The glorious Peak District - even in the rain

I'm a bit late with this post - about a month and half late truth be told. Stuff just gets in the way, doesn't it?

Higger Tor from the Longshaw Estate

As regular readers will know, we usually have a large family get away in late October/early November, most often to the Peak District, but a couple of times to Devon. This year it was the Peaks again and a week away in Matlock. Slightly depleted this year, as a few couldn't make it, and more poignantly our first family get away after losing my brother in law to cancer in March (he was the one who'd booked this trip), a total of 11 of us made the trip. With only my daughter and wife's niece under 50, we're long past the days of hiking up the bigger hills on 10 mile traipses. A couple of miles and a nice coffee shop tended to be the order of the day for the most part.

We stayed in a large house - Riber House on a hill overlooking Matlock and underneath the imposing Riber Hall. The journey to the house was inserting. Up a 1:3/1:4 hill with a couple of sharp hairpin bends, before a quarter of a mile along a rough track, but worth it. The house was fantastically set up, and included a hot tub on the patio and a pool table in the basement. The only downside, it was remote, so no easy walk to a pub. Mind you, we had enough beer and wine to sink a battleship!

The hot tub was well utilised, and we did find a nice pub that served food for an evening meal out, and we were very comfortable in the well equipped house during our stay. 

Our accommodation is the house just below Riber Hall
Taken from a bridge over the river Derwent in Matlock

As is usual, we broke our journey up from South Wales with an overnight stop at my sister-in-law's house in Solihull. The following day we stopped en route to Matlock at Keddlestone Hall a National Trust property, for a wiser, coffee and a bite to eat. As most of the group are NT members, a lot of our visits tend towards places like this and it was a pleasant stop for a couple of hours.

(Some of) The grounds of Keddlestone Hall

After a week of decent weather, the forecast for our week away was pretty miserable. Our first full day was a bit of a washout with the weather, although we popped into Matlock in the rain. The next day we managed to dodge the showers on a lovely walk along the Cromford canal a couple of miles from Matlock. When the sun did peek through the rain clouds, it lit up the autumn foliage beautifully. 

Some of the crew

Cromford Canal

Chatsworth estate is a regular haunt on our visits to this area, but we're normally too early for the Christmas decorations and market. This year though we were better timed, and had booked tickets to see the festive decorations in the house. We began with a walk across the grounds to the house and around the Christmas market before going into the house at our allotted time. The place was heaving - the market especially so, but the timed entry to the house at least kept the crowds slightly more organised.

Chatsworth House
(the hundreds of visitor cars not visible in this photo!)

Inside the main hall at Chatsworth

The following day was another wet one (well they all were to be fair), and we had a leisurely walking from a car park close to Bakewell, into the town and a meander around the shops, stopping for the obligatory coffee and snack. Bakewell's a lovely spot, though obviously gets very busy because it's such a pretty and central spot.

Bakewell and the river Derwent

One of the things I defiantly wanted to see on this visit was the Derwent reservoir dam, just above the Ladybower reservoir. This was the series of dams that the Dambusters used as their training ground before their famous attack on the Rhur dams. Whilst that peaked my interests, I was rather more interested to see if the water was flowing over the top - given all the rain we'd had, I needed have worried. It was pouring over!

Water overspilling the Derwent Dam

Alongside the Derwent Dam

The Derwent Dam

Ladybower reservoir below the Derwent Dam

Our final day we parked at another NT place, Longshaw Estate and did a 5 or so mile circular walk through down through get impressive Padley Gorge. The weather was kinder to us and whilst it was wet underfoot, at least it didn't rain! The autumn colours, and gushing brook and waterfalls were fabulous.

Oh, and we stopped for coffee and cake...

Descending into Padley Gorge

Down at the bottom

Nearly back out

Once again, we had a fantastic week despite the rain which we mostly managed to avoid. Matlock is a little further south than we've normally been, but to be honest, nowhere's that far as to be unmanageable. Derwent Dam for instance was about a 45 minute drive. 

I love the Peak District. So many interesting places and superb walking to be had. If you haven't been, you should go. If you have, then you'll know...

We're back to Devon next year though, at a spot near Bideford, so that'll be a nice change.

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