An accessible and dog-friendly break in the Peak District

After a short visit to the Peak District while being confined to the UK back at the height of the Covid-pandemic in 2020, I was always hoping to return and see more at some point so when my elderly parents wanted a getaway with me and the family dog Lily over winter half term week, I was excited to find a cheap deal at a Darwin Escapes site at the southern end of the park.

Lily settles into our lodge and enjoys her complimentary toy

Having taken 2 short breaks at other Darwin Escapes resorts before, we were becoming quite a fan of their spacious lodges on sites where ‘quiet’ and ‘secluded’ is their selling point and our lodge on their Rivendale Lodge Retreat site just north of Ashbourne did not disappoint.

With my dad being unable to walk long distances due to a variety of ongoing health problems and an anxious large rescue dog in tow, I had spent a bit of time looking up possible places to visit where we could take short walks on paved or easily accessible paths but at the same time, not be spending too much time in the obvious tourist sites where Lily would spend her time barking at anyone who happened to walk past and encroach on her space!

With it being just a short journey of just under 2 hours from where we were in South Birmingham to the holiday park, we made it most of the way there without stopping, deciding to call in at the large Ashbourne Park to give Lily a long walk before continuing the short drive from the town to Rivendale in time for check in. Upon entering our lodge, Lily was pleased to find she had been left complimentary dog treats and a tug rope toy to keep her entertained during her stay!

On our first full day in the region, we decided to venture out of the National Park boundaries slightly upon the recommendation of a friend who had suggested Carsington Water as the perfect place for both my parents and Lily to take a walk.

View along the High Peak Trail near Minninglow

Pulling up on the large car park, we were unsure at first if it would be a bit busy for Lily’s liking but decided to head away from the visitors’ centre area and followed the path that ran alongside the reservoir. For the most part, the path was separated in two with a side for walkers and a side for cyclists. There weren’t too many cyclists out but when we did see any, there was plenty of room to move Lily to the side and let them pass. The path was an easy one for my dad to walk along, often flat and with just a few gradual inclines and declines on the section we walked along and few tripping hazards and there were pretty views across the water along the way. After an enjoyable, leisurely walk for 15 minutes or so, we turned around and retraced our steps back to the car park before finding a quiet bench to sit on overlooking the reservoir to sit and eat our picnic lunch.

Walking a section of the High Peak Trail

After lunch, we walked Lily along to Stones Island, a peninsula that juts out into the reservoir in front of the visitor centre. While this was a busier section of the park, there was still plenty of room to keep Lily away from other people and dogs.

We drove back via Matlock Bath so we could pick up some shopping from a nearby supermarket but as it seemed very busy in Matlock Bath itself, decided not to make a stop in what is a very touristy town. Instead, after our quick shop, we continued our drive through the Derbyshire Dales and spotting a National Park car park on google maps, decided to pull in there and see what we’d find.

The car park was at Minninglow and gave access to the High Peak Trail, one of many former train tracks in the Peak District that has since been turned into a walking and biking trail. Having cycled the Monsal Trail on my last visit to the Peak District, I was worried that this would be as busy but with this being a less well-known track than the Monsal Trail – plus it not being the middle of August! – there were very few cars parked on the free car park and very few people about.

With two directions to possibly go in, we randomly took the path in the direction of Parsley Hay. After a short stretch through woodland, the wide, flat path opened out to views across field and farmland. We walked for about 15-20 minutes in the late afternoon sunshine before turning back and heading back to the car park, my parents and Lily now tiring and in need of a rest. It was just a short drive back to our lodge from here and we spent the evening relaxing in our peaceful surroundings.

The next day, my parents were keen to visit the town of Bakewell to pick up some sweet treats. Knowing it was likely to be busy, we drove in before the midday rush and after a little bark in the car park, Lily managed a walk around town with us without getting too bothered by the passersby and other dogs out for a walk.

After picking up some cakes, we wandered down a back alleyway which lead to the riverside and took a walk up to the historic Bakewell Bridge and then, crossing the road, down to Brookside, a path running along side a narrow offshoot of the River Wye.

From Bakewell, we drove north towards Padley Gorge. Here, we parked for free in a layby on the B6521 and went through a gate down a few manageable steps to a public footpath which runs alongside Burbage Brook. Following the path to the left, we soon left the moorland we’d started in and went through a gate into woodland, still following alongside the brook.

The woodland trail alongside Padley Gorge

There were a few walkers, families and dogs out for a walk about but it wasn’t too busy and despite having to look for a few roots or stones sticking up, the path was mainly manageable for my parents. After a while, the path became steeper and narrower and we decided to turn back.

After a cup of tea and snack back at the car, we crossed the B-road to the gate on the other side which lead in to the Longshaw Estate, a National Trust site with meadow and woodland walks. We followed the path past the Granby Discovery Barn and up to a small lake then through woodland and out into open meadows before turning back and retracing our steps back to the car again.

Views from the trails at the Longshaw Estate

With it still being only early afternoon, we decided to make one more stop on our way back to the holiday park – in the historic town of Eyam, often referred to as the ‘plague village’. During the and outbreak of Black Death in 1665-6, villagers here decided to isolate and cut themselves off from the rest of the World in order to try and stop further spread of the plague.

Above, Pavillion Gardens, Buxton, and below, Sepentine Walk

Many villagers died of the black death here while some survived, finding themselves to be naturally immune. Some descendants of these survivors still live in Eyam today! There’s a small museum in the town near the free car park but, having Lily with us, we didn’t visit. Instead, we took a walk around the town and found it to be really interesting and worth a stop with a multitude of information about the town and the black death on placards around the town.

After successful visits with Lily to both Bakewell and Eyam the previous day, on our last full day in the Peak District, my parents decided they’d like to visit the town of Buxton where they’d been on a weekend away many years earlier. Parking up at the Pavillion Gardens car park, we wondered into the picturesque – but very busy – park. With Lily getting agitated by everything going on around her, we exited the main park and crossed the road to a quieter section known as the Serpentine Walk where a path followed the river before crossing a bridge and looping back on itself. We then crossed the road again back in to the Pavillion Gardens, taking a quieter route along the back paths of the park to reach Buxton Town Centre. After a short walk through the town – picking up some more sweet treats for later – we returned past the Pavillion building to the car park.

Above, and below, beautiful views at Goyt Valley

I had had in mind today that since we were visiting Buxton, we would go to Buxton Country Park for the afternoon, part of which I had been to on my last visit to the Peak District. But having seen how busy Buxton and the Pavillion Gardens were, I was having second thoughts so once back at the car, I had a quick look on google maps to see if there were any National Park car parks not too far away.

