Peak District

Just come back from a great weekend in the White Peak area. Drove to Youlgreave, leaving the car in a secure location there. The basis for the weekend was the John Merrill Challenge Walk, about 25 miles - a challenge if done in a day but otherwise a very pleasant circuit for a weekend. The official start and finish point is Bakewell but no reason why it has to be there.

We (that's Frank and me) pointed ourselves towards Monyash, where we stopped for a pint at the The Bulls Head - shows how long since I've been there - it was called The Hobbit previously and the name was changed 16 years ago, although I assume it was The Bulls Head before then. It was raining by then and our route took us to Flagg, Taddington, up Monsal Dale in pouring rain, over the viaduct to the campsite at Park Farm. A good little site with decent facilities. The evening was spent in The Packhorse at Little Longstone.

The next day we diverted from the Challenge route and headed north to Cressbrook, stopping for a bacon butty and tea at Katie's Kitchen at Wardlow Mires - a welcome break. Then via Foolow to Eyam, the old plague village, and a pint at The Miners Arms. After that, we dropped down to the River Derwent and climbed up to Froggat Edge, an exhilarating walk along the edge before cutting across to spend the night at the Eric Byne Memorial site, just above the Robin Hood Inn (yes, we went there). The site was good although the facilities were quite basic. The setting is superb though. There must have been about thirty or more youngsters on a D of E weekend there and it was an amazing sight, on Sunday morning at about 5.30am seeing them packing up. The only sound was them rolling up their survival bags and packing away. I don't know if they were under orders not to make a sound but it was very impressive.

Keeping our distance from the DofE kids

After breakfast, a pleasant walk down through Chatsworth Park to the tearoom at Edensor, meeting friends who'd come along just for a day walk back to Youlgreave, with more rain in the last hour before getting back to the car.