The Roaches, Leek, Staffordshire, England

Staffordshire may not come to mind immediately as having lands that are part of the Peak District National Park but, after a muddy stroll in the sight of the above rocky outcrops, I cannot contradict the description of the area as being part of the county's moorlands. Those outcrops are The Roaches, a deserved Mecca for climbers. Though very much a walker, I have mounted Hen Cloud (the one on the right) on a blustery January day when cloud cleared to make the best of the scenes like that which you see above.

Until rather more recently than elsewhere, my incursions into Staffordshire were next to non-existent, but that has been put right. The first might have been a muddy stroll along the Dane Valley Way as I journeyed from the Cat and Fiddle Inn to Rushton Spencer. Explorations of the countryside around Leek followed on foot and by bike. Two of those walks have been homeward-bound hikes from Leek and the cycle was an out and back ride from home. Other than those, there's been a walk from Congleton to Leek that skirted Biddulph, another from Kidsgrove to Wheelock via Mow Cop and the southernmost stretch of the Gritstone Trail. All in all, the explorations are mounting up for a county that I ignored for so long.