Gradbach and the Roaches: Our Own Jurassic Park

If you've ever wanted to walk through Jurassic Park without the actual dinosaurs eating you, go to Gradbach and the Roaches. Honestly, this is the weirdest, coolest landscape we've ever walked in. We kept expecting a velociraptor to pop out from behind a rock. Hugo did his best raptor impression for about three miles, which was either funny or annoying depending on which one of us you ask.

We started at the Gradbach car park, which is tucked down in a deep, green, mossy valley near a little stream called the Black Brook. The first part is through proper ancient woodland – twisted trees covered in lichen, rocks the size of cars draped in thick moss, the ground all soft with leaves. The light filters down through the canopy in green shafts. This is the bit that feels exactly like that scene in the first Jurassic Park where they're walking through the jungle. Dad started humming the theme tune and then we all joined in.

We crossed the brook on stepping stones and started climbing up out of the valley towards Lud's Church. This is where it gets properly mad. Lud's Church is a deep, narrow chasm in the hillside, completely hidden by trees so you don't see it coming. You drop down into it through a gap in the rock and suddenly you're in this dark, mossy crack maybe 18 metres deep with the walls towering above you on both sides. It's freezing cold inside, even in summer. People used to hide here from religious persecution hundreds of years ago, and it's supposedly linked to the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. We were both whispering without really meaning to. It just felt like that kind of place.

We popped out the other end of Lud's Church and started climbing up onto the Roaches ridge. This is where the dinosaurs definitely live. The Roaches are these huge stacks of gritstone that have been weathered into completely bonkers shapes – wobbling towers, balanced rocks, deep slots, weird mushroom-shaped boulders. It's like a giant playground designed by a really creative wizard. We scrambled all over them. Hugo stood on top of one and roared. There were rock climbers everywhere, hanging off the cliffs like spiders.

The walk along the top of the ridge has unbelievable views over the Cheshire Plain on one side and out towards Shuttlingsloe and the Roaches farm on the other. We saw a wallaby. A WALLABY. In the Peak District! Apparently a small population escaped from a private zoo decades ago and they still live wild on the moors. We thought Hugo was making it up but Mum saw it too. Best wildlife spot of the year.

We dropped back down past Doxey Pool, this small dark pool on top of the ridge that's supposed to be home to a water spirit called Jenny Greenteeth who pulls people in. We did NOT swim in it. Then it was a long lovely walk back down through the woods to Gradbach, knackered, muddy, and absolutely buzzing. The Roaches t-shirt was always going to be a contender, but after this day it had to happen. The contours look like a dinosaur's spine.