Markeaton Park to Kedleston

Saturday 20th February
Having had lots of short caching walks recently I decided we needed a proper walk so programmed a decent walk into the GPS –along with some caches of course. We drove to Markeaton park near Derby and after having trouble finding the parking area we finally found it and paid for 4hours +. We left the park, walked up the road and then headed off on a footpath leading to Markeaton Stones – I thought there might be something interesting there, but I think it was just the name of the farm as we didn't see anything. At the top of the lane we stopped to do a cache which was inside a tree and involved standing on a stump and leaning in, I was not tall enough so John had to retrieve the cache. Unfortunately, as he put it back he slipped and the cache fell down a hole into the depths of the trunk – oops, we will have to apologise to the cache owner.
We walked on and diverted off the path to find two more caches. After finding the first we started walking down the path only to have a big dog start barking at us. We stopped and wondered how friendly he was and as he did not come out of the farm drive we continued down the lane. Him, and his slightly smaller friend barked but did not come out as we walked past. We walked down a very muddy fields, found the cache and then had to walk back up the lane. The dogs had gone inside by this time so were no problem.
We followed a very muddy path past the boundary of Kedleston hall and out on to road. We could just about see the hall from where we stopped to have a cup of coffee. We walked up the road a little bit and then down the side of a garden centre. The footpath is missing from our new map but our old map still shows the path, we spent about half an hour hunting for a small cache which we were assured was still near the hedge but we didn’t find it but we did see lots of snowdrops in the area. We followed the footpath across fields and over some of the most dangerous stiles we’ve come across to the A52. We crossed the road and followed a path
through fields which were badly signposted and eventually found our way to the edge of a recently ploughed field.
We stood and watched a heron on a fencepost for a while, until I looked through the binoculars and realized it was plastic and then John walked across the field (so that he could map the footpath correctly) and I walked round the edge as it is such hard work walking across ploughed fields. We eventually emerged at Langley Common and went in to the Bluebell pub. We were too late for lunch but settled for a drink, sit down and a bag of crisps. However, someone else came in looking for a bowl of chips, so they agreed to put the friers back on and we had a lovely bowl of freshly cooked chips.
We left the pub and continued along the road and off onto a footpath at Radbourne Common. It was very slippy and muddy but we eventually got to a bridge where we were supposed to look for a cache but found it out on display and soaking wet. As we knew the cache owner had just broken his hip we did our best to dry the cache and put it back where it should have been hidden. We then struggled over some more stiles to the road.
After a stretch on the road we got to another footpath which went past a farm. Two large Alsatians were very vocal as we went past but luckily they were behind a fence.
We emerged at Mackworth and struggled to find the footpath that we needed to divert off to find a cache. We walked along the street searching; I turned round and could see the finger post hidden in the hedge beside someone’s garden. We went along the path, found the cache and then walked back to the road and off towards the pretty church. We found a cache near the church and then set off on the last stretch of the walk. A last cache was found just before we got back to Markeaton park having walked 18 km and found 7 caches. We had seen lots of snowdrops, robins, bluetits and a plastic heron