I spotted one marked on the map as Goyt Valley car park and not too far from there, could see Errwood Reservoir on the map. A quick google revealed both to be listed as good for walking dogs so I made a hasty decision to head that way instead of to the country park.

And I’m so glad I did! The short drive to Goyt Valley took us over steep hills to reveal sweeping valley views and we found the free Goyt Valley car park at the foot of one of the hills with plenty of parking space. From the car park, we took one of the paths leading past a small lake. The path ran alongside the valley below offering beautiful views across the peak district made even prettier under the blue skies and sunshine.

We walked for about half an hour meeting just a few passers by along the way before returning to the car and driving on to the reservoirs we had seen in the distance.

Arriving at the car park for Errwood Reservoir, I was surprised that there didn’t seem to be a path running alongside the reservoir so instead we took a path up a hill which lead to Errs Wood at the top. We took a short walk through a shady path alongside a stream in the wood but as it started to descend, we decided to turn back as my parents were tiring and unsure they’d make it back up again.

Returning to the top of the hill at the edge of the wood, we enjoyed the views over the reservoir below before returning to the car and driving back to our lodge.

Above, and below, walking a short section of the Tissington Trail.

The next morning, we had to check out of our lodge by 10am but not wanting to return home just yet, we decided to pull into the Tissington Trail car park at Ashby de la Zouche right next to the holiday park. The Tissington Trail is yet another of the Peak District’s former train tracks that is now a cycling and hiking trail and similar to the High Peak and Monsal Trails therefore offers a wide and mainly flat path through the Peak District. With Lily apparently tired from her week away and pulling to go back to the car, we walked just a short distance of the trail heading north bound. Like the High Peak Trail, I found the trail to be a lot quieter than the Monsal Trail – we bumped into just a couple of cyclists and one other dog being walked along the way.

As we reached the car, the weather started to change and rain was in the air but I had one more stop I wanted to make before we returned home – Dovedale. This was another recommendation from a friend. Another National Trust site, I knew it would be busy and I was right but with the rain, many people were returning to their cars and we found enough space along the path to keep Lily calm and away from too many people.

The path at Dovedale followed a river running through a glacier carved valley and there were really pretty views on the short walk to a set of Stepping Stones at the far end.

To continue the walk any further, we had to cross the stepping stones but we thought better of it with my parents being wary of getting across and me having visions of Lily ending up wading across the river rather than sticking to walking across the stones but despite this, it was an enjoyable short walk to finish off our trip.

I felt like I’d seen a lot more of the Peak District than I had on my last visit. It was great to have seen different places and taken different walks and especially nice to have found places walks that were manageable for my parents and that Lily could enjoy with us!

A Winter Break in Dorset

Wanting a winter break by the coast for myself, my parents and their dog, Lily, we didn’t really have any specific place in mind so were just looking to find a reasonable deal somewhere. Happy to stay in a static caravan, lodge or cottage, we eventually plumped for a break with Darwin Escapes staying in a lodge in Dorset. Although not right on the coast, their Wareham Forest site was a 10 minute drive from the beaches in Poole and no more than a half hour drive in either direction from coastal towns including Bournemouth, Swanage, Lulworth and Weymouth. The site promised seclusion and peace and quiet with none of the usual club houses etc you’d find on many of the other chain holiday parks and there were plenty of country parks, woodlands and countryside walks nearby should we tire of the beach.

Lily settles into her cabin home for the week

With a later than normal check in time of 4pm, we set out from our Midlands base early afternoon arriving in the dark down the not-at-all-well-lit country roads. We were more than pleasantly surprised by the cosy lodge which met us and after unloading our car, immediately switched off into holiday mode.

That evening, we drove the short distance into Upton for fish and chips before relaxing back at the lodge in front of the television and flame effect fire.

On our first full day in Dorset, we opted to drive the short distance to the nearest beach to the holiday park. Lake Beach is one of Poole’s beaches, situated on the shores of Poole Harbour. We parked on the car park by the old pier from where we had the choice of walking across the beach or taking a path through the dunes behind leading to Ham Common.

With Lily itching to get in the water, we strolled along the pretty stretch of beach to begin with. As the beach tapered off, the tide hitting the cliffs and eventually stopping us from walking any further, we followed the steps leading up to the coast path turning left at the top to walk towards Ham Common viewpoint.

While it was possible to continue around the Haven Holiday Park ahead of us and pick up the coast path again on the other side, we instead decided to loop around back to the Lake Beach car park, this time walking along the coast path rather than back along the beach. The path took us past a large lake – perhaps the lake the beach is named after, before curving back towards the old Lake Beach Pier and we arrived back at the car park just in time for a picnic lunch.

After lunch sat inside our car, we drove the short distance down the road to Hamworthy Beach. The beach was backed by a large public park with playing fields, a play area, paddling pool (closed of course for the season!) and cafe.

After giving Lily a run round on the playing fields, we headed down the the beach. The wooden breakers along the sands and unfortunate placing of the steps to access the beach meant we couldn’t walk in one continuous end to end stroll along the beach so we instead made do with a walk along the promenade past the colourful beach huts, occasionally stepping down onto the sands whenever Lily decided she wanted another splash in the sea! Then, reaching Poole Yacht Club at the far end of the beach, we turned around and walked back through the park to the car park.

Strolling along the promenade at Hamworthy Beach, Poole

It was now late afternoon so after stopping to grab some groceries, we decided to drive back to our lodge where we spent another evening relaxing.

Day 2, we decided to drive a bit further and take a trip to Weymouth. The site of many a happy family holiday as a child in the early ’90s, I had returned to the popular resort just once since for a flying visit 10 years earlier so I was looking forward to returning once more.

Realising we were travelling into the town the route we used to take and past one of the holiday parks we used to stay at in Osmington, we decided to pull over at a view point for Dorset’s famous White Horse – a figure cut into the limestone of the hills – something I loved to stop and see as a child.

Disappointingly, we found the figure to be more the green and muddy horse than the white horse. I guess the figure is not kept in its bright white state out of the holiday season!

Driving past the pebbly north end of Weymouth’s seafront, we parked near the old Pier Bandstand from where we could easily reach the long, sandy stretch of beach – much better for Lily’s paws! – we walked right the way along to Weymouth Pavilion in the distance.

From here, we took a stroll around the picturesque harbour, reminiscing about some of the now long gone attractions we had visited here many years ago over tea and cake at one of the harbourside cafes.

Taking a slow stroll back along the promenade to the car, we sat and had a late lunch before driving back to the lodge for a lazy late afternoon.

The next day we drove to Lulworth Cove on the Jurassic Coast wanting to see both the small horseshoe cove there and the popular Durdle Door a bit further along the coast. We parked at the large and rather expensive car park at Lulworth’s visitor centre and took the short stroll down through the pretty village to the beach.

