Out & About: Monsal Head to Great Longstone

A cracking start to the day, clear skies and a nice crisp morning. All 4 of us set off up the A6 and decided en route to go to Monsal Head and wander through the Headstone Tunnel to Great Longstone and back along the road. There was only one other car parked at the roadside opposite the Monsal Head Hotel, we wandered down the road and crossed the bridge over the river Wye and then followed the footpath up to the Monsal Trail. From there we turned left and went across the iconic viaduct and into the Headstone Tunnel. We came out of the other end of the tunnel and our Rob found the windup powered black audio box and it was playing a tune "The Monsal Trail Blues" and dancing alongside it. A couple passing by on bikes had to stop and have a laugh. We carried on walking to Thornbridge Hall and then onto Great Longstone where we stopped for our breakfast. We sat in the covered over bus stop for breakfast and as we do we put the world to rights with all sorts of subjects from the routine to the bizarre, unknown to us there was a man standing waiting for the bus at the side of the shelter, god knows what he must of thought about us. from there we slowly wandered back towards the car passing the old village pump and water troughs, the stocks and the beautiful little chapel where we met a local farmer who gave us a lot of information about the avenue of Elm tree's that got the dreaded disease and had to chopped down. He also told us his dad had died in the war aged only 38. We spotted a couple of Kestrels messing about and when we got back to the car there was a lot more cars parked there.