Rochdale Way Day 3

Wardle to Shaw

Distance 21 miles

Little lambs, stonechat, fire, oyster catcher, deer, buzzards, midges

We started off the day with a forgotten phone, a near deer encounter and an angry bus driver (which seems to be the default for bus drivers, perhaps understandably.) We got off the bus in Wardle and walked up the lane and on the footpath up someone's drive and under their washing, across the field and on to the stone paved access road to the reservoir car park. The route goes along under the dam wall and around the reservoir and ponds, where there were deer and tufty ducks, before turning up through the woods and up on to the moors.

There are no Rochdale Way signs here, and the route on the map didn't really correspond with any of the paths on the ground, so we headed in the general direction on sheep trods and tracks, ending up at a corner of a field with a big wall and no gate or obvious exit. One wall negotiated, we continued around another wall skirting the hillside on some very dry grass and bracken, then headed up the hill to come down on a clearer path. The path disappeared into bogs, with a bit of backtracking we found some rocks that crossed over the stream and a path with some wooden bridges across the bogs. 

A very eroded path led down the steep hillside, by an air shaft for the Summit Tunnel and over a stream that had at some point quite recently washed most of the path away. After picking our way over this and over a rickety stile, the condition of the path improved and it gently zigzagged its way down through a quarry into the valley. From the partially washed away road at the bottom it was clear how much damage the water had done.

We crossed the canal and headed up the driveway on the other side, passing the farms which have now fenced in the footpath, neatly containing it within the stream / bog, and up on to the moors under Warland Reservoir. Here we stopped on a wide rock for a break and a foot faff (our socks probably didn't dry out much in ten minutes but it was quite nice to take wet shoes off for a bit) while watching the growing plumes of smoke on the horizon.

As we went along the track to Blackstone Edge Reservoir, the smoke and fire on the distant hillside became visible, and there were a lot of fire engines and firemen with fire beaters. Our route took us around the opposite side of the hill, although I did read that a couple of hours later the road was closed and the White House Inn didn't open that evening because the fire was close, and down the roman road towards Lydgate and Whittaker Lane.

The Rochdale Way goes along the lane into the golf course directly to the clubhouse and Whittaker, which is a pretty hamlet of stone cottages, before going down through some oak woods with a green woodpecker, around a fancy farm house with fancy sheep and down towards Hollingworth Lake. There were lots of people here, many coming and going in taxis. Leaving the crowds, we had a rest in the sunshine just off the path, before heading up under the motorway and along the rocky path to Piethorne Reservoir.

The path goes around the reservoirs (Piethorne, Kitcliffe and Ogden) before crossing the road on a sharp corner and up on to the moors to skirt around a come down through the farm at Top O' Th' Hill. We feared the farmer was spreading something brown and unpleasant looking, but he stopped just as we approached. After a bit of hesitation we walked though the farmyard down to the path at the back of the yard, much to the surprise of a chap walking his dog who asked the farmer if you could get down that way, to which the answer was a definite yes you can.

The path (which wasn't as wet or farmyard effluent-y as last time we used it, brings you out at Jubilee Colliery nature reserve, and from here we headed through Dunwood Park into Shaw.

Rochdale Way Day 2

Heywood to Wardle

Distance: 18 miles, about 21 in total

Weather: chilly, warm and sunny, chilly, then wet

Flies swallowed:1

Midges up noses:1

Dipper, jay, meadow pipits, curlew, woodpecker, ponies

We got buses to Rochdale and then Heywood, getting off at the cemetery where we'd ended Day 1. Uneven stone steps led down from the main road into fields, which led around to the track to Crimble Mill. There were quite a lot of dog-walkers and groups out walking here, and it was even busier when we got to Queens Park. There are old turnstiles randomly here, which date from Victorian times when the boating lake was popular but is less boating and more honky geese these days.

We left the park over a bridge into woodland and followed the river towards Simpson Clough and through the caravan park into Gelder Woods. It was slow going here, mostly because it was so lovely I kept stopping to look and take photos. It was also very wet and muddy underfoot, plenty of people have been this way but we didn't see anyone else. 

