This is the first post of 4 from my trip to the Peak District National Park. I was traveling with V& T and we had arrived in Sheffield by train from Brighton that afternoon. We'd rented a car and driven about 2 hours south (through Bakewell - delicious tart!) to arrive at Bassettwood Farms bed & breakfast where we would stay for a few nights.
We needed some dinner and our host told us about a pub in nearby Fenny Bentley so we walked there via the Tissington Trail. According to the trail map "This was one of the last of the Victorian railways – it opened in 1899. It supplied milk to London and several quarries were opened along the track sending limestone to the industrial areas. The Trail was created after the railway closed in 1967."
The trail started right outside the village of Tissington (population 150) so we walked around there a bit. I think it only has 2 streets and this is one of them (!):
Once on the trail proper we walked south for 2 miles or so enjoying the greenery and wildflowers along the path. We only encountered a couple of other people during our hour on the trail.
On this trip, I had the luxury to be traveling with friends who are expert wayfinders so all I had to do was move one foot in front of the other and take in the bucolic landscape. I highly recommend it!
At some point we turned off the trail onto the "public footpaths" which are really just invitations to step over a fence and into someone's sheep grazing pasture! No idea how V & T navigated us through a series of these but this was our view for some time. It was heavenly!
Another fun thing I've encountered while writing this blog is a Google "street view" of the trail that we walked! Here you can see our path (the blue dots). Click on the map to take a virtual tour (note: it can be a fit finicky. I guess Google needs some more wayfinding experts on staff! If you click into street view you should be able to select the trail. Here is the start if you have trouble!). When we got to the southern point on this we headed east across the pastures to Fenny Bentley. Someone even took some 360 photos crossing the pastures at the same place we crossed so you can recreate it pretty well (ah the wonders of technology).
Here is one of those 360 photos (click "View on Google Maps" to rotate it):
Dinner at the pub was delicious (I even tried black pudding!) and we had some great ciders. By the time we left the sun had set and it was pretty dark. And as you might expect, when it's dark here it's DARK.
We could have taken the roads, but as you can see from the map above the quickest path from Fenny Bentley back to the B&B (which is marked 68 on the map above) was right through some more sheep pasture! Lucky for me, I had my navigators and they got us back home expertly, even correctly figuring out if that trickle of water to our right was a brook or a stream. I mean, I have a good sense of direction, but this was at another level!
At one point, we were walking through one of the pastures and the only way we could locate the sheep was to listen for the sound of them peeing! Little known fact, sheep pee when they are startled (I have no idea of this is true, but seemed to be the case for us so I'm going with it). Definitely not my usual Saturday night activity but happy to be taken out of my element. At a certain point the mud and sheep droppings become one and the same and you just go with it, especially in the dark!
What a joyful day. Next up, beautiful Dovedale.
You can see more photos of my trip in the Peak District album.
We needed some dinner and our host told us about a pub in nearby Fenny Bentley so we walked there via the Tissington Trail. According to the trail map "This was one of the last of the Victorian railways – it opened in 1899. It supplied milk to London and several quarries were opened along the track sending limestone to the industrial areas. The Trail was created after the railway closed in 1967."
The trail started right outside the village of Tissington (population 150) so we walked around there a bit. I think it only has 2 streets and this is one of them (!):
Once on the trail proper we walked south for 2 miles or so enjoying the greenery and wildflowers along the path. We only encountered a couple of other people during our hour on the trail.
On this trip, I had the luxury to be traveling with friends who are expert wayfinders so all I had to do was move one foot in front of the other and take in the bucolic landscape. I highly recommend it!
At some point we turned off the trail onto the "public footpaths" which are really just invitations to step over a fence and into someone's sheep grazing pasture! No idea how V & T navigated us through a series of these but this was our view for some time. It was heavenly!
Another fun thing I've encountered while writing this blog is a Google "street view" of the trail that we walked! Here you can see our path (the blue dots). Click on the map to take a virtual tour (note: it can be a fit finicky. I guess Google needs some more wayfinding experts on staff! If you click into street view you should be able to select the trail. Here is the start if you have trouble!). When we got to the southern point on this we headed east across the pastures to Fenny Bentley. Someone even took some 360 photos crossing the pastures at the same place we crossed so you can recreate it pretty well (ah the wonders of technology).
Here is one of those 360 photos (click "View on Google Maps" to rotate it):
Dinner at the pub was delicious (I even tried black pudding!) and we had some great ciders. By the time we left the sun had set and it was pretty dark. And as you might expect, when it's dark here it's DARK.
We could have taken the roads, but as you can see from the map above the quickest path from Fenny Bentley back to the B&B (which is marked 68 on the map above) was right through some more sheep pasture! Lucky for me, I had my navigators and they got us back home expertly, even correctly figuring out if that trickle of water to our right was a brook or a stream. I mean, I have a good sense of direction, but this was at another level!
At one point, we were walking through one of the pastures and the only way we could locate the sheep was to listen for the sound of them peeing! Little known fact, sheep pee when they are startled (I have no idea of this is true, but seemed to be the case for us so I'm going with it). Definitely not my usual Saturday night activity but happy to be taken out of my element. At a certain point the mud and sheep droppings become one and the same and you just go with it, especially in the dark!
What a joyful day. Next up, beautiful Dovedale.
You can see more photos of my trip in the Peak District album.
Comments
Post a Comment