River Goyt Walk

On Saturday we had an afternoon out the five of us. The weather was lovely – a really nice spring type day.

The children and I had already been out in the morning whilst Damian did some work on the house but we headed down to Woodbank Park. Mr D was keen for us to go for a walk down the woods so we headed into the woodland area. It’s not an area I’ve been walking to before but I knew it would take us down to the River Goyt. I wasn’t entirely sure of the geography but figured that it should be a nice walk.

We had a stroll around the small reservoir in Woodbank Park first then headed across to the path that took us down to the river. The path is quite steep and it was very muddy- much to the children’s delight. Even more so because they discovered that Damian doesn’t own a pair of wellies, so they took great joy in telling him that that would be his birthday present in May.

We made our way down the steep path and towards the river. The river was incredibly fast flowing so we made sure we stayed well away and we followed the path along. It was a really nice day and it was a good opportunity to see the smaller tributaries that flowed down from the main park and into the river and talk to the children about that. We followed it up the next day by reading the beautiful The River book which follows the flow of a river to the sea.

We continued our walk around and there are spots that in the summer I am sure we can get a little closer to the river, when it is calmer.

We followed the path around for a good while before deciding it was best to head back to the park and to the car. I was feeling tired (carrying a rather heavy Mr H takes its toll after a while!) and I knew that Mr D and Miss E would soon be tiring too.

We headed back across a huge field and into the back of the park and then back to the car. We were out for over an hour and a half and walked around 3.5km by the time we headed back to the car.

It was a lovely, muddy, walk and it was nice to get out in the fresh air together. It was, however, disappointing seeing just how dirty and polluted the river was. It was in parts filthy and covered in litter. Not good and very sad to see a wonderful natural resource so polluted.

I’d love to see a big clean up of the river take place – has anyone been involved in something like this?