Autumn Walks - Knypersley Reservoir

 One sunny day last week, Polar and Grizzly drove a little way from home to take us for a walk.  We had tried some of the local footpaths but they were very, very muddy.

We were visiting Knypersley Reservoir, which feeds water into the Caldon Canal.  I remember coming here with Hanley Bear soon after arriving in North Staffordshire and we have been several times since, because it is one of Polar and Grizzly's favourite places to go walking.

The autumn leaves were gloriously colourful and sparkled in the sunshine, especially those on the beautiful big beech trees.

At the base of one of them we found a super little bear cave where we could make a den.  'If we were wild bears, we could hibernate for the winter in here,' Endon said.

We decided not to hibernate but to do some more exploring.  We left the main path - which was not safe for small bears on their own, because people were walking their dogs along it - and found a little track which led to a big felled tree, which was excellent for climbing and gave us a lovely view of the lower reservoir.

It was much too far for us to walk all the way round the reservoir and back to the car, so we had to look out for our human guardians. Fortunately, as we had climbed quite high, Polar could see us from the main path.

Polar carried us across the dam that separates the main reservoir from the 'Serpentine' upper pool.  She and Grizzly hadn't been enjoying their walk, despite the pretty leaves, as some of the other people walking round the reservoir were being careless about something humans have to do called 'social distancing'.

Although Polar and Grizzly wanted to get home quickly after that, they knew how much we like climbing on the old pipework and valves from the reservoir, so let us out of our bag again so we could enjoy another little climb.

We scrambled about on the gears and wheels, exploring the pipes and pretending that we were letting water out of the reservoir to fill up the canal, further down the valley.

Hanley Bear was very excited when he saw that the machinery had actually been made in Stoke-on-Trent; at Milton, on the Caldon Canal.  When we got home, he looked at an old map Polar and Grizzly found from 1916, which shows the ironworks at Milton and the wharf on the canal where the coal from the big Chatterley Whitfield Colliery used to go.

Even if we get more sunny days, I don't think Polar and Grizzly will be bringing us back here while the nasty virus is still about, so we took our last look across the reservoir for a while, before jumping back into our Bear Bag, ready to go home for our lunch.

'Don't be too sad, little bears,' said Polar.  'We'll come back one day.  I'm sure we can find some other walks near our house, where it's safer for Grizzly, and you can play in the garden on dry days too.'

We all agreed that the most important thing for now is to keep our human guardians safe, even if it means fewer adventures for us - and we're sure all our small bear friends will agree.