Looking down at Lulworth Cove from the coast path

With the tide in, there wasn’t much beach to walk along so we instead followed the coast path up towards Stair Hole.

There were great views of Lulworth Cove from the path from where you could really get a better sense of the curvature of the bay and when we reached Stair Hole, just a short way up, it was fun to watch the waves crashing through the rocks.

Walking on the coast path near Durdle Door

We followed the coast path a bit further towards Dungy Head but with my parents struggling with the muddy paths, decided to turn back to the car park. Seeing the signposted path to Durdle Door leading up and over a rather large, steep hill, I realised my parents were not going to cope with the walk there and back again so we instead drove the short distance there, paying another rather steep fee to park in the car park nearby.

From the car park there was still a bit of a walk to the Durdle Door viewpoint but the clifftop path was more gently sloping so taking our time, we were able to all make it there and back. The views of both Man o’ War Beach and Durdle Door itself were really pretty although Durdle Door did really remind me of the Green Bridge of Wales in Pembrokeshire.

Swanage was our destination the following day, somewhere none of us had visited before so we were unsure what to expect. We arrived to rainy weather and parked up on a car park next to a sports field and just a short walk from the sea front. It was a good job Lily had chosen to have a run around on the playing field as we found the sea to be rapidly coming in leaving very little beach for us to walk on.

Heading north, we began our walk along what beach was left until we eventually had to climb the steps up onto the path behind the sands, leading past more colourful beach huts. We soon came to a private section of beach where, during the summer months, dogs are not allowed, but as it was out of season, we could continue further along. Soon, the path tapered off as we reached a cliff-lined section of beach. With the tide still racing in, we decided to turn around and walk back in the other direction.

Reaching the cafe we had started our beach-walk from, the rain started to fall harder so we decided to return to the car for a picnic inside, sheltered from the rain before driving down to Swanage town where we parked up to take another walk.

From the town, we walked back down towards the beach where the sea now covered the sands completely and the waved slammed against the sea wall.

Looking back towards Swanage from the coast path near Peveril Point

We walked south along the promenade towards Swanage Pier and Harbour then followed the signposts along the coast path towards Peveril Point, reaching a pretty cliff top area looking out to sea.

The coastguard lookout house was perched nearby and information boards around it detailed wrecks and disasters that had occurred nearby.

The coast guard lookout hut at Peveril Point

After looping around the cliff top, keeping well back from the cliff edge, we walked back into the town and its quaint high street lined with independent stores, cafes and bakeries. We couldn’t resist buying a delicious looking cake each from one of the bakeries before driving back to our woodland lodge to eat it alongside a warming cup of tea!

With just 2 full days left in the area, we still had a long list of places to visit, both coastal and inland. After Lily had missed out on getting much beach time the previous day, we decided to drive to the popular seaside resort of Bournemouth which we knew had a good stretch of sandy beach no matter what the tide was doing.

With it being out of season, we managed to park up right on the seafront, saving my parents a walk down the cliffs to reach the beach. Starting towards the Boscombe end of the beach, not far from Boscombe Pier, we walked in the direction of Bournemouth, Lily having the time of her life running around the beach chasing her ball, diving into the waves to chase sticks and meeting and greeting plenty of other dogs out for a stroll along the way.

Walking against the wind, and stopping regularly as Lily played, we didn’t get as far as we were planning and as the rain once again started to fall, we decided to return to the car. After lunch, we gave Lily another quick stroll, this time walking towards Boscombe and under the pier and back before driving back.

With one last day left in Dorset, there was one place we’d hoped to visit that we’d not yet made it to – Sandbanks. Situated between the towns of Poole and Bournemouth, Sandbanks is known as the home of the rich and sometimes famous. Driving in, we passed huge houses backing onto the beach or overlooking the marina full of expensive-looking boats.

It was the weekend and reaching the beach car park, it seemed like everyone in the area had had the same idea to visit that day!

The pretty stretch of beach was too busy to give Lily much of a run around on but we walked sown towards the shore and gave her a paddle in the sea before weaving our way through the crowds to walk along the golden sands.

Back in Bournemouth and Boscombe late afternoon

After lunch, we decided to drive the short distance back to Bournemouth which although still busy, had a lot more room as there was more beach for people to spread out along. Lily once again had lots of fun racing around after her ball and burning off some excess energy before it was time to once more return to our cabin.

Despite the cold, wintry weather, it had been fun to spend some time exploring the Dorset coast and with plenty more to see and lots of walks along the coast path to do, I hoped to return sometime soon.

A Liverpool City Break

Liverpool was one of those UK cities I’d been to multiple times but never really seen anymore than my hotel room and the concert arena due to always being short on time. Visiting again on a pre-Christmas concert break, I was determined that this time would be different. Despite having just the one night in the city, we had made plans to drive up early so we could have most of the day exploring the city.

Arriving too early to check in at our hotel near the docks, we dropped our bags off and walked straight into the city centre.

Our first stop was at Liverpool One, the city’s large outdoor mall for a spot of shopping. The mall has all the usual high street stores and a range of well-known restaurants on its top level. After working up an appetite shopping, that was exactly where we headed, settling on Zizzi Italian restaurant a pizza and pasta lunch.

After lunch we wandered further into the city towards the Cavern Quarter. Passing the city’s famous Hard Days Night Hotel (where I’d had an excellent afternoon tea on a previous visit to the city!), we found our way to Matthew Street, home of historic live music venue, The Cavern Club.

Turning into the street, we were met by themed bar after themed bar and with the Cavern Pub and Cavern Restaurant also bearing the famous bar’s name, it took us a while to work out which venue was the one we were looking for!

Finally spotting the Cavern Bar’s entrance across the street, we paid our £5 entrance fee and began our walk down the staircase to the basement, stopping to view some of the pictures lining the walls showing some familiar (and in some cases unexpected) faces who had performed there over the years. The bar was a lot smaller than I’d expected it to be with low ceilings and stone walls. We spent a bit of time looking around finding a larger, more open room with a stage at the back of the venue and a smaller but busier room at the front.

Some of the memorabilia in the Cavern Club

Memorabilia from the Beatles’ career as well as from other famous rock and pop acts covered the walls and a gift store sold a range of Beatles and Liverpool-themed souvenirs while Beatles’ hits were performed by live acts in each room.

Enjoying an afternoon at the Cavern Club

After buying drinks from the bar, we found a free table in the smaller room. The structure of the room with its archways and stone pillars meant there wasn’t a clear view of the stage from many of the tables but video screens dotted around showed a view of the stage and it didn’t matter too much anyway as there was such a great atmosphere as everyone sang along to the Beatles’ and other popular 1960s’ hits.

