This morning it was pouring and not encouraging to venture out. However, I did take David’s advice and caught a local bus up into the Peak District, to a little village called Castleton. This is a popular village, for day visitors and hikers alike, principally due to its cave systems, a castle and a mountain. The trip out there was on a standard double-decker but so I went upstairs, at the front, to get the best view. Opposite me were a couple from Fisher, Canberra! We couldn’t see very much due to the rain but what we could see was lovely. As it was a domestic bus route, there were various detours into villages, some with such narrow streets that if there were no windows, I could have touched the wall on either side of the bus.
Castleton itself is a lovely little village and has made the most of tourism with many pubs and cafes, jewellery and gift stores. It wasn’t quite lunchtime so I thought I’d have a ‘cream tea’. Sadly I chose probably the one place to have it that was a total disappointment. It was in a pub and the pub itself was gorgeous, and award winning for the last 2 years, but I suspect the awards were not for its cream teas. The scone was cold (felt refrigerated), was very flat and had been cut in half. It was served with a pot of cream and one of those little packaged tubs of jam, and the tea was served with long-life milk. Now I can understand long-life milk in hotel rooms, but not in a place offering in-house meals. It was so unnecessary to have all that packaging, and surely there is plenty of home-made jam around even if they didn’t make it themselves. So, I left most of it. Of course just a bit further along the road was a place advertising home-made scones, home-made jam etc!
It was still raining quite heavily and my daypack was getting soaked, despite my umbrella, so I had to go into an outdoor store and purchase a cover for it. I walked to the nearest cave. For me it was very disappointing – I’ve been spoiled by Jenolan Caves. The best thing about this one was its resident border collie, Jake. Jake requested someone throw a stick for him while we were awaiting the tour to start. Guess who responded to his request??? He was then part of the tour and went ahead and sat in particular places for the guide to point to, or demonstrate something. A miniature poodle was also on the tour with his family but he got a little distressed by the experience so was carried from time to time! I do so love how dogs are welcome everywhere. Even the village church has a sign on the door saying dogs (on a lead) were welcome.
By the time I got on the bus to return to Sheffield, the rain had stopped and there were a few breaks in the clouds. I came back on a different bus route which was just lovely and saw some picturesque landscapes.
Tomorrow it’s about a 6hr journey down to Dorset (SW England) for another conference.
I have only had access to a TV for a few days on this trip and there are a larger number of free-to-air stations but the programming is appalling. The Brit’s can make such good television, yet that’s not what they are showing.
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