Somehow, Pastey finds time for walks. We're astonished.

In this age of technology, it's nice occasionally to step back, relax and take it easy. And this is easier said than done. It not just as simple as saying "I'm not going to spend today on the internet." Because pretty much everything that we do is very modern, very connected. It's hard to relax and not rush about.

But a couple of weekends ago we decided to try and give it a go. A weekend pastime that didn't involve modern technology (much) and allowed us to take our time and relax. We were going hill walking.

The first thing to decide is where to go, and how to get there. We're lucky where we live because it's not far to the Peak District, the Yorkshire Dales, the Forest and the Trough of Bowland, and even the Lake District. We got out the maps and had a look, and decided to go to Parlick.

Now this could be a problem because the only way to get there is by car. And the only way not to spend all day getting there is by taking the motorway. This wouldn't exactly be a great start to a relaxing, not-rushing-about weekend, but we're fortunate to have a 1955 Land Rover with a top speed of 40mph. Yes, you are allowed on the motorways doing 40mph, and if you ever get the opportunity I highly recommend it. When the motorways were built there were very few cars that could speed about doing 70mph, let alone the 80 or 90 that most people tend to do these days. We tend to see motorways as a necessary evil that allow us to get from A to B in the least possible time. But travelling up one at half the speed of most vehicles allows you the time to look at the scenery as you go. And you realise that motorways aren't just an evil, there give you an opportunity to see the landscape as you pass through. Apart from the lorries thundering past at near double your speed it's a very relaxing way to start your day.

And then you turn off the motorway, spend time going down country lanes and finally get to the start of your walk. We left the house just after 8am, and got to Parlick just after 10am. In a modern car it would have taken just under an hour, but I don't think we would have arrived already relaxed.

Until you look up at the hill you've decided to walk up. A very steep initial rise and then a walk across the tops was planned. And a very steep rise it looked. Up almost a thousand feet in less than half a mile and I'll happily admit I was out of breath when I got there. It's not a difficult climb, but it does seem to go on for quite a while. There's a few different routes you can take, some are easier than others, using switchbacks to make it a lot less steep. This part of the walk was recently renovated and is constantly maintained with the aid of a local model glider club. The high hill that looks down across the flat fields far below is ideal for their hobby and on this morning there were about four different groups all carrying their models up to the top of the hill. The view from the top was really quite stunning. In three directions you could see for miles below, with hills in the distance shrouded in the mid-morning mist, and the farmland laid out in its checkerboard pattern. Well worth the steep incline to see this at the start of the walk. It wasn't as quiet as I'd have thought though, there were several other people there – not just the glider people, but a few couples who'd just walked up to see the view before heading back down again.

The next part of our walk took us away from Parlick, along Blindhurst Fell. I reasonably well sign posted path along the ridge towards the north. It looked flat, and after the uphill it was a welcome flat. Unfortunately though, it wasn't flat. There were quite a few hidden dips that then rose again making it a bit deceptive, but in general it was a nice steady walk that curved to the east as it went north, and was easy to follow. It's marked on the Ordnance Survey map as following a field boundary, and true to the drawing it did. I like it when you get obviously translate the map to the landscape. It doesn't happen as often as it should, but it's good when it does. What you don't get looking at the map though is the sense of distance that you've going to be covering. But when you look at the landscape stretching out in front of you, it starts to dawn that actually, you've decided to walk a bit far.

This is all open grazing land around this part, flat topped with steep sides and you will find sheep along the way that look gormlessly at you as you pass, and then for no known reason suddenly sprint off in the opposite direction. We took a light detour at this point. We were heading towards Fiendsdale Head along permissive paths before intending to pick up a proper footpath there, but decided to have a quick side trip to Paddy's Pole because the name was too great to pass up. It turned out to be a cairn with a wooden post in it and offered too great a photo opportunity to pass up.

But what did strike me here was the peat cutting. I know that peat is used as a fuel still, and I know that people still use it in compost. But the damage it's doing to the landscape with the mass need that seems to have to be filled really is quite horrendous. You can see in this picture the height of the mounds to the sides and the back. Except they're not mounds. The newly created path through this area is actually in a hollow where the peat has been dug out. It makes for easier walking than over the peat bogs, but you come up here to see the moors and the peat bogs. Finding what looks like a building site before they start the building kind of puts a dampener on the mood. We walk (easily) along the path through this area and then came back to the peat bog proper. It was time to start walking in some seriously wiggly lines to not get far, and to test each step to make sure that your foot didn't keep going down past your ankle so that you ended up not only with wet feet, but with your boots lost to the mud. There's one thing you can certainly say about peat bogs, they retain the water well, making it muddy and wet. Not the most relaxing of walks, I have to admit.

