Day two started with a crisp morning frost, sun shining and clear blue skies above. Jacob had discovered a blister the night before, so a compeed plaster was applied and he continued to proceed with the days walk ahead.
After hot showers for all, we packed our backpacks and headed down to the cafe for some breakfast.
The day was looking glorious, so we set off on our way back to Hayfield at about 10:20am all walking the first few hundred metres quite gingerly. Graham had mentioned the night before that we would be climbing up another brook, scrambling over rocks, which would be great fun. Being April 1st Russ suggested that Graham may have been playing an April's fool, and there would be another route to take...........this was not the case.
The start of the climb was up a rocky path to the side of the brook (Grinds Brook)constantly getting higher until we met the water and rocks that we had to climb. Ahead lied more and more rocks, and a pretty much vertical climb at the end, behind was Edale and the mind blowing views that were getting more and more dramatic the further we climbed. Having a few stops on the way up gave us a chance to take some photos of what we had done.
This climb was a bit different though and it WAS great fun, all went up this one with smiles on our faces and at the top a sense of accomplishment was visible to see :-)
So we were again at the top of Kinder Scout and proceeded to head towards Edale Cross and Jacobs Ladder (situated on the Pennine Way) where we would continue on a a route called Brown Knoll. This part of the walk took us past some quite interesting rocks that had been severely shaped from the ever changing weather over the last few million years.
When we hit Brown Knoll the wind picked up, but the sun was still shining and you could see for miles and miles around, inc Stockport in the far distance. Walking along we could see what lied ahead, which was a couple more accents, but advised that these were gentle compared to what we had climbed. Russ & I stopped for a bite to eat out of the strong winds, whilst Graham, Debi, Jacob and Lilly carried on to the bottom of the next accent. We met them again at the bottom of Mount Famine where they were also taking on some sustenance for the last part of the walk.
We stuck to the ridge along the top instead of taking the "tourist route" to Hayfield. This made it all the more worth while because again the views were spectacular and very dramatic with the small amount of clouds creating shadows across the valley. When we got to the bottom at Hayfield after an adventurous route down through the woods, we heard a familiar voice on the road above.......It was Dawn greeting us standing outside the Sportsman Pub which signified the end of our weekend. Dawn said she would have walked down the steps which we had to walk up first to get to the finish point, but Russ found that hard to believe :-)
The whole weekend was fantastic, stunning scenery, terrific company and more than we could ask for with the weather.
Andrew
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