​If you’re going to go out on the moors on ‘The Glorious Twelfth’, the day the grouse shooting season starts, you’re likely to experience something magnificent, namely the heather in flower. In flower, it transforms the moors into huge swathes of purple among the bracken, grass, rocks and gorse.  And, the scent coming off the flowers is strong.

In the second of our ‘Wild Pub Walks’, taken from the book, ‘Wild Pub Walks’, published by CAMRA, Penny and I set out on the Peak District walking route called ‘Bamford Circular’. It’s a 13-mile route which takes in two peaks and a ridge before returning to the starting point through the Hope Valley in Derbyshire.

From time to time a book arrives and it is a perfect combination of things I like to do.

The book this time was ‘Wild Pub Walks’, published by CAMRA. For me, that’s a perfect match.

A damn good walk followed by a pint or two of the local ale. This is the first of the Peak District walking routes we followed.​

Having just completed the ‘Dark Peak Challenge’ the weekend before, it was a good time to return with Penny (my wife) to try out one of the walks in the book.

The book contains 22 more challenging or interesting walks than the usual thing you find around your ‘Local’. The routes vary from a handful of miles to more demanding walks into mountains and hills which will build up a thirst for that beer at the end of the hike.

We picked a walk from Hayfield over a high point in the Peak District, Kinder Scout. The route is about 10-miles long and has enough ‘elevation’ in it to make your lungs wonder what the hell you are doing to yourself. The author of ‘Wild Pub Walks’, Daniel Nielson, says the walk should take between 4 and 6 hours.