Easter Weekend - Day 3

Distance: 18.5 miles
Ascent : 750m
Weather : overcast
Slips: 1 and frankly that's a miracle
Curlew, Kestrel, Treecreeper, Squirrels

Another comfortable night, and another gupping big breakfast. We were off just before ten, and avoided being mown down by a tractor with a big spike on the front, disappointing to the nearby buzzards.

Before long we had been accosted by two lots of Ramblers, one clutching a torn out page from an AA Road atlas asking the way to Teggs Nose and another asking if we'd seen some of their party. The mislaid Ramblers were about 50m ahead, if that. Things quietened down for a while, we walked through Macclesfield Forest on pleasant paths, with birds singing and the sun shining through the trees. Leaving the forest, along the road as some footpaths were closed due to storm damage, we entered farmland complete with slippy mud, edged with holly, gorse and brambles. A bright white treecreeper was spotted.

We stopped briefly on the way up Croker Hill for some Easter mini eggs, lest the Easter Bunny get angry. We haven't seen any bunnies yet, the one I thought I saw turned into a squirrel. Up on Croker Hill there were curlews, skylarks and pippets singing and we met Millie the very excited spaniel. Croker Hill has a large telecoms tower on it, visible from home (well almost, you can see it from the top of Bishops Park) and it looks quite impressive from afar. Close up, not so much. We walked past aerials and down a grassy slope on the other side.

The next high top of the day was The Cloud, which is about 3 miles away as the crow flies. We are not crows. The Gritstone Trail loops around, first along a hill top lane then through sodden fields with flooded areas, over grassy slopes with muddy gates, along grassy meadows with muddy duck board bridges and by the side of disused canals with ankle deep muddy banks.

Once up on The Cloud, it turned out to be a proper gritstone heath, complete with trig point and a toposcope. The way down was along a muddy rocky path, with sticky out rocks and tree roots. A group of lads was messing about in the stream, much to the obvious disgust of one of their group who's black Nike Airs are never going to be quite the same again. Crossing a few (wet, muddy) fields brought us on to the Biddulph Valley Way, which is a disused railway that, most unusually, seems to be both solid and dry underfoot and leads directly to the place you want to go. We followed this into Congleton and then it was just a quick walk into town.