Peak District adventure
Something a little different: the tale of my trip to Edale with a few pictures I took along the way
I'm hoping at some point to walk the Thames Path, camping along the way. To prepare for this, I decided to do a proof of concept walk, carrying everything I needed to camp at the end of the day, just so I could get an idea of where the challenges lay.
I chose the Peak District because it's within easy train travel of my home and has lots of campsites and other facilities for walkers. I booked myself into a campsite in Edale and decided the walk from Hathersage, about 8 miles away, would be a suitable challenge.
Hathersage is a village, but it's a lively one, with several businesses catering to hikers. I had a couple of errands to take care of, including buying water because I'd left my water bottle in the fridge, and then I made a detour to check out Little John's grave - he was apparently a Hathersage lad before becoming Robin Hood's sidekick.
It was at the churchyard that I hit my first snag. I wanted to have a look at Google maps to see if there was a footpath that would save me going back into the village, but my phone didn't want to play. I think it might have been a bad signal, because the mini radio I brought to keep up with the cricket was also having difficulty. Whatever the cause, I couldn't look up a route, and was forced back on what I could remember from studying the map at home.
I set off along the main road, vaguely remembering a footpath that branched off at some point. It was a gorgeous day, and the trees at the side of the road were so many different colours of green. My phone camera doesn't really do it justice.
I never did figure out where the footpath began, and I ended up just keeping going along the main road to Hope. The glorious weather also meant blazing hot sunshine, with no shade in sight. The beautiful scenery also meant regular inclines that my calves absolutely hated. And having neglected to practise with my pack ahead of time, I was completely unprepared for how much harder it was than unencumbered walking.
When I reached Hope station at about half past five, I had convinced myself there was no shame in completing my journey by public transport. Unfortunately, the stopping service through the Hope Valley is run by Northern Trains, who saw fit to cancel the next two trains. I decided to continue on foot.
My phone found a signal in Hope village, but it informed me that it was another two hours to Edale on foot, and the only public transport option was the aforementioned cancelled train. I found a shop where I could buy a second bottle of water, and stopped to photograph a couple of the well dressing pictures. This is a Derbyshire custom I'd heard of but never had the chance to see before: flowers are pressed into a base to make quite complicated pictures. According to a passing villager, there were several around the village; I didn't seek them all out, but I did capture a couple of striking ones, including the Terracotta Warrior image on Edale Road.
The road out of Hope was initially more pleasant than the main road. Trees provided plenty of shade, there were fewer cars, and I had a fresh bottle of cool water. For the first mile or so I felt like I was really making progress. But my shoulders were really starting to ache from carrying my pack, and all I wanted was to arrive in Edale and rest.
The railway line wound alongside the road, with East Midlands or Transpennine trains occasionally taunting me by whooshing past. I came to a sign announcing Edale, but I think it must have been the wider parish, because I was still at least two miles from the village itself.
We were into the golden hour, and there were some glorious views, but I was too tired to appreciate them.
I tried singing to keep my spirits up, but I didn't have the breath. I tried reminding myself that my prehistoric ancestors hunted by outlasting prey and all I had to do was channel those instincts to find a campsite. I fantasised about stopping by the side of the road and throwing up my tent underneath a hedge, but the fact that I'd paid for campsite facilities kept me pushing on. By the time I came within sight of Edale station, I was running on pure stubbornness.
The campsite was only a couple of hundred yards beyond the station, although it felt much further in my exhausted state. The campsite office was closed - it closed early on Sundays, but I arrived after the weekday closing time anyway - so I picked up an envelope with instructions to find myself a pitch in one of three areas. I found a spot, got my tent out, and rested my head on it for fully half an hour before I had the energy to pitch it.
I thought I was tired enough to sleep very soundly, but I didn't. The ground was hard, the tent was cramped, and the babbling stream that sounded so enchanting in the evening seemed like a raging torrent by the early hours of the morning. My tent was also prone to condensation, which the instructions did warn me about, but I didn't realise how it would combine with the water noise to give the impression of a torrential downpour overhead. I gave up on sleep well before six o'clock.
A few days after the summer solstice meant that it was already full daylight. The birds were noisily awake, and so were the sheep, but very few humans were about, and I quite enjoyed having the campsite pretty much to myself. The Niçoise salad I didn't get round to making the previous night made rather an odd breakfast, but I sat at a picnic table and watched a handful of cars making their way up a road on the other side of the valley.
I'd booked a second night at the campsite, so I needed to find something to do with the day. I considered a trip to the plague village of Eyam, but that was the other side of Hathersage, and would have needed a train ride, and I really wanted to prove I could keep walking. In the end, I decided the five miles to Chapel-en-le-Frith would make a reasonably challenging walk, with the bonus of some shops at the other end.
