A Walk on High Tor

Keith and Pete arranged to be in Monyash café for 09:30 but we decided on a short walk as the weather was so good.

 High Tor with Riber Castle above

We left the car in the car park at Artists Corner car park in Matlock Bath and crossed the Derwent using a metal footbridge than mad our way up a sloping path passing a Donkey Sanctuary and making our way higher and higher, passing the gates into High Tor Gardens and the continued to reach the highest point above the huge limestone cliff of High Tor.

 Donkey Sanctuary

Making our way down the other side, we followed a path at a junction leading onto the exposed but reasonably wide Dizzy Ledge. This was sign-posted as a One-Way system as the path is narrow and it is easier if everyone walks it in the same direction. As it turned out, we met no one else on Dizzy Ledge even though there were some people about on the other paths on High Tor. The ledge is straight-forward and passes a few corners and is equipped with a solid iron hand-rail in sections.

 Dizzy Ledge

After this we started following a path leading down towards the valley bottom. On the way we had a look at a couple of limestone features, now fenced off by the council with wooden fences, which seemed to be mainly small faults in the limestone caused by a landslide some time in the distant past. In fact in case there was evidence of “slickenslides” where two faces of rock have slid by each other.

Eventually we reached the throngs and noise of motorbikes and traffic on the main road through Matlock Bath as you would expect on a sunny Sunday in June. After a quick ice cream, we started making our way up a road leading past the vehicular entrance to the Heights of Abraham, then along the footpath leading past the entrance to Devonshire Cavern and then a hot slog up a path leading through the woods above until almost at Amber Farm, we turned a corner on the path until we eventually arrived at an entrance to the Heights of Abraham.

 Matlock Bath

Passing the entrance and then following a path downhill the other side, we arrived at a vehicle track past the drive of a large house. This soon led to a footpath leading back down to Matlock Bath. We found a tea shop and had a snack then walked back to the car park and headed for home leaving the crowds and heat of Matlock Bath behind.