Hollingworth Lake Reservoir Walk

Wednesday  22/04/2015

A walk around the reservoirs in the Hollingworth Lake area.

We started the walk from the visitors centre car park near the Wine Press Inn. Leaving the car park we turned left along the road towards Rakewood and followed this for about a mile. The road becomes a track and turns left uphill to cross a cattle grid and head off, uphill, to pass under the massive M62 viaduct.

The path rises and then descends towards a mill building where we ignored a rising track to our left.

This is a lovely section of the walk with a stream for company on the right. Here we were told to look out for Dipper and Ring Ouzel – but we were out of luck on both counts today.

There was a Sparrowhawk circling in the distance, a Wheatear on a wall and a few Swallows on the wires near the mill buildings.

After passing through a gate we headed on uphill but soon took the stony path that turn sharp right uphill.

We followed this path uphill until we met a three way finger direction post.

On the way up we passed our downward route – a thin path on our right that goes down the other side of the dell before going under the viaduct.

At the fingerpost we turned left following directions to Piethorn Res.

The first reservoir soon came into sight on our left – Norman Hill Res.

We continued on this path and eventually dropped down to Piethorn Res.

Here we crossed the reservoir. At the end, the logical route is to turn right and follow the reservoir around, however a ‘Keep Out’ sign prevents this.

We continued ahead and the path swing around to the right to eventually resume its course next to the Res.

We soon passed Kitcliffe Res. and headed on towards Ogden Res.

At the Car Park here we turned right to cross Ogden Res. A Great Crested Grebe was diving successfully for food here.

At the end of the track we negotiated an awkward wall stile affair and turned right on a track. We soon left this good track in favour of a thin path rising steeply to our left. This path crosses a wooden step stile and heads off taking us to the top of the field.

The weather was red hot and the climb seemed a lot steeper than I suppose it actually was!

At the top we turned right on a good track. This track brought us back to the three way finger seen earlier in the walk. Here we turned left downhill to retrace our steps for a few hundred yards before taking the thin path on our left, mentioned earlier.

Here we had a rare sighting of 3 Brown Hare, 2 of which were fighting, presumably over a lady!

Our path dropped down under the viaduct soon ejecting us onto some playing fields. Here we crossed the playing fields and took a stile in the hedge ahead (slightly the right). We then turned right to reach the Rakewood Road where a left turn brought us back to the start.

A few pics:-

I'm out of here!