Year 8 Geography Fieldwork

Year 8 Geography Fieldwork to Dovedale by Hootan Parsanpour and Shujah Mehmood 8H

On a hot summers day in July, Year 8 were lucky enough to enjoy the glorious sunshine at Dovedale in the Peak District National Park. Dovedale is a National Park which is looked after by the National Trust to preserve the area’s natural beauty. We walked for 3 miles along the valley visiting different sites along the way.

The day started off at Milldale where we used a variety of geographical skills to measure the characteristics of the river such as the width, depth and load. We also looked at the characteristics of a river meander and the landforms that are formed.

As we moved along we reached Ravens Tor where the path became rocky and slightly hilly. We noticed on the opposite side of the river bend a rock face which had been weathered. The limestone with its many joints and bedding planes had been weathered to form a scree slope.

Our favourite part of the trip was visiting the Doveholes, where there was a large cave created by chemical weathering. The cave was dark and provided shade in the heat of the day. Moving on down the valley we reached Ilam Rock, where we again studied the rock, practised our field sketching skills and completed our river measurements for Site 2. After lunch we saw a rock face of a lion’s head and then passed Reynards’ cave.

Further down the valley we reached Lovers’ Leap. Legend has it that a woman showed her love by jumping over the steep cliff. Here we looked at some fossils in the rock before finally reaching the Stepping Stones. Here, we completed our final river measurements.

Finally, after a tiring and hot journey, we made our way back to the coach, but first had ice cream and drinks to cool us down. Overall the trip was very interesting and enjoyable.