No snow on snow but grey, cold and icy on the tops! As I said to John when we met at the Lime Kiln for a brew and breakfast butty - scandal they’ve put their prices up! - there won’t be many out today! Wrong. Perhaps it was the post Christmas need for a bit of exercise or just the promise of a dry day after so much rain but nearly 20 Saddos and Saddettes drifted in for the first Saddo of 2018.
With so many in tow, Daisy Nook was the obvious place for a lunch-stop. The only debate was whether we went over Hartshead Pike on the way there or on the way back! Climbing inexorably out of the Tame Valley, through Grasscroft, Lydgate and along Quick Edge Road we eventually paused for yoghurty raisin treats and a chance to look at how far we’d climbed. It was quite impressive looking back towards Greenfield with Uppermill hidden behind the bluff of Wharmton Hill. The ascent took its toll with one Alan bailing out because of cramp and t’other Alan - we still had one in reserve - accompanying him home.
The climbing done it was swiftly down to Top Mossley, oddly also called Brook Bottom, and through Grotton to the Yellow Brick Road (The former railway line from Oldham to Uppermill) and then along the Medlock Valley down to Park Bridge, now a country park but back in the day a thriving ironworks with its own colliery linked to the Bardsley Branch canal by a tramway. Did I ever tell you the rivets for the Eiffel Tower were forged here?
More about Park Bridge can be found here:
We followed the derelict canal to its one time feeder reservoir, Crime Lake, before speeding down the centre of the temporarily closed road to the valley bottom past the tree fellers - hence the road closed signs! - and onto lunch at the Garden Centre.
Fortified and nicely warmed up it was decided that no first Saddo of the year would be complete without an ascent of Hartshead Pike - well that’s what I decided - and so up Alt Hill Lane and onto Twirl Hill Road where we paused to inspect the ancient Tythe Stone and mend John’s puncture which did give everyone else the opportunity to make their way at their own pace up to the Pike!
Thereafter it is flat or downhill all the way back home, through Top Mossley, past the Organ Builders down to the Tame Valley again at Roaches Lock then along the canal back to the Lime Kiln where some of us managed another brew and Bakewell Tart!
A great day out and thanks everyone for New Year good cheer and company.
Rob Newton