Bakewell, Peak District

May 2013

A fairly long time in the planning, but with very little in the way of actual organising, we finally managed to book the Rutland Arms Hotel for two nights during May's Whitsun bank holiday weekend, a rare weekend away together for me, Eddie, Liam and Doylie.  Eddie had volunteered to organise it but, after being dissuaded from booking a canal barge, didn't get round to actually booking anywhere.

So, three days before we were due to go away, I got the bit between my teeth and spammed a number of possible places with emails.  Inevitably, most were full, but the Rutland Arms Hotel came good and offered us a small discount on two four-poster double bed rooms.  Unfortunately, having to wait for confirmation from the other three attendees left me unavailable to confirm our booking due to work and social commitments, so Eddie did the honours.

And with that, we were away.  Liam picked me up on the way, whilst Eddie and Doylie made their own respective ways there, the former coming from Wales (where he had been running, I think), in classic Eddie make-it-slightly-more-complicated style.  On occasions during the weekend, we affectionately, but completely inaccurately, referred to ourselves as the Bakewell Tarts (which apparently is one particular version of the Bakewell pudding), and I was tempted to headline the page in this way, but ultimately I decided that it would be too crude for these purposes.  (Strange, that's never stopped me before.)

That said, I might have some explaining to do here...

Ok, here goes: I asked Liam to pose in our new room, chiefly for Lynne's benefit, and he charmingly showed me his rear side.  Doylie was distinctly unimpressed that, firstly, the rooms were double not twins and, secondly, that the price we had quoted him was per night, not per holiday.  Will he ever return on one of these excursions as a result of these disastrous misunderstandings?  Speaking of whom, the quintessential English gentleman had arrived...

Liam and I had got there first (despite having children and stuff), but Liam had Mass to attend, so I was left sat on my own outside the hotel drinking beer (there are worst things, although it would have been better were I able to get a seat in the sunshine).  Doylie was next to arrive (although not by much, as he drove past the hotel twice).  Finally, Eddie swanned in, thus enabling this photo to formally initiate proceedings.

We found a bar to watch the Champions League final between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern Munich (I'll leave you, my dear readers, to Google the result), which was maybe 400 metres down the road to the left of the hotel.  I forget the name, but we did have our tea there.  In our hunt for further bars, we went back past the hotel and I stopped for a quick shot.  Annoyingly, I missed a moped rider who had duly waved as I tried to take the picture.  This pausing was fatal, as it enabled Eddie to approach me from behind and Liam to capture it for posterity.

A number of pubs later, and we retired for the evening.  I can't recall the names of the venues (maybe the Queen's Arms was one), but highlights included a loud rock band and, um, other stuff which may filter into my brain in time.  The next day was a glorious one and necessitated that we went on a bike ride.  This was the view from the bridge over to the bike hire place and the start of the Monsal Trail, which is a raised, old railway track serving as an 8.5-mile cycle/walking track.

Three of us picked up mountain bikes, mine with an annoyingly squeaky front suspension, and Eddie wisely choosing a hybrid.  This is an action shot of two of the boys, taken whilst riding.

We stopped at one of many bridges for a photo opportunity (left to right: Liam, Eddie, Doylie).  We're not quite Team Sky...

Cycling regularly to work along the A6, I am used to wearing a helmet and had the foresight to bring it along; however, it clearly does not result in the coolest look possible, although it did mean that Liam didn't immediately recognise me.  Doylie, meanwhile, had hilariously forgotten to bring any cycling gear at all, despite us often cycling on the Trans Pennine Trail together, so he cycled round in a collared T-shirt, jeans and a jumper.  (Funnily enough, this is not too far from his sartorial choice for the 3-mile Nantwich commute, for which he travels in his work clothes.)  We therefore suggested he wore Eddie's (sweaty, it turned out) wristband as a kind of cravat.

Regardless of our fashion sense (or lack of it), it was a lovely day for cycling around Derbyshire, and the bridges offered ample opportunity for scenic snaps..

Liam accidentally dropped the soap.

More scenery - trees, rocks, hills, houses and water.  What more do you want?

What made it obvious that this was a former railway line was the series of excitingly lit tunnels, of which this is one (I am again risking life and limb to bring you an action shot).

There's cheese in them thar hills!  (There's not of course, that would be silly.)

That'll do for now.

So then, our ride continues.  We're stopped again, whilst Eddie and Doylie have a good look at something.

I took a few shots of the boys coming out of the tunnels, but the good doctor wasn't really up for posing in spectacular fashion it seems.

We passed an old lime kiln and took the opportunity to do the touristy bit and learn something about it.  Then Liam and Eddie couldn't resist popping up to explore...

...whilst practising their model, look-into-the-distance poses.

A striking looking rock to break up the sequence of wizened old faces, just to ease the visual torment.

At the end of the 8.5-mile trail, with speculation rife as to whether it would continue, we dropped down a fairly steep stony path (which claimed the pride of another cyclist later on) to the Blackwell Mill Cycle Hire hut...

...for a cup of tea, like.  Liam preferred to test his map-reading skills.  Or indeed his map-opening skills.

Eddie had an idea crazy enough to work - we could attempt the White Peak Loop.  Slightly hindering this plan was the fact that some of the route had yet to be completed.  Would that stop us?  Well, the answer is: probably not.

