To Hollingworth Lake

Distance: 16.5 miles
Ascent: 500m
Weather: wet start, turning chillier
Magpies, blackbird,  kestrels, crows, gulls, long tailed tits, Reed bunting (reed bunting!), thrushes, ducks, long tailed tits, cormorants,  lapwings, grey herons, dippers, buzzard. Squirrels, bunnies, Highland cows.

We waited until the rain had eased off slightly before setting off up the hill and along the track towards Brushes Clough and under the aerials towards the lane above Denshaw (seeing a few fat blokes in cars driving to and from the car park.)

Avoiding the small angry dog farm and shitty  muddy lane towards Piethorne Reservoir by taking the footpath across the fields,  we dropped down to join the path. It's also open access here, so we didn't worry too much about following the exact path to the reservoir.

We followed the track around the lakeside and then crossed the wall, heading around to the far side,  where we had lunch and tea. There's a path on the map that goes through the small patch of woodland,  but no sign of any actual paths, so we followed the path by a wall above and round to head towards the motorway bridge.

Over the bridge we crossed farmland,  some of which was rather muddy indeed, and then down wet rocky paths towards Hollingworth Lake.  The flooded farmland provided some good birdwatching,  then the cafe by the lake provided fine coffee and tiffin.

It was getting quite dark by now (about 3:20pm) so we decided to head back along tracks to Piethorne and then along the roads through Newhey and up Buckstones Road to meet the track by the small intake track. Here we turned off road and resorted to torches, startling a couple of Highland cows and doing some stargazing (bit early for the geminids)  along the track to home.