There are at least two historic monuments in the Dark Peak area which have a notable attached cache indicating their historic significance, that is, “(rems of)”. Our outing from a place variously known and discussed as Wilkin Hill, Windy Hill and the gas station included one such monument, New Cross (rems of). Having battled against a strong cold westerly wind some thoughts turned a bit morbid with Tom suggesting that his ashes should be scattered at New Cross with the added note, “(rems of Tom Westgate)”.
Whether such pessimistic thoughts had been brought on by the immediately recent daylight traverse of the moor from Emlin via the Rocking Stone and Hobson Moss Dike, was uncertain. There seemed to be a general consensus that it had been “hard” with the usual stuff of deep heather and bracken. A highlight of the crossing was a visit to the Rocking Stone where there were mutterings about fulcrums, the lever rule and who weighed the most or the least. Such a clever lot the Serious Warts are, all learned from the childhood playground see-saw experiences (?). By the time we’d reached the Rocking Stone, our numbers had increased by two, as Ian W and Brent had walked and caught us up such was our running speed. Oh well!
It was here that our ways parted. Possibly under the misguided impression that our group were to visit The Dukes Road, we headed roughly north west and had the pleasure of descending into, crossing and climbing out of Hobson Moss Dike. And our reward was to enjoy the comforts of a ruined and overgrown stone-built cabin, it didn’t impress!
Meanwhile, the other Much More Serious Warts group took the direct line up Wet Slack Ridge, thus cutting out three (yes, three) sides of a square (see Chris’s map below). However, we felt we had the moral high ground by doing more training and it also explained (ahem) our tardiness in returning later.
When our group finally arrived at New Cross, we were greeted by shouts of, not “where have you been?”, but of how to deal with Tom’s demise in the form of his ashes.
This and the impending darkness brought a sombre mood to us all. But “never say die” and we set off on the direct line to the shooting cabins near Small Dale where spirits rose for a rapid finish to the cars.
Except for me. Keeping my head torch and separate battery in a small rucksack required a stop to retrieve both. In so doing, the torch tangled in the rucksack and could not be fitted on my head, so it was temporarily converted to a hand torch. You will be pleased to know, that despite this, I managed!
Almost a tragedy followed. Our usual drinking haunt, the Plough in Bradfield was closed! So, we retreated to the Nags Head to continue our discussions of ashes. Let’s hope we’ve got this out of our system before next week!
As always and on reflection, we greed it was a tough but satisfying outing, thanks to Andy and all.
Graham