Leaving our mark on the walls of the Cavern Club

Highlights of the afternoon included mass singalongs to Let It Be and Hey Jude and after the latter, the singer took a well-earned break. We decided that was our cue to leave having spent a lot longer there than we had planned to!

Above, and below, down by the docks and the Liverpool Tate

Before heading off to explore more of the city, we stopped to get photos with the sculpture of John Lennon outside the Cavern Pub and then went on a search for the Cilla Black sculpture. Unable to find it where google maps said it should be, we stopped to ask a local who informed us it had been temporarily removed for renovation. Guess we’ll have to return to see that one another time.

We’ll also have to return to visit the Beatles Museum. Spending longer than planned in the Cavern Club meant we didn’t have time for this, or any other, museum.

Albert Dock and the Wheel of Liverpool behind it

Retracing our steps back through the Cavern Quarter and through Liverpool One, we made our way towards Liverpool’s docks area. Passing Salthouse Dock, we walked along Hartley Quay, past the Maritime Museum and towards the Tate Liverpool where a giant colourful sculpture stood aloft outside.

It was now early evening and after stopping for windswept photos beside Albert Dock, we took a stroll around it passing the currently quiet cafes, bars and restaurants. With the winter sun already going down, the dock was lit up with lots of twinkly lights. We were hoping to end our day with a ride on the Wheel of Liverpool, the city’s equivalent of the London Eye but despite it being a Friday evening and the city filling up with weekend visitors, it was closed.

The view across the Mersey from Kings Dock

So instead, after enjoying the sunset views across the River Mersey, we returned to our nearby hotel to get ready for our concert over at the M & S Bank Arena at King’s Dock.

It had been a brief but fun trip to the city and it was nice to finally spend some time there being a tourist but there was so much more to see and do and I’m really looking forward to returning.

Lincolnshire

A UK Staycation visiting the Lincolnshire coast and Wolds

With Spring half term approaching, I started to think about taking another UK staycation with my parents and their dog Lily. With foreign holidays still being complicated, it seemed that everyone else had had the same idea and prices for a caravan holiday in the parks we’d usually use were way out of our budget. Not giving upon the idea, we kept regularly checking prices in the hope that something last minute would appear and with prices at chain sites not budging, I decided to google privately hired lodges and static caravans.

Humberston Fitties Beach and Tetney Marsh

Finally, on the Friday the schools broke up, a couple of options turned up, an AirBnB static for hire on private land in the Lake District, a lodge in Norfolk reduced on Hoseasons after a cancellation and a caravan in Lincolnshire on a small privately owned site by a fishing lake, all pet friendly and all around the same price. The AirBnB option disappearing as fast as it appeared, we knew we had to make a decision quickly so we went for the slightly cheaper option of the static caravan in Lincolnshire.

The site was situated inland on the edge of an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, the Lincolnshire Wolds but the nearest beach, Mablethorpe was just a 25 minute drive away. After spending the weekend looking up which beaches were either completely dog-friendly or at least had dog friendly areas, we set off early on the bank holiday Monday morning, hoping to beat the traffic and arrive in time to spend an afternoon on the beach before arriving at our accommodation.

The journey went smoothly and without hold ups, the only problem being when we stopped at the services only to be met with the longest queue I had ever seen to get into the building and use the conveniences!

Deciding we could all hold on, we continued north of where we were staying towards Grimsby then, bypassing Cleethorpes (a resort with a huge, sandy beach but where dogs are completely banned throughout the summer season), drove south to Humberston where we were aiming to find and visit Fitties Beach.

Following the satnav to our destination, we were slightly concerned when it seemed to be taking us straight through a huge Haven holiday park, especially as we could see arriving cars queuing to check in ahead of us.

Above, and below, a stroll alongside Louth Canal

Luckily, we were guided past the queuing arrivals and out through the other side of the park where we found a small, private village, the narrow streets lined with chalet-style holiday homes and pretty bungalows. We were eventually lead down a no-through road, the car park for Fitties Beach and the neighbouring RSPB Tetney Marshes lying at the end. The car park was super busy so we drove back out, managing to find on street parking just down the road and from here, we followed a public footpath between the houses, across some dunes and onto the beach.

The beach was more mud flats than sand and the tide was so far out we could hardly see the sea but there was the sun was shining and there was plenty of room for Lily to have a run around so we spent a bit of time walking towards the Tetney Marshes end of the beach and back again.

After spending an hour or so exploring, we walked back to the car and began to drive towards the town of Louth, our accommodation being situated a few miles outside of the town in the village of Alvingham. As soon as we arrived, we knew we had made the right choice of sites for a relaxing holiday. Our caravan was one of just 3 statics on site, all of which overlooked a large fishing lake. A few tourers were parked up on the rest of the grassy field beside us while chickens roamed free around the site, their fresh eggs being sold daily.

After checking in, we drove the short distance into Louth to grab fish and chips for dinner then that evening, we took a walk along the disused canal which lay behind the site, the path eventually lead to Louth but we turned around long before that point!

The next day, we took a ride out to the coast and a beach we had researched to be dog friendly. Not far from the better known Mablethorpe, Huttoft Beach was a little gem. The beach was backed by a busy car park but after parking up, we walked away from the crowds sat in front of the car parks to an almost empty section of the beach in the distance. It was a warm, sunny day but Lily had a great time keeping cool with regular dips in the sea, chasing sticks and rarely bringing them back again!

After returning to the car for a picnic overlooking the sea, we decided to drive on to look at a few other bays, the first being Sandilands.

Above, and below, at Saltfleetby-Theddlethorpe Dunes National Nature Reserve

With it now being early afternoon and the sun still shining, it was suddenly very busy and we were unable to find a space on the small car park or nearby. We continued on to Sutton-on-Sea and then Mablethorpe itself but had the same problem at each place so instead we drove to try to find the beach at the Saltfleetby-Theddlethorpe Dunes, nearby National Nature Reserve. We instead ended up at an entrance to the Nature Reserve that did not have beach access but instead, there was a trail to follow around the reserve and viewpoints of the distant dunes so we spent a bit of time looking around.

We returned to our caravan park late afternoon but after dinner, went out for another canal side walk, this time walking in the opposite direction and heading away from Louth. Our walk took us towards the village of Alvingham and, reaching a bridge crossing the canal, we crossed it into the village, past the village churches and looped back through the village to reach our caravan park again.

Back at the caravan park, we picked up a few leaflets outlining countryside walks in the local area and in the nearby Lincolnshire Wolds and made plans to have a day away from the coast the next day and explore the Wolds a bit instead.

