Woodland stroll to Grindleford Station

Looking north to Higger Tor, and behind it Stanage Edge, but we turn left to drop down Padley Gorge

I deal so much with the world’s ugliness that reconnection with life’s ineffable beauty is not an option. It’s an imperative. Yesterday in bright sunlight Jackie, Tebay and I retraced our steps of sixty-nine days earlier, down Padley Gorge to Grindleford Station and back, on January 16th.

In brighter weather, and this time having brought my mirrorless R6 with Canon 70:200mm f/2.8, I thought I’d share a few pictures before returning to the fray in the morning.

The verdant sheen of sunlit moss on boulder and tree never fails to delight …

… as does the moorland stream, with its crashing whites, beery tans and bubbling peaty blacks.

Past its prime but still fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

The old station waiting room at Grindleford (on a Hope Valley line still very much used by commuters and outdoor lovers but its stations now little more than bus stops on platforms) was in the seventies turned into a greasy spoon for walker, biker and, with the millstone grit of Stanage Edge close by, climber alike.

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