When Doug Tilly offered to lead a walk for us back in his home town near Ramsbottom, we jumped at the chance to try a new area. 

We'd of course forgotten how early we would have to get out of bed, but no matter, we were all on the Burneside Community bus bright and early by 7.30 ready to drop down the M6, M61 and M65 to reach the target destination in Holcombe near Ramsbottom.

There were plenty of local people from East Lancs to help with the route finding and one or two of Doug's mates who are not long distance walkers but kept up admirably with the pace.

We made our way across country through interesting little hamlets with great views down to Bolton, to reach the trio of Reservoirs at Jumbles, Wayoh and Entwistle.  These made for very scenic touring, if a little heavy on the tourists at times - never seen so many dogs! 

The route back was dominated by a climb up and around Holcombe Moor.  We were offered Bull Hill, but many of us have done Two Crosses several times and we politely refused!

Instead we were all thrilled to get the chance to climb up Peel Tower at the end of the walk - actually I was more thrilled by the cup of tea available at the bottom, but I went for it anyway and quite enjoyed the view from the top.

One of the best bits of the day was contouring round the hill with it's amazing views South and West.  At one point we could see the Mountains of North Wales (Snowdon I am told on a good day), down towards the Berwyns, and out across Manchester with it's highest European Residential Building and it's Ski Slope, down to the hills above Glossop including Kinder Scout.  Such a central position makes you realise England is but a small Island.

Thanks very much to Doug for organising such a grand day out, and to all his mates for the insight into what we were actually looking at!  Can we come again sometime?