The Peak District
Tomorrow morning I will have to get up and go to work. This sucks because it means that my fortnights holiday is over. However, I have had a great time. We spent the first 10 days in the Peak District, and the last few at home and with my parents. So here is my holiday blog. Full photo album here.
We started the holiday at the Waterloo Inn camp site. Well I say camp site, actually it was an empty field. At the back of the pub.
We froze our cool-blocks overnight in the pub’s freezer, did our washing up in the pub kitchen sink and in the evening when we wanted to wash for bed, had to parade in our flip flops and towels past the audience in the pub beer garden. Whilst this began as a novelty, it soon wore off and became a bit intrusive, so after ust two nights we packed up in the rain and went to find another camp.
I’m very glad we did, because we drove past the middle of nowhere to Edale, which is just right of centre here:
After settling in we went to visit Speedwell Cavern near Castleton. It’s an old mine which has since been flooded, so you access it via boat through a tiny tunnel that is about a foot bigger than the boat itself.
When you reach the end, you’re shown the great cavern and the bottomless lake:
Someone saved up and bought the cavern along with the fabled ‘bottomless lake’ and immediately set about measuring it’s actual depth. It turned out to be a vast depth of 35…
feet.
Apparently it would have been closer to 600 if the miners hadn’t chucked all the rock they were breaking off down there.
The next day we decided to go for a walk, so setting off from Castleton in the sun we began a 4.5 mile circular walk which would take us up Mam Tor, along the ridge and back down to the town. 10 minutes in and the sun went into hiding. 45 minutes in we’d reached Winnats Pass where a thunderstorm decided to join the walk. We got absolutely drenched but carried on nonetheless.
By the time we reached the summit of Mam Tor, we were in the third separate thunderstorm of the walk. Yes. We were wet.
The rain was so thick that we couldn’t see anything but white in all directions. Thankfully it eased after a few minutes and we got the views that we went up there for.
Then the rain returned and we headed on along the ridge:
Wet us:
On the Wednesday we went to Leeds to visit Jonny & did a short tour of his locality. We finished up playing softball in a park and then eating chips & watching a Dave Gorman DVD. A day well spent.
Thursday we had a lay in, went swimming, and had a bbq.
Friday we visited the Ladybower & Derwent reservoirs & dams where they practised deploying the bouncing bomb during the war, and filmed ‘The Dambusters’ after the war:
Whilst walking we noticed a frog in the path. after photographing him, we moved him out of harms way.
Then we visited Sarah’s grandparents near Stockport where I was told off for not untying my shoe laces before removing my shoes. And we were regaled with her grandfathers tales of visiting the dams we’d seen earlier during their construction. Must’ve been pretty impressive.
In the evening we had a meal in Buxton, then went to a comedy show which was on as part of the Buxton Festival Fringe. It’s like the Edinburgh Fringe, except no one has heard of it or anyone taking part. Despite this it was a great evening. Almost all of it was funny (Why does comedy feel it has to be so crude at times?), I particularly recommend Andrew O’Neill.
On Saturday we had a less wet, and much shorter walk around Dovedale & Thorpe Cloud. We didn’t go up this time, just around the outside.
The Heights of Abraham was Sunday’s location. we spent the day finding a parking space, then finished it of with a ride up the cable car to the park and all it had to offer.
The caverns were much more impressive than Speedwell, so much so that I forgot to take any photos. We exited the caverns at the top of the hill where some spectacular views were to be had.
And even better ones from the viewing tower:
Sunday swiftly came to and end and turned into Monday. I’ve noticed it has a habit of doing this…
Anyway we spent the morning in Bakewell looking at the market.
Then we met up with some friends from church who happened to be holidaying in the same place at the same time (That’s their story).
So we shared lunch together & decided we’d like to go for a walk. Sarah and I suggested we have a crack at Kinder Scout, the highest peak in the district. After all, we couldn’t come all this way & not give it a go.
Grace said “ummm…..” and Martyn said “Wow, great let’s go”.
So off we went.
It started out as a nice gentle walk through Grindsbrook valley with sights such as this along the way:
The terrain gradually changed. It got a little steeper, and path began to dwindle away, leaving an array of rocks to clamber over & around. Martyn was particularly impressed when we tried to photograph him.
Holly seemed to cope with the terrain better than any of us, but still appreciated a break:
Pretty soon, the path had gone, and we were simply walking up a stream:
Then even the stream disappeared and we were left with the nearest thing you can get to rock climbing without needing all the gear:
And the O/S map calls that a path! Trust me, it’s steeper than it looks.
We made it to the top though and felt very proud of ourselves.
Then it all wen’t wrong. Instead of being rocky at the top of Kinder Scout, most of it is Marsh. You cannot tell what is supposed to be a footpath, a river, or anything. You can’t judge how fast you’re moving either. This is how we managed to end up around a mile west of where we wanted to be. The result was that a 7-8 mile walk turned out to be a 15 mile, 6hr journey.
This was largely slowed down by my knee giving way, making the descent agonising and slow. Plus near the top Holly spotted a sheep and chased it over a precipice, at which point my heart sank. We got her back after about 5 minutes of shouting.
The day ended collapsing back into the camp site and then barbecuing our worries away. In retrospect it was great fun, but at the time it felt endless!
We returned home the following day, and have spent a couple of days with friends and family.
Now back to real life!
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Dad
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Dad
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http://summitmusings.blogspot.com/ faye
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http://summitmusings.blogspot.com faye
