Three Shire Heads

The day was dry and sunny with a cool breeze but the unusual thing was the complete absence of vapour trails in the sky. Because of a huge cloud of volcanic ash drifting over parts of Northern Europe from the eruption of Mount Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, all flights in UK and many other European Countries' airspace have been cancelled since last Monday (12th April).
Starting from the car park near Derbyshire Bridge, about 7 miles from Buxton on the way to Macclesfield, Karen and I followed a footpath onto the open moorland and then along a track which brought us to the road we had followed earlier from Buxton: the A537.
Crossing over this busy road, we walked up onto Axe Edge Moor following a section of the Dane Valley Way long distance footpath until arriving at a minor road we crossed over this, leaving the Dane Valley Way, to follow a footpath heading Southwards to arrive at a junction of two long drystone walls.
We followed along one of these walls to the South West and arrived at the top of a gully with views down to a farm below. We again rejoined the Dane Valley Way for a short distance as it skirted around the top of the gully then passed through a gateway in the wall we had been following bringing us down below some lovely farmhouses and converted barns to arrive on a bridleway track leading down to the extremely picturesque Three Shire Heads.
Three Shire Heads has two small waterfalls and a lovely old packhorse bridge. As it is at least a mile form the nearest road, it manages to avoid the inevitable crowds you would see otherwise. There were only two others there eating sandwiches when we arrived and after we had taken some photos, they left and we had the place to ourselves for a while.
We sat on some rocks and had our lunch with small groups of two or three walkers or mountain bike riders passing every now and then.
After lunch, we headed north along the path following the stream, just over the border in the neighbouring county of Cheshire. We saw a sad sight on a grassy bank: a dead very young lamb with its mother trying to get it to move by nudging it with her nose and her front leg.
Then we spotted two men higher up the grassy bank leaning over what looked like a third person who seemed to be lying down. They then tried to get the third person to stand up but obviously were having difficulty. Just then a young couple arrived from the opposite direction and they also spotted the others and we shouted up if they wanted help.
They didn't appear to hear us so the four of us, myself, Karen and the young couple walked quickly up the grassy bank to where a track was descending. The person who we had seen lying down turned out to be a 27 year old girl who had stumbled and broken her ankle.
As we were luckily very near the A54 main road, the young guy and myself lifted the girl in a sitting position between us while she had her arms around our shoulders and we headed up the remaining slope towards the road while Karen went ahead to see if she could get a mobile phone signal nearer the road (neither of us had any signal where we were) and phone for an ambulance.
She had just managed to get through on her phone when the rest of us arrived and after some confusion explaining to the person taking the call on directions to get to us, we heard a siren approaching a short while later and I flagged down the car with two Paramedics.
Meanwhile, the older of the two men had spotted a group of youths further along the road who the three of them had been going to meet: they were a Duke of Edinburgh's Award group. So he headed off to round up the group of youths while Karen and I headed on our way a short way along the A54. As we were walking up the road, an ambulance passed us on the way to attend the girl with the broken ankle.
We left the A54 to follow a wide track across moorland to eventually arrive opposite the Cat and Fiddle pub which is the second highest Inn in Britain. The pub's other claim to fame is giving its name to this section of A537 road which often appears in winter road reports when the road is closed due to snow.
We walked down the side of the A537 for a short distance before heading down a dirt track above a tea shop for a few hundred metres before dropping down a footpath leading to the edge of a coniferous wood and then after passing around the small valley of Stake Clough, brought us into the wood.
The path eventually brought us to the narrow minor road leading next to the River Goyt and then along this road back to where we had started.
I wore Berghaus trousers, Asolo Fugitive GTX boots and Osprey Kestrel 38 rucksack. It was so warm I only wore a Berghaus shirt carrying everything else in my rucksack.