Hollingworth Lake Round

Distance : 16.5 miles
Ascent : 450m
Weather : warm and sunny
Meadow pipits, skylarks,  pheasant and grouse. A few curlew, Canada geese, pied wagtail, ducks with loads of ducklings, swallow, house/sand martin, reed bunting.
People with cans of lager: 2
Not very well hidden hiding people: 2

We left the car at the aerial and walked down along the track to the Transpennine trail towards Hollingworth Lake. The lake was pretty busy, the ice cream van just driving up had missed a lot of sales. We visited the visitor centre and got our ice creams there, before heading off through the nature reserve towards the canal.

We followed the canal, stopping at a handy bench for lunch, where we were guarded by a goose who swam over to us then proceeded to hiss at everyone who passed by. He seemed disappointed but stoical that we didn't share our lunch with him.

From the canal we went up to Warland Reservoir, the very wet places still pretty wet despite the dry weather, discovering that the dam wall is still being repaired and the diversion still in place. This adds another mile on to the route. We had decided to not visit Studley Pike today anyway because of weather warnings for thunder later. As it was the day stayed dry.

We returned along the Pennine Way passed the Aigen Stone and over Blackstone Edge back to the car.