GM Ringway Day 9

 Stage 11 Littleborough to Norden

Distance 12.5 miles

Ascent 450m (the route guide reckons 512m but it looks like this is unfiltered raw data from the mapping software)

Weather: warm and humid

After some early wasp excitement, we were off and walking into Shaw for breakfast and to catch the tram to Rochdale and from there the train to Littleborough. We left the train station and headed along the Rochdale Canal, keeping an eye out for all the footpaths closed due to building of new flood defences. The official detour cuts this bit out and shortens the walk, but we (being us) decided to carry on further along the canal and walk back along the road instead. 

Crossing the road where we met up with the route, we headed up a steep bank with a beware of the bull sign, over a broken stile and into some woods that could have been quite pretty if not for all the rubbish. The path leads behind some rather posh houses ( but was lined with dog poo, litter, fly tipping and bits of car) and then up through a housing estate, through a rather distressing farmyard and finally out on to the moors.

The track follows the Pennine Bridleway and Weighvers Way to Watergrove reservoir and the memorial woods. We walked around the rather empty looking reservoir (it's been a very dry year) and had a sit down in the memorial garden, watching the bees buzzing on the wildflowers and listening to the birds in the trees.

From there a stony path winds over the moors, between big old trees and tumble down farms now occupied only by sheep. We met a chatty man, who told us all about the area including the old coalmines, how stone from the quarry here is being used to build Barcelona cathedral, the building of the reservoirs, land ownership and various lords of the manor including Lord Byron. While he was telling us this, we watched the police empound and remove an illegally parked van. 

There are zigzags of paths all over the map here, including the Lancashire Way, we followed one that had tiny cows on it. Crossed the busy road A671 and went into Healey Dell, arriving at the visitor centre just after closing time at 4.20pm.  We did a circuit of the dell, seeing the waterfalls, old railway workings and siamese twin bridges before walking up a steep lane to the pretty hamlet of Prickshaw and on to Rooley Moor. There is a neat brick road over Rooley Moor, called the Cotton Famine Road because it was built by impoverished workers from the Rochdale cotton mills who refused to work with cotton from plantations that used slave labour during a depression brought about by various global supply issues including the American Civil War.  The path became very rocky and quite hard on the feet, and the car park at Greenbooth reservoir was quite a relief. The path down into Norden was busy with people enjoying the afternoon sunshine. We arrived at the bus stop with a minute to spare, and caught the bee network bus into Rochdale and then the tram home. The buses have contactless payment, all the stops are announced and it was all very convenient.