Paws beyond the Potteries - the Manifold Valley

Ay up, everyone!  It's Hanley Bear here again, with another post about walks around Stoke-on-Trent, though this one is quite a long way out in the Staffordshire Moorlands.

We started at Ilam Park, which is a National Trust estate and is definitely in Staffordshire, despite their handbook and website saying Derbyshire!  This is because the postal address ends with "Ashbourne, Derbyshire" - but Ilam Park, and the west bank of Dovedale, are part of my county!  

I found out that they had been wrongly put in Derbyshire when I saw Ilam Park had won the 2022 National Trust Scone award, but the address had the worng county on it.  I get very cross about Derbyshire claiming parts of the Peak District that are Staffordshire - they put The Roaches on one of their tourist brochures once!

Anyway, one summer's day Polar and Grizzly took us to Ilam Park for a long walk through the country park and along the valley of the River Manifold, although some of it is a dry valley because the river sometimes disappears down into the limestone.  There were plenty of good climbing trees for small bears, so we spent lots of time out of our Bear Bag exploring. 

Once we were out of the woods, there were dry stone walls, so Endon could practice his mountaineering, and teach Sonning and me some rock-climbing skills too.

Polar showed us how to read an Ordnance Survey map.  We were looking for a path back to the Country Park that wouldn't be too steep or rocky for Grizzly and Polar explained that you could judge how steep a route would be from how close together the orange contour lines were.

Soon we were back beside the river, in one of its watery sections.  It was very clear and we could see weed and fish in it.  Polar had hoped we might see little birds called dippers, as some live in Dovedale, but there was no sign of them that day - probably because she had brought her big camera with the zoom lens, which seems to stop us seeing interesting birds and animals.

We did some more walking around the park, then had tea and cake before Polar and Grizzly had a look in the little bookshop, then drove us home.  There are some great walks around Ilam Park and we hope to go again when it is not too wet, so we can see Dovedale and go across the famous stepping stones - and only then will we be in Derbyshire!