Lily cooling off at Hubbards Hills Country Park, and below, a walk in the Wolds

Awaking to yet another day of glorious sunshine and warm temperatures, we were conscious of going somewhere where there would be plenty of shade for Lily and possibly some water for her to cool off in so we decided to drive to the nearby Hubbards Hills, a country park in the Wolds. Parking up at the free car park at the back of the park, we entered the park to find a shallow river which Lily dived straight into. The pretty park has a path running from one end to the other which runs alongside the river. Lily wasn’t the only dog paddling in the river and as we got closer to the busier side of the park, we found an area in which children could paddle and play in the river too. We instead, walked away from this area, up into the hills and followed a shady path through the trees which eventually lead us out into a nearby village. From here, we crossed the river and walked back into the park, finding a quiet patch of grass to site and have a picnic before following the riverside path back to the far end where Lily once again cooled off in the river before we returned to the car.

It was mid-afternoon so after our walk in the Hubbard Hills, we decided to drive to one of the villages in the Wolds to follow one of the ‘Wolds Walks’ on a leaflet we had picked up from the caravan site.

We drove to the pretty South Thoresby, parking in a layby and trying to make sense of where we were on the map we had on the leaflet. Finding the church where the walk started at, we struggled to work out which direction we were to walk in to being our walk so we followed the public footpath signpost and hoped for the best.

Lily relaxing in South Thoresby village after her walk

We didn’t get very far before we reached what seemed to be someone’s back garden. Confused, we returned to double check that was indeed where the signpost was pointing. A local saw us hesitating and called across that we were going the right way and to go through the gate. Following his instructions, we found that the footpath cut right through a garden before leading out to a field the other side!

Following the signpost to a stile, we helped Lily through and continued along the path, reaching main road at the end of it. It was at this point that we realised where we were on the map and that we were following a second, longer walk than the one we hoped to pick up. Not wanting to return back though the back garden again, we used google maps to work out a cut through back to the original route, although this did mean walking it in the opposite direction to how it was intended and following the instructions backwards!

Finding our way to the path marked on our route map, we managed to find the entrance to a public footpath running alongside a farmer’s field, past a copse and through some woods. We then followed a boardwalk over marshland which lead us back to the church in the village where we had started.

It had been a pretty walk through the Wolds on a warm, sunny afternoon and the drive through the Wolds back to our holiday site was just as pretty.

That evening, we attempted another canalside walk from our caravan but an exhausted Lily was having none of it and after reluctantly making it a few metres along the path, refused to move any further!

The last day of our trip was another warm, sunny one so we decided to head back to the coast, this time driving slightly further south to Anderby Creek.

The small car park at the beach was already full but we managed to find on road parking nearby. Walking up to the sands, we turned left at the entrance to the dog-friendly end, walking away from the crowds towards a near-empty sandy beach.

Lily once again had a great time splashing in the sea and insisted on taking up most of the picnic blanket we had brought out with us when it was time to have lunch!

We spent most of the day at the beach before returning to our holiday park again, spending one final evening taking a walk along the old canal.

We had really enjoyed our visit to Lincolnshire. It wasn’t somewhere we’d really considered going to before but we had found some really lovely beaches and what we’d seen of the Wolds had been really pretty. It’s definitely somewhere we’d love to return to!

The Essex Coast

A UK Staycation

On the beach with Clacton Pier in the distance

While I have missed being able to take off on a European city break at a minute’s notice or head further afield on heavily planned extended trip, the past year has at least, given me the opportunity to explore a bit more of the UK. After trips to various UK National Parks last summer, I headed to the East coast of England last autumn where I spent a few days exploring the Essex coast.

Essex was a place I visited a lot as a child having relatives who lived there until my early teens. Although they lived inland, I remember making the odd trip out to the county’s coast while there – Clacton, Walton-on-the Naze and Frinton-on-Sea all being places I had vague, hazy memories of.

Now, all these years on, I had booked a static caravan for a week away with my parents and my dog just a few miles outside of Clacton and I was looking forward to revisiting some of these places.

Lily enjoys her walk on the beach at Clacton-on-Sea

We spent our first day of the trip driving the short distance into Clacton where we easily found somewhere to park along the promenade just up from the seaside resort’s pier. Despite social distancing and mask wearing advice still being in place, it was half term and the area around the pier was busy as families with excited children headed along the boardwalk towards the bright lights of the arcades and fairground rides dotted along the large jetty.

Moving away from the crowds, we headed onto the quiet, mainly sandy beach, lined with its colourful beach huts. Walking away from the pier, Lily our dog playing happily in the waves lapping onto the seashore. Returning to the car to sit and eat lunch sheltered from the cold wind, we then took a short walk in the opposite direction past the pier and onto the resort’s West Beach before driving back to the holiday park to warm ourselves up.

Day 2 and we drove a bit further up the coast to visit Frinton-on-Sea and the livelier neighbouring resort of Walton-on-the-Naze. This morning, the weather was a bit better and this showed on the beach here being a lot busier than the beach had been at Clacton the previous day. With the tide almost fully in, there was little beach to be seen and instead of heading down to the sand, we had to make do with walking along the concrete, beach hut-lined path behind. Walton-on-the Naze’s pier with its large yellow undercover amusement arcade in the distance brought back childhood memories of previous visits.

Returning to the grass-lined promenade, we sat out on a bench in the sunshine to eat our lunch before returning to the beach. As we walked towards the pier, the tide was slowly creeping out and by the time we reached Walton-on-the Naze, there was enough beach for Lily to have a run on and splash around in the sea.

The next day, we decided to drive a bit further along the coast to Walton-on-the-Naze itself. After stopping in the town for a bit of shopping, we parked up right by some steps by the beach just as a heavy downpour of rain began. Wrapping up warm, we braved the rain and wind to give Lily a walk on the small bit of the beach not completely covered by the sea before returning to the car for lunch.

With the weather not looking like it was going to improve anytime soon, we decided to leave the beach behind and drive along the coast to visit the Naze Nature Reserve.

Lily enjoys the view at the Naze Nature Reserve

The rain briefly stopping, we walked Lily along to the Nature Reserve’s entrance. A visitor centre and shop stands near the entrance and there are steps down to the beach. Instead, we walked along the path into the nature reserve itself past the Naze Tower. When open, it is possible to climb the tower for views over the coast. We followed a circular path around the nature reserve which took us along the cliff overlooking the coast before turning inland past some Artillerary Pillboxes from World War 2 and back towards the Visitor Centre.

We finished our visit with a walk down the path to the beach and along towards Walton-on-the-Naze in the distance before returning to the car and driving back to the holiday park.

