A good Good Friday

What a lovely day Friday was, not only because we had such lovely weather, but also for D and I as we had a lovely day out in Derbyshire with two of our very best friends C and A. We had arranged to go for a walk and D and C decided on Dovedale which is nearish to Ashbourne. Neither D or I had ever been before but having looked at the map and some images we knew we would be in for a lovely walk and sure enough it was. We made the very good decision to meet early, 9-30pm in the car park at the start of our walk. There were very few cars there when we arrived in stark contrast to when we leave where the place was heaving. We walked up by the side of the river, which was in the bottom of a steep sided valley and crossed over the stepping stones

We carried on up the valley

passing the coin trunk, that reminded me of the one at Bolton Abbey.

Up and down we walked, it was so lovely, peaceful with just the noise of the river and birds

We passed Ilam rock, an amazing limestone pillar

The wild flowers were just beginning to carpet the wood

Continuing on we passed the Dove Holes caves

The path then took us into the lovely little village of  Milldale.

We walked a little further till we came to a suitable picnic spot and settled down to enjoy the food, the views and the peacefulness. As we retraced our steps it certainly became busy, Milldale looked like this

and that picture wasn't taken at the busiest spot. On reaching the stepping stones there were long queues to get across so we chose to carry on down the same side eventually returning back to the car park which was now jammed solid with not a space to be found. We decided to call it a day and said goodbye to C and A. It took a little time to get onto the main road again, goodness how long it would have taken us if we had stayed another hour. Having got back by 5pm we were able to enjoy a rather nice G&T in the sun before having our tea cooked for us by J.

I hope you have had a lovely weekend too, Happy Easter! L. Anne x