Today the hills were totally alive with the sound of music, if only directly into my head via the magic of Spotify and my iPhone.
You might be wondering why I was in the Peak District singing to a load of sheep at 6.30am this morning. Nope it wasn’t a night out gone terribly wrong or just a normal night out for a Yorkshire lad.
Back on familiar pastures (the Hope Valley) this week after a Derwent Edge walk with ‘The Walking Dan’ last weekend. I was, once again, walking with the crowd from Freshwalks.co.uk. And what a crowd it was as almost 30-strong team of us set out from Edale on a beautiful Spring Friday morning.
Walks collided these past few days with an already committed to walk clashing with a hastily arranged business networking walk, plus the usual Sunday jaunt with the boys too. I’m thinking of changing my name to Walky McWalkface! Good training though as the spectre of the National Three Peak Challenge looms large.
My pal and experienced hiker Andy surprised me on a recent walk by saying that he’d never done much walking in The Peak District – never done Kinder Scout, the Hope Valley or the Derwent Valley.
So today was the day when I would be taking him for a yomp around my usual playground.
I’d chosen the Upper Derwent Valley and Derwent Edge for this trip, promising to drag him up and around Kinder at a later stage. The main reason for avoiding Kinder is that I would actually, properly, be The Walking Dad on this trip as my eldest, Christian (I mean Chris!), would be joining us and he had only done a Kinder trek the weekend before.
The Walking Dad 