Out & About: Birchen Edge & lord Nelson

After missing a couple of weeks with holidays and other activities it was back down to business. Only 3 of us today with brother Rob off medal hunting again. With the sunrise now coming later (07:10) this morning we opted for a later start so we set off at 07:00 and zoomed up the A6 through Chatsworth Park and turned right at Baslow roundabout and parked in the RSPB car park beside the Robin hood. We took the low route which has a steady incline to the top of Birchen Edge. On the way up there were some lovely views and the sun broke over the edge in front of us shining down through the Birch trees. When we got to the top we were very close to the trig point and we could see Nelson's monument and his 3 ships. A nice steady walk to the monument and 3 ships taking a few photos when we got there. The monument consists of a gritstone column with a ball on top. It was erected in 1810 by a local businessman in honour of Lord Nelson. The 3 ships are nearby boulders which have been carved with the names of three of Nelson's ships: Victory, Defiance and Royal Soverin. We wandered further down the track and found a suitable area to have our breakfast. We packed up ready to move when this couple came over and started chatting, they had come onto the edge looking for a stag. In fact we had heard it bellowing but didn't realise what it was. They went off in search of it and we carried on back towards the car park. Unusually we passed a few more people just coming onto the edge, on Sunday mornings we normally see very few folks about. We had a warning that the path down from the edge was quite steep which proved to be the case. Geoff in particular struggled a bit there were some very large boulders to clamber over. We just took our time and eventually got back to the car.