Another leisurely breakfast with gorgeous views out the window this morning before setting off to explore the Peak National Park. Quite a bit of rain overnight and very windy. We drove back along the road to Ilam and then to Dovedale where we contemplated going for a walk. As the weather was fairly inclement and the w
alk was 3¾ miles we decided “not today” and drove on to Arbor Low Archaeological site. Despite the fact that it was very windy we spent some time exploring. Arbor Low consists of about 50 large limestone blocks, quarried from a local site, which form an egg-shaped circle, with monoliths at the entrances, and possibly a portal stone at the south entrance. There is also a large pit at the north entrance, which possibly contained a stone. Some of the stones are broken; some of these fragments may originally have been joined together, such that there were originally between 41 and 43 stones.
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| Arbor Low |
Next stop was Bakewell for coffee at the Upstairs Café and Gift Shop. Very enjoyable. Bakewell is such a lovely town with its stone buildings and pedestrian-only streets.
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| Bakewell |
We spent a couple of hours with coffee and wandering the streets (even got some gluten free pies for dinner) before heading off to Monsel Head (lovely views over the valley) and on to Ladybower Reservoir. Just before the reservoir, we stopped at the Yorkshire Bridge Inn for lunch. Another cute English pub. Lunch was pretty good too.
After having a look at the reservoir we drove through Snake Pass on to Glossop - lovely countryside with some interesting patterns on the hillside - some of the effect was made by alternating areas of heather and bracken but there was more to it then that.
At Glossop we called into a Tesco's for a few supplies before tackling the motorway drive around the outskirts of Manchester and north to our accommodation for the night. It was very busy at that time of day and down to a crawl at times but everything is well signposted and with a GPS was all straightforward.
Accommodation for the night is at Howgill just east of M6 and about the same latitude as Windemere. Our host Siobhan had mentioned in one of her emails that if we relied on our GPS it would take us over a very narrow bridge. Well we did and it did. The bridge was so narrow we had to fold in the side mirrors to get across.
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| Our 'pod' at Howgill |
Tonight we are in a pod, a cute little house thing on a farm. There are three of them and have obviously been chosen to supplement the farming income. There's not a lot of room inside but quite adequate for one night and well appointed with a mini kitchen, hotplate, fridge etc. The only thing missing is an on suite but the toilets and shower block are not far away. Glamping I think you would call it. Everything is quite new and Siobhan has obviously gone to a lot of trouble to set things up nicely.
