To Middleton Top from Sparklow (Hurdlow) car park

Today's walk, all along the High Peak Trail, the former route of the Cromford and High Peak Railway, was pretty much what we'd expected. There is not a huge amount to be said about the path itself (it's a disused railway!) and it would have been quite difficult to get lost, but it took us through some lovely countryside as we walked from one side of the Peak District to the other. Because we'd spent last night at the Mansfield Premier Inn (to the east of the Peak District) and tonight we were heading to the Macclesfield North Premier Inn (to the west of the Peak District), it was logical to drive back to the car park at Middleton Top (SK275552) to start with, which would mean. walking the route from west to east.

From Middleton Top, we headed via Middleton to the A5012 (the Via Gellia road) which I remember from when I was a teenager, driving from south Manchester to Nottingham with my parents, and which we got to know well when walking the Limestone Way last year. Today, at Newhaven, we turned right onto the A515, whilst if we'd turned left here we'd have soon been at the holiday cottage where we stayed last year. Today, we drove on, past Parsley Hay, then a short distance west of the main road to the place marked as Sparklow on the map. The car park at SK127659 appears to be called the Hurdlow car park. Today was quite expensive in terms of parking; we'd paid £4.80 again at Middleton Top and it was £4.75 here, but there was plenty of space in both car parks and they're right on the path.

We set off walking at around 9.20am on a lovely morning, though we expected it to get slightly warmer than ideal later in the day (it did, though this wasn't a problem). We encountered occasional other walkers and there were a fair few cyclists about, though the number built steadily during the day. Unsurprisingly, the landscape was reassuringly similar to that surrounding last year's holiday cottage. After around 40 minutes of walking, and being passed by 10 bicycles (where - all day - I was counting as single bikes: bikes with tagalongs, bikes with trailers, tandems, and, in principle, tricycles, but I don't remember any), we reached a Croatian stone hut, a gift to the UK on the occasion of Croatia joining the EU in 2013. What an irony. We were approaching the Parsley Hay visitor centre, a busy place with toilets, a cafe, and a cycle hire place with a phenomenally long queue.

We discussed the fact that it would be some time before all these people came cycling past us on their hire bikes, but nevertheless in the section to the next parking place at Friden, just 2.5 miles further on, we were passed by 47 bicycles. Shortly after leaving Parsley Hay was the junction of the High Peak Trail and the Tissington Trail (the former London and Northwestern Railway), just a short distance to the north of Ruby Wood, which we memorably passed on our Ruby Wedding Anniversary last year. Shortly after the junction, we passed under the main A515 by way of a tunnel, and continued to the south-east. Friden is the site of Friden Brickworks, right on the trail, and a series of information boards on the site of the factory tell the history of the site, from its foundation in 1892.

And so we continued; easy route finding, pretty countryside, but nothing much to distinguish one mile from the next, so this description inevitably concentrates on the occasional points of interest. It took us a surprisingly long time to get to the road crossing point where the High Peak Trail crosses the A5012, just a mile or so to the east of Newhaven (though it then took us a surprisingly short time to cross the Peak District to Middleton Top). Near the road crossing there was an event of some kind, as there had been when we drove past the same spot on several occasions when were here just under a year ago. We had lunch at a picnic bench in Chapel Plantation, an attractive wooded section on the approach to the Minninglow carpark, then we continued past Minninglow Hill. There were good views to the south, unsurprisingly because the landscape had been spectacular when we were walking nearby (essentially just the other side of the Ballidon Quarry) on the Limestone Way last year.

Near Longcliffe, we crossed a temporary bridge (if we'd been riding a horse we'd have been instructed to dismount!), then we were pleased to see an array of benches by the former Longcliffe Station. There were lots of people already taking a break here, so we joined them and stopped for an apple. There were even hens for company, but this was a mixed blessing as the hens were rather mangy and one turned a bit aggressive, so we didn't stop for too long. About a mile further on we reached a significant point for Jordanwalks; the point where the route of the Limestone Way crosses the High Peak Trail (and the Midshires Way). However, because we were walking this leg in reverse, we wouldn't have properly linked up the Midshires Way (and its connected paths) to the Limestone Way (and its connected paths) until we got to Middleton Top.

Our next landmark was the Harboro Rocks, where people were climbing. Shortly afterwards we reached the Hopton Incline. Trains were initially hauled up this incline by a stationary winding engine, as was the case for the inclines we had passed yesterday, but with the increased power of "locomotive" engines, the use of the winding engine was abandoned here, and the locomotives pulled their own loads up the hill, and used their own brakes on the descent. The gradient was later reduced by building up the base of the railway, but nevertheless, when the line closed in 1964, this was the steepest stretch of conventional railway line in the UK. The incline runs next to a road that dips lower than the railway line, then presumably ascends more steeply. There were good views to the south, in the direction of Carsington Water, then we went into a cutting and later into a tunnel.

Soon we were back at Middleton Top, where, like yesterday, we stopped for an ice-cream. We then collected the other car and drove on to Macclesfield North Premier Inn. The journey was a trip down memory lane for me, across the "Cat and Fiddle Road", then cutting down roads through the village of Rainow. Today this was the route our Maps apps sent us, but many years ago, my father worked it out for himself from paper maps, for our regular journeys from Altrincham to Nottingham. Dad loved "interesting" roads; I'm less sure! The Premier Inn is close to Bollington, which I think was also on the route, but I didn't remember it. Bollington had a useful co-op at which we purchased refreshments, and we were given what the lady on reception described as "her favourite room" at the Premier Inn. Sadly neither the palatial room at the Premier Inn nor the tasty evening meal made me sleep well!

Post-walk reflection: Once we reached Middleton Top, it turned out that in joining up the Midshires Way and the Limestone Way, we'd completed a large circuit which heads - in a clockwise direction - back down the Midshires Way to Northampton, across the country on the Grand Union Canal Walk, then north again by way of the Heart of England Way, the Staffordshire Way, and the Limestone Way. We'd also completed an even larger circuit, initially heading south in the same way, but continuing all the way to the Ridgeway, then heading west on the Ridgeway, Wessex Ridgeway and Kennet and Avon Canal, and back up north on the Cotswold Way to the Heart of England Way [and then as previously described]. Not bad! Also, I had continued counting the bikes for the rest of today's walk, and it turned out that we had passed or been passed by a total of 239 bikes while we were walking (plus lots more at the visitor centres etc.).

Following leg