Hollingworth Lake

Distance: 21 miles
Ascent: 750m
Weather: cloudy,  windy
Nosy cows, heron, common sandpiper,  geese and ducks, swallows, wheatears, cute lambs, Shetland pony foal, short eared owl, very angry dogs, magic cows/horse.

We had second breakfast and delayed setting off until the worst of the rain had stopped. Rob wore his waterproofs for about half the walk, although it didn't rain very hard it was quite drizzly and quite cold in the wind. Plus there's a possibility he's coming down with a cold.

We walked along the track and down through Pingot Quarry,  around the field of cows who came to say hello, and seemed quite keen to come through the gate, and into Newhey to Ogden Reservoirs. We had lunch and did some litter picking, deciding
 there would be a bin at Hollingworth Lake so we went that way. At the lake, we remarked that in all our time here we'd never walked all the way around it,  so we did. We also did a bit of bird watching. There were quite a few people walking around,  but not the crowds you see here on a sunny day.

On the way back under the motorway,  the small herd of cows that had been sitting placidly by the cattle grid had turned into a horse. We went along the valley that runs parallel to the M62 up to the aerial,  following the more sheltered footpath rather than the overused and churned up track.

Over White Hill and round to Readycon Reservoir,  we stopped to put on warm layers as the temperature had dropped noticeably during the day. We also had flapjacks and the last drops of tea. Crossing the road and continuing down to Piethorne,  we then followed the footpath up over Edge Gate to Brushes Clough, where by this time the sun was near setting. We watched an owl hunting and continued down through the trees to the quarry, then back the usual way.