As promised Thursday was a fine day and at last we went for a walk.  Sandwiches and dogs packed we set off via Hartington to Alstonefield not far from our peak district cottages.  Just out of Monyash I got Chris to stop the car so we could take a picture of a lamb lying on its mum’s back.  It was alive as it jumped off just after we went.  At Alstonefield we parked in the little (voluntary donation) car park.  From here we walked to the church and picked up a path heading south out of the village.  Down a steep bank (with an alternative route) then picking up a track towards Stanshope I realised we had done the walk before but I couldn’t remember when.   From Stanshope we headed down Hall Dale to arrive at Dovedale.  At this point we digressed slightly from the planned route as we should have walked south a little and crossed the bridge to the right hand side of the river but there was a path on the left hand side too (not passable after heavy rain so the sign said) so as it has been dry we thought we would try it.  The advantage was we were the only ones on this side of the river but the disadvantage was that it was a lot more rocky with a few and not level.  We got a good view of the caves known as Dove Holes and when we found ourselves on an elevated spot we had lunch before  reaching Milldale.  The path continued to climb before a steep drop down into Milldale so I came down very slowly for the last few yards, on my rear for a part of the way, muddy trousers are better than a broken ankle!  We walked over the Viators bridge, made famous by Izaak Walton in his book The Complete Angler, and had a look at the millrace with others enjoying the warm spring sunshine. I then remembered the last time we had walked here was on a New Years Eve not long after we had moved here.  The last stretch back to Alstonefield involved a steep climb so we took that slowly until we could see the church.  We had some nice views back to Dovedale.  On the way back we stopped at Hartington to pick up some cheeses and at Monyash w stopped for an icecream!  In the evening Joanna collected me and together with our WI President we went to Buxton for one of the rounds of the annual Derbyshire WI quiz.  We were one short in our team but manged third place just two points behind the winners, it was that close.  Well, there’s always next year!  Anyway, enjoy the rest of the photos of the day’s walk