers on my top half! The sun was out and the dusting of snow that we’d had was sparkling, so I decided to take a picture.

Shortly afterwards, I met one of my usual doggie walking friends and we remarked on how lovely the weather was. I don’t think I’d walked much further, when the first snow flakes started to waft around. I looked up, and noticed that the sky had gone from bright blue to light grey and foggy looking. It had been no more than 10 minutes from taking the first picture, and now look at the weather…….

They say the weather in the Peak District changes fast, but this is ridiculous.

Not sunny in the South

A couple of days later, after watching in amazement the media pictures from the South, showing traffic chaos in what seemed like less than an inch of slush, I decided to take a picture of some of the snow spectacles up here. I couldn’t resist taking a picture of this beautiful snow drift. This had appeared after a day of very light snow and strong winds. Amazing the force of nature.

 Discovering new dog walks

During a particularly nice day this week, I decided to go to the Goyt Valley for a dog walk. I parked at The Street car park, which lies almost in between Errwood and Fernilee reservoir.

I walked to the top of the carpark (uphill) and followed the roughly trodden footpath which runs parallel with the road. After a short walk, the path naturally crosses towards the road and you will notice a five bar gate on the right hand side with a signpost to the Midshires Way. The post is signed Hoo Moor and Fernilee Reservoir.

This path is actually a wide stoned track which goes through the centre of some woodland. It was such a beautiful day, I took a photo.

There are signs indicating that there is forestry work being undertaken, so care would be needed if you heard vehicles moving around. There was plenty of evidence that tree felling actuvities had taken place!

I continued along the track until I reached the gate at the end. At this point, you have an opportunity to turn right and go towards Fernilee reservoir or carry straight on towards a farm and head to Taxal. I chose the latter option, but in hindsight  it would have been far better to turn back and follow the signs to Fernilee, since the walk was not particularly stunning and Tilly had to negotiate a nasty stile, where the local farmer had decided to fence all around the stile and not allow any animals under or around it. The only resort was to jump over it. Thankfully Tilly is pretty athletic and managed it without any problems.

By the time I had negotiated my way round the various footpaths and stiles I arrived back at Fernilee reservoir and walked through the woodland back towards Errwood reservoir and The Street car park, where I had begun the walk.

Looking forward to the weekend

I don’t think the weather is going to be very nice. It’s given rain and light snow during the weekend. There are the usual Craft fairs on in Bakewell, but I think it will be a case of donning the waterproofs having a swift march around with the dog (or at least my husband will..) and then off for a bit of Retail Therapy in the “big smoke” (aka Sheffield!)

Enjoy!