Visiting Point Clear Bay, and below, walking around the peninsula

Wanting to see as much as the surrounding coastline as possible, on day 3 we headed south of Clacton-on-Sea past St Osyths and on to Point Clear Bay. Standing on a penninsula overlooking Mersea Island, Point Clear Bay didn’t have much of a beach, more of a shore leading down from a watersports club and hire centre and we stood watching the windsurfers hurtle back and forth across the waves in the distance before racing back onto shore. A path follows the sea wall along the penninsula and as we followed it around, we were soon met with views of Brightlingsea, another Essex coastal resort, in the distance.

The next day, we decided to drive into Brightlingsea for a better look. It was a quaint little place with its endless rows of colourful beach huts, many of them occupied with holiday makers wrapped up warm and huddled up with a cup of tea.

While again, there wasn’t much of a beach, Lily had a great time splashing around in a salt water pool at Brightlingsea Beach overlooked by Bateman’s Tower, a listed building built in the late 1800s.

From the promenade, we followed a coast path along the sea wall then looking out over Brightlingsea Marsh National Nature Reserve.

Our final full day in Essex was a wet and windy day. Today, we drove north of Clacton to Dovercourt Beach, near Harwich. The dreary weather had stirred up the sea and as we walked along the promenade, huge waves crashed over the sea wall. We followed the coast path down to Earlham’s Beach, a bit of a hidden bay backed by dunes and marshland before returning to Dovercourt and making it back to our car before another torrential downpour.

After another lunch in the car, we drove to Wrabness Nature Reserve following the path from the car park out to a viewpoint then down to a pretty beach overlooking the River Stour estuary, the Suffolk coast in the distance.

Cold and wet, we then made our way back to the holiday park to change into some dry clothes and warm up!

Lily enjoying a walk at Holland-on-Sea beach

The next day it was time to say goodbye to our caravan and holiday park but before leaving Essex behind, we once again headed to the coast, this time to Holland-on-Sea, a stretch of sand just up from Clacton. Like Clacton, the sandy beach was again lined with colourful beach huts and we spent some time wandering along the shore letting Lily burn off some energy with one last splash in the sea before the long drive back to the Midlands.

We all agreed we had enjoyed our trip to the Essex coast and would definitely visit again if the opportunity arose.

Visiting the Lake District

Hastily rearranging our planned 5-week tour of US National Parks to a 2-week tour of UK National Parks, the Lake District was my ‘must do’, somewhere I had talked about visiting for as long as I could remember but never getting around to making plans to actually go!

So following on from our 3 nights in the Peak District and 3 nights in the Yorkshire Dales, we would be making the Lake District our next 3-night stop on our road trip.

Trying to emulate some of the activities we would have down on our US trip, we stopped off along the way at Lakeland Maze Farm Park to have a go at their giant Maize Maze. Usually, this would have been a “let’s see what the weather is like on the day and decide then if we want to do it” type of activity but with Covid-restrictions rendering spontaneity obsolete, if we wanted to visit any type of attraction, it had to be pre-booked well in advance. Unfortunately, it had rained most of the morning for our hike around the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail in the Yorkshire Dales and as we left there, there was no sign of a change in this weather as we drove north-west.

Stuck in a huge maze in the rain, traipsing through mud and huge puddles, wasn’t the most fun we had all trip and as the rain got heavier, we resorted to using the maze map we had been handed as we checked in to find our way out quicker than we otherwise would have! Once safely out, we spent a bit of time saying hello to the animals at the farm before continuing to our Travelodge accommodation at the north end of the Lake District National Park in Cockermouth.

Down by Lake Windermere – Ambleside Marina

For our first full day in the park, we had pre-booked a return boat trip across Lake Windermere, the largest lake in the park, travelling from Ambleside to Bowness-on-Windermere. Luckily, seeing as we’d booked outside seating on the boats, the weather had dramatically improved from yesterday and the sun was even trying to shine!

Expecting the Lake District to be the busiest of the National Parks on our road trip, we had booked the first boat of the day to take us to Bowness. We parked up for the day in Ambleside town on the large, and rather expensive, Miller Bridge car park from where it was a mile walk to the waterfront. Being early, the car park was almost empty. After taking some pictures of the lake, we checked in and boarded the boat to Bowness.

Crossing Lake Windermere with Lake Windermere Cruises

With the boat acting as public transport between the towns, we were required to wear our face coverings for the duration of the 30 minute journey and every other row of seats was blocked off to ensure social distancing between parties.

It was a pleasant ride across the lake and once in Bowness, we had just over 2 hours to explore before we had to be back at the marina to catch the boat we had booked back to Ambleside.

Before departing, we had looked up short walks that could be done in the area and decided on a 1.5 mile walk to Post Knott for views over the lake. The mainly uphill walk took us through the busy town and then along a steep public footpath bring us out at Biskey Howe Toposcope. The views here were already pretty impressive and we took a moment to take some photos and catch our breath before following the route instructions we had downloaded and continuing on to Post Knott for more views over the lake before retracing our steps back into the town.

Bowness-on-Windermere marina and, below, at Cockshott Point

After stopping off at one of the many bakeries on offer to grab a slice of delicious looking cake, we walked back towards the marina and took the short lakeside stroll to Cockshott Point, a grassy lakefront area with a stony beach and we sat here to eat our cakes before wandering back in time to catch our return boat to Ambleside.

Once back, we strolled into Ambleside town and had a pre-booked lunch at the George Hotel before spending the afternoon looking around. Ambleside was smaller and slightly less busy than Bowness. We found our way to Bridge House, a small house built on top of a bridge which you can normally go in and look around but was currently closed due to Covid restrictions, and then we took the circular hike out into the woodlands to see Stock Ghyll Force, a nearby waterfall.

After a busy day, we walked back to the car park where we found cars now queuing to get in and find a space and as we drove out of Ambleside, we passed miles of traffic queuing to get into the town even though it was now late afternoon proving we were right about this being the busiest of the parks we would be visiting.

View from Whinlatter Pass on the way to Whinlatter Forest Park

Day 2 in the Lake District and, again trying to replicate activities we’d have down on our planned US road trip, we had booked a segway adventure at Whinlatter Forest Park. We arrived at 10am to find an already packed car park and only just managed to find a space to park up in then went to check in for activity.

We had segwayed multiple times on our visits to the US and in Europe but it had always been in city centres whereas in the UK, it’s only allowed off-road on private land. Our previous segwaying adventures had always been lengthy 2-3 hour tours but today’s would be just an hour, 20 minutes of which were spent setting us all up on the segways and practising before our segways were finally put into the easier to use full-power mode.

