Peak District, England

Well the van wasn't fixed in time for the next roadtrip to France so we had to make do with car and tent - but that is another story. Luckily, that didn't turn out to be the last trip of the summer though as myself, my brother, and a few friends still found time to shoehorn in a few days in the Peak District. This time the van was back up and running while £700 had magically disappeared from my wallet.

We set off for the small campsite of Pindale Farm, just on the outskirts of the town of Hope and with the best interests of keeping everyone happy, we decided not to stay in the van but upgrade to a barn which was cheap and basic but pretty warm. As we watched some campers putting up their tents in the horizontal rain, we knew we had made the right choice.

The next day was certainly brighter so we took a walk up the hills around Ladybower Reservoir looking desperately like tourists, skimming stones and falling over in our trainers on the muddy trails. It was our first real glimpse of the Peaks countryside and certainly worth the long hike.

On the drive in we had noticed something that made us all sit up and take note as our quiet and quaint little town was holding the Hope Ale & Cider Festival this very weekend - jackpot! So that evening we headed down, drank our body-weight in ridiculously strong beer and danced long into the night to the Irish folk band that was playing - adopting a dutch man and upsetting the barmaid in the process. Staying up until 5am playing poker was not entirely clever though when you don't afford yourself a lie in.

Nearby Castleton was our next stop and a pub lunch was followed by another hike up towards a castle that we never quite seemed to figure our way to - just lots of fields, sheep, deep valleys, and great panoramas.

The trail, or rather the unintentional trespassing route through farmland that we took eventually brought us out in a little village filled with ice creams and a little curiosity shop which was home to the most obscure junk and some of the best handwritten signs I have ever seen. The weird old hermit who owned it was also as mad as a badger.

The next night we slept well as we had to be on the road by 7am for the long drive home. Another trip over... time to plan the next.