But once we got to Fiendsdale Head, there was a dry path that we could see to follow that took us along a bit more moorland before bringing us out at the top of a valley where we'd walk gently down along one side. The views here changed again, rather than the endless expanse of bleak moorland, we now had lots more heather and a small stream that would grow to become Fiendsdale Water. The path was narrow, only wide enough for one foot at times, but it was dry, obvious and rather gentle to walk along. As we wended our way down the hillside our ankles stopped complaining about the abuse they'd got in the peat, and we got to the bottom feeling much better, and very much ready for our packed lunch.

We'd decided to stop at a place called Langden Castle, marked on the map as ruins. It sounded quite a nice spot to sit and have our lunch. As we were climbing the hills and then traipsing through the bogs before rambling down the side of the clough our minds and talk was on what these ruins may be like. Would there be walls, or something more? How large would they be? We couldn't have guessed what we were in for. For a start it wasn't a castle. It was a hut. It looked like it might once have been pretty enough, arched windows and a door that now had metal shutters, we weren't sure if these were to keep the grazing sheep out, or to make sure that ramblers didn't decide to try and camp in there over night. But it was a pleasant spot for lunch, sat on the flat overlooking the reed beds to the south that we were going to be heading through when we'd finished eating. We were going to be leaving the footpath and taking another permissive path. A permissive path isn't laid out as a path, it's not kept up, it's basically the land owner allowing you to cross their land. In other words, you spend more time trying to find the thing that you do on it. It's often easier to just take a bearing and strike out.

We couldn't just strike out after our boiled egg sandwiches though, there were these reed beds and a couple of streams in the way. Crossing a reed bed tends to consist of bending a lot of reeds over, and then treading very carefully down on them in the hope that the water underneath isn't too deep and that you've trod down enough reeds to form a stable footing that will bear your weight. This is not a quick way of getting anywhere, and this was quite a wide reed bed. We did consider several times back tracking to where it was just a stream, albeit a wide one, to see if there was a way to cross there, or going further downstream to see if the reed beds stopped, but in the end we found a way across where we only got marginally wet and then only had to cross the streams. The first one we found we could leap across without out bags, and then throw them across to each other. The second one, however, was a bit wider. Thankfully there were lots of rocks along the bank so we were able to use these to make stepping stones to get across.

Now we were walking uphill through another valley, and this one was marked as a permissive path. We'd seen sheep walking single file and expected there to be a line we could follow, but we were pleasantly surprised to find a path almost as good as the footpath we left before lunch. It was obvious that quite a few people walked this way to keep the path well-trodden and easy to follow and as we got about half way up we could see why. This was truly beautiful countryside. The streams coming off the peat bogs and moorland at the top off the hills formed into incredibly picturesque little waterfalls framed by late blossoming heather and gnarly rowan trees. There was no sound other than the running water, and the setting was so tranquil as to be almost unbelievable. This one bit alone made the walking worth it – to be so far away from the rush of civilisation that you could no longer even hear it. For there to be no mobile phone signal, no traffic noise, in fact, no other people. If it were not for the fading footprints in the mud you really could believe that you were the only people on the planet. And it was peaceful.

The hill started to get steeper then, and eventually the path disappeared. We were surprised to find a path, but just as surprised to lose it. On the map it was marked as crossing the stream, and then heading directly up the hill opposite. Other people had obviously got this far, the path was there. But it seemed that everyone decided to try crossing the stream in different places, and therefore there was no obvious path on the other side. There was nothing for it but to cross over and then blunder about up the hill through the heather until we might stumble upon the path. The hill was steep, there were hidden streams, and several times we had to grab hold of the heather and half pull ourselves up, but about half way up we found the path again and after a while it seemed to get more pronounced, as others before us had obviously found it. Back at the top of the hill we found more boggy moorland. We did wonder why we kept seeming to want to walk through this terrain, but the views are wonderful, and there's a certain romantic charm to its bleakness. It's the sort of landscape that refuses to bow to fashion – it's there, it's rugged and it's gonna stay that way. Except for the peat cutting. But you can stand there on top of the hill and see this landscape stretching out around you, and you can forget that you live in an age where everything has to be done right away. You can listen to the wind blowing across the top of the bushes and almost imagine a Jane Austin character coming over the hilltop to greet you with a nod of the head or a doff of the cap. It's timeless, with no traces of civilisation.

This stretch of moorland was a short one before we were able to join another footpath to take us back down along Saddle Fell towards Saddle End Farm. The path became a track halfway down, and the walking once again became easier. Swinging back west at the farm we headed across a well-kept footpath towards Wolfen Hall before taking a wrong turning and the wrong road, leading to a kilometre detour around the Wolfen Hall Plantation before heading north again to where we'd parked up for the day.

We started our walk at 9:50am, and finished at 4:25pm. In total it was just over 11.5 miles. I know this, because we may have been having a break from modern living, but I still had my phone on me, using Endomondo to track the GPS signal and our walk. I'll even admit to using my netbook to charge the phone up a bit while we ate our sandwiches. So yes, we had the opportunity to have a relaxing day away, to unwind and de-stress. And we grabbed it with both hands, but my hands aren't cold and dead so you're not prying my mobile phone from them just yet.

Pastey

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