Riding on a gravelly surface with lots of quite steep up and down sections made the session more challenging – and a lot more fun – than we had expected and we really appreciated a stop at one of the highest points of the forest park which offered beautiful views across the Lake District. It was an amusing way to spend an hour and we were really glad we had booked it.

The view from one of the highest points in Whinlatter Forest Park

Segway session over, we returned to the car to find the packed car park had now been closed off with ‘sorry, we are full up’ signs outside the entrance. I’m not sure what we’d have done if we’d have booked an afternoon segway session!

Narrow roads as we inadvertently drive along Newlands Pass

With no set in stone plan for the rest of the day other than to spend it exploring the Lake District further, we had looked up the possibility of hiring canoes, kayaks or even a motor boat for that afternoon only to find everything fully booked days in advance so instead, we thought we’d do a circular walk of one of the lakes. After some investigation, we had settled on Buttermere Lake which various sites had told us was one of the quieter, lesser visited of the lakes and which only took a few hours to walk the entire circumference. So with that in mind, we started our drive towards the National Trust car park there.

Beautiful scenery along Newlands Pass heading towards Buttermere Lake

What we didn’t realise was that the drive from Whinlatter to Buttermere would take us along Newlands Pass, a beautiful scenic drive but also one of the windiest, steepest one track roads we’ve ever encountered! As we neared Buttermere, the drive was made more challenging by cars parked in pull in places and other inappropriate places slowing down traffic in and out of the village.

Waterfall along Newlands Pass near Buttermere

We could tell straight away that Buttermere was not going to be quiet at all and that we’d be lucky to find a parking spot but we gave it a go anyway trying both of the village car parks to no avail. It would seem that the Lake District, in the summer months at least, is one of those places where you need to get to your destination for the day early, preferably before 10.30am in order to get a parking space and then you need to stay in that place for the rest of the day because if you move on, you’ll probably not find a parking space at your next destination!

Unsure where to head for next but knowing that we would not be exiting Buttermere the way we came in – we’re not sure our car would have made it up the 25% gradient hill! – we kept driving until the road widened out and we spotted a place to pull over. It was still pretty scenic where we were and sheep were milling around on the road and in the open meadows around us so we had lunch in the car and, seeing as there was no reception to get on line, consulted a map.

Viewpoint on our circular walk around Grasmere Lake

We decided to try our luck at Grasmere, a town and lake which we had passed on the way to Ambleside the day before. Luckily, Grasmere had a huge car park and an even bigger overflow car park which we easily managed to find a space in! Relieved at finding somewhere to go, we walked into the town centre.

It was very busy with queues reaching around the block to enter its famous Gingerbread store and even for ice cream. We found a quieter ice cream store inside a church cafe and indulged in what we felt was a well-deserved treat then looked up walks we could do in the area as we sat and ate them.

We decided on a 3.7 mile circular walk around Lake Grasmere and screen shot the easy to follow instructions before setting off. The walk took us out of the town and up to a viewpoint then through parkland running alongside the River Rothay where the path eventually opened out to the lakeside before looping back into the town. Apart from the initial steep path up to the viewpoint, the walk was mainly flat and easy and there were beautiful views across the lake. A perfect way to finish off our Lake District adventure!

Next up, 2 nights in Northumberland National Park…

Watch my adventures in the Lake District here:

Yorkshire Dales National Park

The second stop on my tour of UK National Parks was 3 nights in the Yorkshire Dales. Having spent a good portion of the day hiking in the Peak District, it was early evening by the time we arrived. We had again chosen accommodation outside of the park’s boundaries, this time in a Travelodge near the town of Skipton.

For our first of 2 full days in the park, we had booked to visit the nearby Bolton Abbey Estate. The site has 4 car parks to choose from and, having not visited before, we were unsure which to pick but eventually booked into the Riverside car park as it seemed to be somewhere near the middle of the grounds. We deliberately chose an early slot so we could make a full day of our visit and we arrived to find the car park almost empty and just a few dog walkers about.

Seeing the priory ruins in the distance, we decided to walk along the river in that direction. It was a pleasant walk and it didn’t take us long to reach the priory. We were able to look inside the chapel which is still used for services and then we walked around to explore the ruins behind the main building structure.

From here, we walked back towards the river heading for the park of the estate we were most looking forward to – the Bolton Abbey stepping stones. Here, visitors can choose to cross a rather wide section of the river by hopping across a series of stepping stones.

It was harder than it looked with some of the stones being quite widely spread and one or two wobbling a bit as we trod on them and as much fun as it was, it was also quite a relief to safely reach the other side!!

Crossing the Bolton Abbey Stepping Stones

After walking back along the other side of the river and making a quick visit to the cafe near the Riverside car park for a delicious locally produced chocolate Brownie, we followed signposts to walk to the Valley of Desolation. It was a relatively short and easy walk out to the very pretty waterfall.

After a picnic lunch, we finished our visit with a walk along one of the shorter trails through the ancient woodland of Strid Wood. An information board as we entered this area of the estate showed maps of the circular walks available and details on the length and difficulty of each walk and we found coloured the signposting of the trails once we were in the woods to be really easy to follow.

By the time we left Bolton Abbey Estate mid-afternoon, the car park was full and the park was extremely busy with families walking, picnicking and playing in the river and we were glad we’d thought to come early and seen it while it was quiet first thing in the morning.

In Pateley Bridge to visit England’s Oldest Sweet Shop

Next, we drove to the town of Pateley Bridge to visit England’s Oldest Sweet Shop. On the drive there we had our first experience of some of the park’s narrower, steeper roads which were even less fun to drive along in the worsening weather. The quaint town of Pateley Bridge was busy for a Sunday afternoon and we had to queue for 10 minutes or so to enter the traditional sweet shop. After browsing the shelves and buying a couple of gifts, we called into a cafe further along the street for ice creams before driving back to our hotel.

Lower and Middle Falls at Aysgarth Falls

Day 2 in the Yorkshire Dales National Park we drove to the north end of the park, starting the day with a walk to Aysgarth Falls. Arriving just after 10am, we parked at the very quiet National Park Visitor Centre car park and followed the signposts across the main road to pick up the trail leading past the different parts of the falls. The trail took us through woodland to the Middle Falls then to Lower Falls before looping back to the now packed car park.

From here we followed the signs pointing in the opposite direction to the short trail to the Upper Falls. It was another easy, mainly flat walk along the trail and it didn’t take long to see all three waterfalls. While we enjoyed the walk, the falls themselves were not as spectacular as the Valley of Desolation waterfall at Bolton Abbey.

