It’s reached that time of year again where I have to use up my holiday days and so I’ve booked a bunch of days off across the remaining weeks of the holiday year. This year I am also participating in the Virgin Pulse Global Challenge at work - basically strapping a pedometer on and monitoring the amount of steps I do each day. It’s team-based and has little virtual badges for various achievements, with the idea that it’s promoting a more healthy and active lifestyle. Whilst I always did a reasonable amount of walking, it’s certainly helped me become more active and definitely made me more aware of my day to day activity levels.

So combining extra days off and the GCC, I decided to have a nice long walk with the dog. I live pretty much right on the edge of urban Sheffield which has the advantage that almost straight out of my front door I am into the countryside of the Rivelin Valley.

I would have included a GPX file of my route in this post, but unfortunately my track logging/navigation app Backcountry Navigator, which is normally excellent, stopped logging at some point. I suspect it was when I tried to take a panorama shot on my phone. This did mean I also lost the stats for the walk, total distance walked, etc.

Rivelin Valley

Starting at the stone bridge over the Rivelin next to the zebra crossing (53.397131, -1.511900), I headed left over into the valley. I followed the trail, taking the right hand fork over the footbridge and walking past Walkley Bank Tilt. There are numerous ponds like this in the valley, created to power mills and forges in Sheffield’s industrial past. I crossed at Hollins lane continued past the water park, cafe and kid’s playground to the end of the first section.

Crossing Rivelin Valley Road at the s-bend, I walked past the ‘waterfall’ and continued down the track. Walking past one of the ponds I saw my first heron of the day - a fairly common sight in this part of the valley. There are a couple of footbridges that cross the Rivelin, I took the second, heading up the hill and skirting fields with sheep in. A left turn follows a track up to Manchester road, which I crossed and entered Blackbrook Wood.

Blackbrook Wood

The path up through Blackbrook road is a little rough, a little grown up with vegetation and pretty steep. When I reached the top I had a sip of water and poured some into a bowl for Roger. Turning right and following the lower edge of the edge of the golf course we eventually reached the clearing in the trees and were rewarded with a lovely view back over the valley. The sun was out and the valley looked magnificently green and lush. It may be worth walking back up here in a few weeks time, since in places the leaves are already starting to yellow.

Fox Hagg/Fox Holes Plantation

Crossing Lodge Lane, we entered the Fox Hagg nature reserve. This is a patchwork of different habitat types, both woodland and moorland. There are several trails through the reserve, but we tended to the tops, with plenty of miles left to walk I didn’t fancy dropping down only to have to walk back up. The views here out over the valley to Rivelin Dams are very nice, although marred somewhat at the moment by a massive crane because of construction at the waterworks.

We crossed into the Fox Holes plantation and continued along the tops until we veered left a bit and dropped down onto Wyming Brook, only just touching the top of the brook and crossing and out through the car park.

Redmires

Turning right, we walked down Redmires road a way. The wind had picked up and on the exposed road I had to delve into my bag and grab my jacket. I was relieved when we were able to cross into the permissive path on Yorkshire Water land and skirt the bottom of the Lower Redmires Reservoir. The path turns right and from here you’re able to follow the edge of the three reservoirs heading for the plantation at the top of the upper reservoir.

Stanage/Burbage

I stopped on a rock at the bottom of the wide track that leads up the side of the plantation to give Roger some water, which he refused, having filled himself up on puddles walking round the reservoirs. I also scoffed one of my butties.

Continuing up the track we reached Stanage Pole which marks the border between South Yorkshire and Derbyshire. Further along the track we hit Stanage Edge the magnificent gritstone edge and climbers mecca with beautiful views over the Hope Valley. We ‘walked’ along the top of the edge. I use quotes there, because Roger, not remotely tired after walking so far, decided to treat it like an adventure and was bounding and bouncing up and down the rocks and boulders that make up the path here, causing me to have to jog along behind him being dragged by his lead. At the very end of the edge I stopped for 10 minutes to eat my second buttie whilst enjoying the view.

After the sandwich stop we headed down the track from the edge to the road and crossed to the top of Burbage. Crossing the brook via the stepping stones under the bridges. At this point there are multiple paths to choose from which more or less end up in the same place. You can take the right hand side off across to Higger Tor, the top of Burbage Edge, or the wide track at the bottom of the edge. Figuring that the we’d be a little less exposed to the wind we chose the latter, walking past quite a few people out climbing the edge.

At the end we crossed over the road and into the Longshaw Estate, following the path a short way up until it hits the B6521 where we left the estate and walked out to Hathersage Road and the Fox House pub. I decided to stop for a pint here, since I figured we’d pretty much hit the halfway mark. I kind of wish I hadn’t since the pub was packed, it being the school holidays, and people didn’t seem to understand how queues at the bar worked.

Houndkirk Moor

Leaving the pub and walking down the side of Hathersage Road back towards Sheffield a short way, we crossed onto the Houndkirk Moor track and began walking across the moor. I’ve always loved this as an easy walk, and have often gotten the bus out to Fox House and walked back to Sheffield this way. It’s quite gentle with all the ups and downs being fairly gradual, and it affords an excellent view back over the city. I had fun trying to work out exactly which areas of Sheffield corresponded to the blocks of houses that I could see in the distance. It certainly makes you appreciate the ‘greenness’ of the city.

At the end of the moor we hit Lady Canning’s plantation and walked down the track at the side of it, ending up at the Norfolk Arms where I stopped for a sit in the beer garden and another beer. I was a little disappointed with the choice of beers, which were a little bit more boring brown beer than the last time I was there. I was, at this point, wondering which way I ought to walk, either down the Limb or Porter valleys. In the end I chose the one which would land me closer to home, so went out of the car park, down the track that leads through the alpaca farm and down into the Porter Valley.

Porter Valley

The trail here is pretty much flat, and very much a reminder of Sheffield’s water powered industrial past. There are various points where I could have left the trail, either up onto Fullwood Road or into Greystones, but getting a little bit weary now I decided to keep to the flat for now and walked all the way down to the end of Endcliffe Park. This is where I properly rejoined urban Sheffield, walking up Brocco Bank and into Broomhill and then up into Crookes. By now both Roger and myself had slowed down somewhat and I think were feeling a little sore. I stopped for another pint in the Punchbowl on Crookes. Again, disappointed that the beer selection seems to have gone downhill. Perhaps it’s the fault of the pubco - I did notice a big ‘For Lease’ sign on the building.

I really enjoyed the walk, probably the longest single walk I’ve done, and great to be able to do it from my doorstep. I was happy in the end with my step count - 47,700, even though it was just shy of a magic 50k.