FRIDAY PM:Three days later on a very cold and dark winter’s night I was dropped at the start. Shouldering up beside the large round sturdy stone gate post - (the only visible remains of the original canal wharf), I waved goodbye to my lift - not realising that my bum bag containing mobile phone and stock of cereal bars were fast disappearing up the road on the back seat of the car!
I had till 3pm Sunday to reach my destination, pint and lift home. It was now 9.20pm and 46 miles of easy 'navigation' lay ahead.
| The 'official' start of The Cuckoo Way is beside the bridge over the River Rother on the A619 at ref. SK 387715 |
Having reasoned that a canal wouldn't be difficult to follow in the dark, I started up the icy spiral of the footbridge that spans the by-pass. Wispy steam-breath absorbed the orange glow of the road lights as I crossed to descend to the River Rother which formed the final navigable section back in the days of canal traffic.
| The Chesterfield Canal was opened on 4 June1777! It has 59 narrow locks, 6 wide locks and two tunnels |
A footbridge beside a wood yard delivered me to the river bank, where, after a few hundred yards, the canal junction was soon encountered. The river here flows off over a weir and a lock marks the beginning of the canal proper. The first bridge is crossed which transfers the towpath to the canal’s left bank. This section also forms part of the Chesterfield leg of the Trans Pennine Trail for some 4 miles.
Testing a new micro torch I found the amount of light emitted by the diode impressive. At only 6gms the lightest torch I'd ever used, but it only came on by pressure and required quite a bit of finger and thumb strength to keep it on for longer spells.
With an increase in traffic roar from above, I emerged from a road underpass to arrive at the former keepers' cottages at Tapton Lock. Boat trips are occasionally organised here during the summer months. With the completion of a new road bridge at Brimington round trips of around 8 miles are now possible as this western end of the canal is waterbound once again as far as Mill Green at Staveley.
As the traffic noise diminished I was able to pick out sounds of canal nightlife. Water voles or rats making hurried returns to the water and startled birds that at times startled me!
Near the recently restored road bridge at Brimington I encountered the first swans and ducks - the water unable to freeze where they had been paddling around for about a 10ft radius. Clustering on the far bank at the bottom of the beer garden of the pub (The Mill) they eyed me suspiciously. This was my first realisation of the cold conditions, as I hadn’t expected the canal to be frozen over!
Attuning to my new environment now, somewhere up ahead I could hear the powerful sound of gushing water. I took this to be the lock overflow at Hollingwood and knew that round the next bend I would have a mile to go before reaching the supermarket at Staveley where I would be able to restock on cereal bars. Somewhere near here on the opposite bank a tunnel is supposed to have been used to transport cannon balls from a foundry in West Wood, Brimington about a mile away during the Napoleonic Wars, but it is one of those slices of information that has long since lost it's cake.
Passing signs that forbade fishing due to risk of high voltage cables overhead, I was soon at the shored-up bridge at Mill Green. Here I made the short diversion to the Supermarket, hoping that they would still be open as it was now after ten.
Missing cereal bars replaced, I was back on track wondering how far I'd get before making my overnight stop. Beyond the Eckington Road (B6053) the Trans Pennine route forks left to follow the former LNER railway towards Renishaw and Killamarsh, but the canal route lies ahead to take the line of the massive (in engineering terms of the day) Staveley Puddle Bank. Way marking here is lacking but a left turn is needed at the end of a road by some former railway cottages. In a half mile I was clanging over the steel bridge above the river Doe Lea to clamber up the icy bank on the opposite side. Here a viaduct once bore the canal above the river. Soon the head of the Norbriggs cutting is reached. Again the walker needs to bear left and it is here that I found the way ahead barred with large hawthorne branches. As I man-handled them into the adjoining field I felt a sharp pain in my finger. Closer inspection revealed blood dripping from a nasty gash. I suspected that the local farmer had put the branches as a deterrent to kids from the nearby council estate. For whatever reason he was illegally blocking the queen’s highway and I would like to have gone and told him so in no uncertain terms! Grumbling away to myself and sucking my finger clean - Yuk! couldn't be a vampire - I continued ahead down the valley where all that remains of the canal today is a ditch and indistinct line between fields. Dripping blood I continued on to the outskirts of Renishaw near The Hague - reputedly once the home of Captain Cook's sister. Surprisingly I was very near to what was, until 1986, the worlds most northerly vineyard at Renishaw Hall - seat of the literary Sitwells.
Here the path runs parallel with the TP trail, and some may prefer to walk on the cinder track than try to find the footpath as it edges unwaymarked around a new housing development as I did, backtracking and looking around till I came across the old viaduct that carried the canal over a Renishaw Iron Works branch line in the direction of the Spinkhill Rd. By now I was ready to stop and looking for a discreet level pitch. This turned out to be on the TP Trail itself on the intersection with the original line of the canal. Here the canal was straightened in line with the later construction of the railway.
With the ground being frozen or too stony, I couldn't get my alloy tent pegs in very easily, but managed by securing one guy with a brick and tying another to a low branch. A railway trackbed is not the softest of surfaces to pitch on, but a good test for a Therm-a-rest!
I’d trodden in something nasty en route and the boots would have to spend the night outside! With this in mind, I gave my hands a good wash before dressing my finger and making a brew. I settled into my sleeping bag and ripped open a muesli bar. It was now 11.30 pm and with a fresh breeze flapping the tent I soon found sleep.