The Pride of Cumbria train carried me out of Piccadilly station and, eventually, beyond built-up Manchester. After Marple, everything turned green as the valleys narrowed. It was a classic northern autumn day: the clouds were low, the mizzle and mist were closing in and the world was grey-filtered but for the glow of dead leaves all around.
South-east of Manchester is a bit of an unknown for me. Between the city and the Derbyshire borough of High Peak, you don’t quite enter national park territory, but it’s nonetheless a charming and eye-calming landscape. The Mancunian Kinder Scout trespassers of 1932 probably came this way, as do Pennine Way-farers bound for Edale. But the region is also post-industrial and close to conurbations. The Steel Cotton Rail Trail, which officially launched earlier this month after several years of planning, hopes to bring together elements of the land and the heritage while also drawing walkers and cyclists to areas of the Peak District perhaps ignored by those who rush for the main spine of the Pennines.