I left my rucksack in the tent and took a small bag with a few necessities. Warned in the campsite information about squirrels breaking into tents, I carried all my perishable food with me, but I managed to forget the water bottle I'd carefully filled at the tap. Perhaps I should invest in a bottle that physically connects to me for future trips.
Another thing that would have been useful was a solar phone charger. My phone was already below 20% battery, so I didn't want to deplete it further by relying too heavily on Google maps. I settled for glancing at the map every time I reached a fork in the road, which got me quite successfully to the hamlet of Barber Booth. But there I think I took a wrong turning. The road was signposted to Chapel-en-le-Frith, but instead of the gentle track through the fields that I was expecting, it curved up the hillside.
I realised that I was on the same road I'd watched cars on at breakfast time, and that by the linear properties of light I should in theory be able to see the campsite. But it was too far below me, and I couldn't even pick out any landmarks.
When I checked my phone, it suggested I go back to Barber Booth and start again, but I was determined to keep moving forwards. The hill I was on was Mam Tor, the second highest of the peaks, although the road didn't go right to the top. Among the perishable food I'd brought along was a cucumber, and chunks of that were a tolerable substitute for the forgotten water.
I reached the top of the road and descended on the other side through a wood, cool and shady with a delicious aromatic smell. This was by far the most pleasant part of the walk, and my spirits rose.
I joined the main road, and after a brief celebration of being on the right track, I quickly got dispirited. There was no shelter from the sun and very little refuge from passing cars. I did my best, pressing myself into the overgrown verges when I saw someone coming, but that slowed me down and made things tedious.
Several cyclists passed me down the gentle slope towards Chapel-en-le-Frith, and I rather envied them. It looked like a lovely road to cycle or even freewheel down, but on foot I had to take step after plodding step. There weren't even any villages or petrol stations where I might have got water, and the cucumber was a poor substitute. But the day before had taught me that I could keep plodding on if I had to, and so I did. I ended up going eight miles, the bulk of it on the inhospitable main road, but I did arrive in the end at Chapel-en-le-Frith.
I staggered into the first open establishment I came to, a café called The Mustard Seed, which was apparently run by a church collective. They were shocked at the state I was in and incredibly welcoming, fetching me glasses of water until I felt well enough to order a hot drink, for which there was no charge. They listened to the whole tale of my chaotic journey, chuckled at the idea of refreshing myself with chunks of cucumber, and offered me a lift back to Edale, which I declined as graciously as I could manage.
I got a few supplies in Morrisons and decided to make my way back via public transport since I'd walked so much further than planned already. The vagaries of the rail network in the Peak District meant that my best option was a bus to Hazel Grove in the outskirts of Stockport and then an hour's wait for a train back to Edale.
The early start meant it wasn't even three o'clock when I got back to Edale. I had a look round the visitor centre, read about the Kinder Scout Mass Trespass, which is something I'd never heard of until I arrived in Edale, and bought postcards for friends and family. Then I went back to the tent and managed to sleep in the sunshine for about an hour.
I was rather nervous about firing up my camp stove since I'd already had so many mishaps, but this was one thing that worked perfectly. I got it going at the first attempt and made an entirely creditable pasta puttanesca.
I spent the evening in the pub, which a friend referred to as "cheating", apparently thinking I'd foresworn all the benefits of civilisation when I opted to camp. I told him that I'd only committed to camping with gear that I could carry, and that refusing to take advantage of the pub was a challenge too far. Heading home in the dusk, I enjoyed a beautifully atmospheric view of the station and the hills beyond that again my camera was sadly not good enough to capture.
I passed a slightly more comfortable night, but still woke up before six o'clock. I took advantage of the campsite showers and boiled water on my stove for a morning cup of tea, then walked into Edale village while my tent aired. I posted the postcards and came to the start of the Pennine Way. It goes all the way to Scotland, but I'd probably have to train a lot more before I considered that one.
The big advantage of having only what I could carry on my back was that I could pack up in under fifteen minutes. I struck the tent once I was happy it had aired thoroughly, loaded everything back into my rucksack, and headed to the station. They have very attractive old fashioned station signs, but irritatingly enough there's only a ticket machine on the Manchester side, so I had to cross through a tunnel and back.
I looked out of the train window from Edale to Hathersage, marvelling at the fact that it had taken me around four hours to walk and the train could do it in fifteen minutes. And then it was goodbye to the Peak District and the end of a trip in which I learned a lot, especially from my many missteps. Hopefully that will serve me well on future trips.