Immediately after our pit stop, we cycled along the river, arriving at what appeared to be (and was) the A6.  At that point, Eddie also had a vague plan to meet up with a friend in Buxton, so it was there we headed.  This was a reasonably fast and windy section of the A6, with very little in the way of pavements, which all felt far away from the traffic-free environment of the Monsal Trail.  In particular, the three other boys were not wearing helmets, as we established.  As we neared Buxton, we stopped at a Morrisons, where Eddie spent an age getting some sun cream (not really his fault - there were few left and the checkouts were not the quickest).

Finally, we made it to Buxton, nearly getting squished by a bus in the process, who neglected to make room for us, forcing us to stop and give him the right of way (a wise choice).  We skirted around a little, trying to find somewhere to sit outside, and decided on the Grove Hotel.

See, outside seating.  Clearly onto a winner, despite the classroom-style plastic chairs.  I even had a beer (a bottle of Peroni since you ask).  Sandwiched up, with a vague plan to get us to the next section of the trail, even if not actually completed, we went on our merry way.

We headed south to Harpur Hill, which thankfully took us away from Buxton's busy roads, before reaching a junction.  My instinct told us we should go up the hill, in order to maintain our looping path, but it seemed to almost in the opposite direction, which led to some dissent and saw us aborting the climb before we had really started it.  However, the direct road to Bakewell was a fast and unenjoyable-looking one (and which, we didn't know at the time, simply took us back to the A6, a little east of where we joined it.

So, back up the hill we went.  It was a bit of a beast, which had Liam openly hoping it was the right way.  Here is Doylie navigating said hill, with Liam not far behind.

Heading south to East Sterndale proved rather scenic, as this pointy hill demonstrates.

More lovely scenery.

We began to see National Cycle Network signs, distinctive in blue and familiar from regular jaunts along the Trans Pennine Trail, which gave us some confidence that we were at least following cycle-friendly routes.  As we passed a quarry, which we had basically had to cycle round, we noticed a turning onto an off-road track.  This turned out to be the High Peak Trail, essentially the southern section of the 60 mile loop we were half-planning to navigate (see the green section at the bottom on the map previously shown).

However, by this time, it was something like 3pm, and we had to get the bikes back by 5pm, so completing the loop seemed distinctly unlikely, especially given that Liam (pictured) had already been on a bike for longer than ever before (even longer than doing circuits round the Bridgewater Canal back in the olden days) and Doylie was becoming increasingly vocal about not having been what he had planned for (more pubs than miles, perhaps, but that still doesn't excuse jeans).

The High Peak Trail was an exceeding pleasant and very flat course through the Derbyshire countryside, with regular checkpoints and quoted distances between each.  This hill pass offered a particularly stark image, taken while riding.  Unfortunately, this path was actually a wrong turning - I had noticed but failed to appreciate an offshoot path which would have taken us east as planned, not south.  When we reached the next checkpoint, we decided that the best way forward was to beeline to Bakewell.

It was not initially possible to go as the crow might have flown - we had to head NNE on a particularly fast A-road, before heading due east to the unfortunately-named Youlgreave.  However, a fantastic bonus of this route was that, from the main road to Youlgreave, was pretty much all downhill.  For one section, I didn't pedal for about a mile.  Even Liam must have enjoyed this a little bit, despite him being absolutely knackered (Eddie and I took turns to stay back with the peloton in order to try to maintain morale, and also to keep in touch with them).

 We missed one turning, but otherwise the directions were fairly straightforward, although annoyingly the road went very steeply downhill to a river, before heading ridiculously steeply back up again.  Here is the bit that wasn't quite so steep, but you can see it dipping down in the distance.

Having completed nearly 40 miles during four and a half hours of cycling, with the journey taking us nearly 7 hours in total, we were very glad to see this sign, with the clock approaching 5pm.

We made it with a few minutes to spare in the end.  Here was my trusty steed.  For those interested, you can find the gpx file of our route here (there is one part in Buxton where I forgot to restart the watch at the right time, but you can figure out where we went nevertheless).

We walked gingerly back to our hotel, passing this delightful lake.

After a prolonged period of lying down, particularly for the poor doctor, it was time to head back out to the pub for some beer fuel.  Doylie and I sat outside for two or three beers before the other two finally joined us.  Doylie and Eddie were particularly taken by something Liam was saying.

After a slightly disappointing curry at the pub the previous night, Eddie was not deterred from completing the double header (or should that be bottomer - unlucky Doylie!).

We were impressed by the Taj Mahal model in the window.

Across the road from Rajas (I think it was called) was the now darkening Castle Inn, where we headed for our next beer.

A large meal after a long bike ride had left us a little weary, however, and we found a quiet corner to chill.

As the pubs started to quieten down, we decided to retire to the hotel for one last drink before bedtime.  Eddie looks asleep here.

The next morning after another pleasant breakfast, it was time to leave, with Eddie driving out of the car park in typical multi-tasking fashion.

There was a slight parking issue.  The car park was full, so the cleaners had parked their cars across the back of others, including Doylie's, so we had a bit of wait while that was all sorted out (Eddie had benefitted from the guy blocking him in being around).

 But we had enjoyed our four-poster stay at the Rutland Arms Hotel, so I wasn't too fussed.

I was also using this downtime to take some last few photos.  These were the gardens we never went in ('cos they don't serve beer).

And that was that.  May we do something similar at some point in the future...

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