Moorthorpe to Dodworth 22/10/22

15.6 miles, via Kirkby Bridge, Minsthorpe, Upton Moor, Royd Moor, Low Field, Hemsworth,

 High Field, Vissitt, Barewell Hill, Brierley, Shafton Two Gates, North Field, Shaw Dike Bridge, 

Carlton, Carlton Green, Athersley South, Smithy Hill, Smithies, Honeywell, Greenfoot,

 Old Town, Pogmoor, Gawber, Highham Common, and Lane Side woods.

After the much commented upon hot Summer we had this year, not mush is being made of the hot Autumn we are experiencing, possibly because the weather is a bit up and down and the warm bright days are coinciding with the weekends, but we are again looking at a Saturday that promises to be decent enough to be travelling a distance away from home and putting down 15+ miles on the trail, which is just as well as we have the year's third target to aim for, as the 1,000km marker sits only 6300m distant, and a less inspiring day might have had me reconsidering my walking plans after rising after far too little sleep and with claggy-feeling lungs that feel like the harbinger of something nasty setting in. The last South Yorkshire traversal of the year actually gets going in West Yorkshire's southeastern corner  as we alight at Moorthorpe at 9.25am, and set our initial course away to the northeast, rather counter-intuitively as we negotiate away past the considerable station building to meet the steps up to Minsthorpe Lane, where we'll set off across the S&K line, south of the station junction, and past the top end of Moorthorpe cemetery and on among the vintages of suburbia that have filled in the land between the two local railways, passing over the West Riding Line beyond the Minsthorpe Inn and ahead of the South Elmsall Curves railside path, visited in 2016 before we carry on through the suburbia to bottom out at Kirkby Bridge. It's a rise from there, uphill past the extensive grounds of Minsthorpe Community College and the edge of the suburban spread to meet the Barnsley Oak inn and the northward turn through the old Minsthorpe village to aim ourselves towards Upton, gettins a better impression of the southwestern horizon than we did on our prior visit as we tangle with the A6201 and A638 in the landscape around North Elmsall, before me meet the remains of the H&BR and its old station, where we turn to follow the Doncaster Road to the northwest, but slip away from its verge as a shaded and concealed footpath presents itself, linking together the suburban closes that have grown out from Upton, and almost providing a traffic-free route out to the Common Lane corner.