Woodland walk

We sat inside on a rain soaked Sunday, and decided that we should just brave the rain, and get out for some fresh air! We headed out towards Derbyshire and the lovely Peak District with no real plan, just to see where we ended up. After a brief stop at The Grouse Children’s Farm, we set off towards the High Peak area. Annabelle announced that she needed a wee, so we stopped in a car park to use her travel potty, and suddenly realised we were at a country park – just what we were looking for!

We had found Hayfield, and the Pennine Brideleway, with a sign pointing towards a bluebell wood. Just what we needed, some woodland to keep us under cover and fairly dry!

We followed the path down into the woodland, and then along the bridleway where it opened out to fields, and views of the beautiful Sett Valley and Hayfield Reservoir. Annabelle loved spotting the flowers amongst the trees in the woods, and she quickly learnt to stay away from stinging nettles!

We were fascinated by a huge crop of these giant leaves that were taller than Annabelle. We had a good long look at the fat slugs munching the leaves, although shamefully, we are not sure what plant they are. They look like rhubarb but if anyone can enlighten us, let us know! Time to invest in a field guide I think. (Or find an app?!)

 

Annabelle is really interested by tunnels at the moment, and she loved the way the trees hung over the path in a few places along our walk, telling us we were going through the ‘tree nunnel’. She also spent plenty of time running off ahead exploring the path, turning round to us and shouting ‘bye’! It was very quiet thanks to the weather (just us and a few brave dog walkers) so it was nice for her to have some freedom.

As well as all the talk about nature, identifying (most of) the trees, plants and animals we also managed to squeeze in some counting with a few rousing rounds of some counting songs to keep us entertained on the way back to the car. Dave was sticking with the traditional favourites like ’10 green bottles’ whereas I put on my teacher’s head and we sang about ‘5 little monkeys jumping on the bed’, ‘5 little fish went swimming one day’, ‘5 little men in a flying saucer’ etc!

In the end, the weather didn’t spoil our fun at all, in fact it made for a lovely quiet walk, with plenty of puddles and drains for Annabelle to explore, and a whole new game of ‘catch the rain’

This is definitely a trip out I would recommend and I am sure we will be back soon with a new collection of annoyingly catchy children’s songs to keep us entertained!

  1. Looks like Gunnera. It likes moist places and is good at escaping into the wild.

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