We passed a cafe that was closed (one of the signs on the door said it would be open tomorrow and over the Easter weekend) where they really like monkey puzzle trees. There weren't any monkeys in the trees, but there was a squirrel. The woodland turned to farms and horse fields, then moorland. We stopped for a shoe faff and to reapply suncream before crossing the busy A680 and heading up to Knowle Moor. We had the place to ourselves, apart from the bees and some disinterested sheep. 

After tea and snacks we dropped down under the wind turbines and zigzagged down the hillside to the reservoirs, crossing between Naden Middle and Lower Reservoirs and back up the other side of the valley. There were a lot of people here, especially once we got 100 yards of the carpark.

The track of the moors led to Windy Bottom Farm and Prickshaw, where the lanes are very narrow, and onto the disused railway line into Healey Dell. It was very busy here, the road we had to cross was busy and the public toilets close just before 4pm.

From Healey there are paths everywhere and it's not clear on the OS map which is the Rochdale Way. We walked up to the Pennine Bridleway to Lobden golf course, where there were many shaggy ponies, and then a path that is definitely the Rochdale Way to the top of Watergrove Reservoir and down Ramsden Road, which might be the Rochdale Way or the Pennine Bridleway.

We had a look at bus times and decided to stop here, and get the bus from Wardle. When we got there the app said it was delayed so we walked another twenty minutes down to the A58 main road where there are more frequent buses. One arrived within a couple of minutes.

Rochdale Way Day 1

Shaw to Heywood

Distance: 18 miles on route, 22 miles total

Cloudy, occasional sun, occasional drizzle

Skylarks, geese, giant sheep, deer's bum, egret, siskin

We joined the Rochdale Way in Dunwood Park above Jubilee Bends and zigzagged up through the trees to the exit at the top of the hill towards Whitfield Farm. It has been wet the last couple of days and the ground was waterlogged, the track was churned up by vehicles and the mud was quite slippy. Up o the top of the hill with the sheep things were easier going. We have walked various bits of the Rochdale Way over the years, but never the whole thing. The one section that always stuck with me was a very, very boggy section of the path between two dry-stone walls on the moors. We came down off the hill here. It wasn't that bad. Either my tolerance of bog has changed, or perhaps I was just wearing the wrong shoes that day. 

The route goes along the length of Thornham Lane but doesn't visit Tandle Hill, we thought about making a detour but today's route was long enough as it is. A bit along the canal and we were at Hopwood Hall (college and university centre, according to the sign) where there were quite a lot of students running around. Hopwood Hall has had a varied history, from alleged visits from Guy Fawkes to more recently (and plausibly) Black Sabbath.

After a loop around the hall's woodland nature reserve we walked through Middleton town centre down to Alkrington Woods, passing the chemical works and Alkrington Hall which is now private residences, and up a lane around the back of a housing estate that was quite busy and had no pavements. We passed some big fences of a driving range and crossed Bowlee park, past an ornamental turf barrage balloon, and a massive empty car park which is used for car boot sales and markets. At the park community hub (which was closed) we had a sit down for tea and snacks.

We walked around the school and left the pavement at Birch into farmland, around Top'o'th'Hill towards Siddal Farm. It was here that things started to get difficult. We negotiated a tied up gate, accompanied by some very friendly cows, and used a gap at the side of another gate which had been shored up with a piece of broken stile to get into the next field. At the place where the stile should have been was a deep hole in the ground with running water down it. We left the field over a rickety (but at least present) stile into a farmyard while being barked at by large dogs. There was more confusion and climbing across the next few fields, where the stiles are missing, the gates padlocked and fences 'repaired' with barbed wire and twigs. We made it out alive, at a half decent stile with visible waymarker signs on it.

The next section took us into a golf course, where the Rochdale Way arrow pointed us up a path that was completely overgrown with brambles. Determined not to be put off, we headed up it, emerging at the 3rd Tee where the footpath abruptly stopped. There was a waymarker post in the middle of a bog/flood/river just down from the tee, which was a bog too far, so we skirted around the edge of the rough hoping that no one shouted at us, and rejoined the footpath on the other side. The footpath then went straight up the fairway and round the back of the driving range before going up the lane to the main road. We walked up to the bus stop, ignoring the amused looks from other walkers at the state of our mud splattered legs.