From Aysgarth Falls, we drove to the busy town of Hawes to visit Wensleydale Creamery. As well as a shop, restaurant and cafe, the creamery also offers the Wensleydale Cheese Experience – a museum and interactive exhibit which also allows you to peak in at the Wensleydale factory.

At the moment, some of the more interactive exhibitions are closed due to Covid restrictions so the entrance price has been reduced to reflect this but it didn’t stop visitors from wanting to enter and we faced a 30 minute wait to get our ticket and enter! The museum and its exhibits were interesting but our favourite part was watching the cheese being made in the factory.

Peering into the factory at the Wensleydale Cheese Experience

With queues for the Wensleydale shop reaching back and around the corner, we decided to follow our visit to the Wensleydale Cheese Experience with lunch at the Creamery’s cafe in hope that the store queues would subside in the meantime. After a delicious Wensleydale and Yorkshire Red Cheese on Toast lunch, we found the store queues had not gone down much at all so sucked it up and joined the end.

It took about half an hour to reach the main gift store but after looking around that, we then had another 10 minute wait to enter the cheese section! We couldn’t leave without buying some Wensleydale to take home with us though.

Although our visit to Wensleydale Creamery had taken a lot longer than we had anticipated with all the queues, we still had a good portion of the afternoon left so we decided to drive back to the southern end of the park for a stop at the village of Malham. Along the way we passed Ribblehead Viaduct so pulled over to take a few photos before continuing our drive along more narrow, steep, winding roads.

While Malham village itself is a lovely place for a quick stop with its array of pubs and cafes, we were there to do the walk to Malham Cove, a curved, limestone cliff just outside of the town. We parked at the National Park Visitor Centre car park and walked through the busy town to the trail head. The trail ran alongside a babbling stream and with the sun deciding to suddenly shine, it was a pretty settling for an afternoon stroll.

It didn’t take long at all to reach the cliff face and we stopped there for a while to watch some adventurous rock climbers scale it before retracing our steps back to Malham and driving back to our Skipton hotel for the evening.

We had one more morning left in the Yorkshire Dales National Park before driving to our next stop, the Lake District, and we planned to spend it at the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail, a 5 mile circular trail that takes in 5 waterfalls as well as woodland and views of the Yorkshire Dales. The trail is on private land and therefore an entrance fee of £7 per person is charged. Parking was free of charge and again, arriving early at 10am, the large car park was quiet.

Unfortunately, we picked a grey, miserable day with some heavy downpours but while it made the trail muddy and slippery in parts, it did seem to make the falls look more dramatic! It took us just over 2 hours to complete the trail and we stopped for a look around the shops in the village of Ingleton before returning to the car park for a picnic in the car as the rain started bouncing again.

Views along the Ingleton Waterfalls Trail

It had been a fun few days in the Yorkshire Dales National Park and we definitely felt we had got a good taster of what the park has to offer. Like with the Peak District, we could have easily filled another day or so hiking out to other beauty spots in the park or visiting other towns and villages and we would happily return to the area in the future.

Watch my trip vlog here:

Find out what I got up to on the next leg of my road trip, visiting the Lake District, here.

A short break in the Peak District

Deciding to spend 2 weeks on a road trip around some of the UK’s National Parks, none of which I’d spent any time in before, we kicked off our trip with 3 nights in the Peak District National Park.

To keep costs down, we had chose to stay in a chain budget hotel in the Derbyshire town of Chesterfield, right on the edge of the park and no more than 40 minutes drive from any of the areas on our ‘to see’ list.

As we made our way to the hotel midweek in the middle of August, it was an uncomfortably hot day with thunderstorms predicted for the evening and rain forecast for the next 3 days. Not exactly the perfect weather for a visit to a place where we planned to spend the majority of our time outside walking! We briefly entered the Derbyshire Dales part of the park that afternoon with a stop in the town of Matlock.

Looking down from a viewpoint on a walk towards High Tor.

Having spent a week planning our trip, we had discussed the possibility of visiting Matlock Bath’s Heights of Abraham attraction, a cable car ride up a cliff side with panoramic views and a range of attractions on offer from the top but as it was our travel day, we were unsure on what time, or even if, we’d make it on time for a stop in the area and, of course, with Covid-restrictions in place, any activities had to be booked in advance. As we left that morning, ride slots were still available for that afternoon but, making good time, we checked again as we nearer the area to find they had now all sold out. We realised that spontaneity on visiting attractions this trip was out of the question and we were going to have to book well in advance for anything else like this we wanted to do on this trip.

Instead of the cable car ride, we spent some time wandering into Matlock town and through it’s pretty park then back along the river detouring up a steep path towards High Tor to a view point before wandering into the neighbouring Matlock Bath, where we found a very touristy High Street lined with arcades, fish and chip shops and random money-grabbing attractions. In an attempt to avoid the busy footpaths, we crossed over to Derwent Gardens, a riverside park, and took a stroll along the river before returning to our car and continuing our drive to our Chesterfield hotel which would be our base for the next 3 nights.

Officially entering the Peak District National Park

For our first full day in the Peak District, we had booked an early slot to visit the recently reopened Chatsworth House and gardens near Bakewell. As we drove into the park we spotted a millstone boundary marker and seeing as it is a bit of a tradition on our US National Park trips to get a photo with the park entrance signs, we decided to pull over and do the same here!

Chatsworth House and, below, inside the house

Organisation at Chatsworth House was well done. We were careful to arrive just before our ticketed time slot and after parking, we had our mobile tickets scanned and were shown to an area where sinks with hot running water had been installed and asked to go up in our social groups to thoroughly wash our hands then put our face coverings on before being allowed into the house.

Only a few tickets were available for each time slot to cut down the number of people in the house at one time and a one way system was in operation around the property and we were asked to distance from the other groups that we were not attending with. This mainly worked except for times when groups in front stopped for an extended period to look at something or ask questions of the staff. If the corridors or rooms we were in were narrow at this point, it meant you were unable to overtake and had to wait for the groups in front to move on before you could get any further causing some queues to advance to the next room.

Water features in the extensive gardens at Chatsworth House

After looking around the house, we went for a walk around the impressive gardens. On a nice day, it would be possible to spend the day just in the gardens at Chatsworth alone but although we hadn’t had the thunder and rain storms which had been forecast, there was the occasional drizzle and the threat of rain in the air so after wandering down to the fountains and through the rock garden we decided to call our visit a day and move on.

Bakewell Bridge and, below, some of the many Bakewell bakeries on offer in the town

Since it was only a few miles away, we decided to head to the town of Bakewell next. We found that the signposts to the car parks around the town would disappear before we actually found the car park we were aiming for and ended up at a large, but seemingly very out of town parking area in a field. After parking up and paying for a couple of hours’ stay, we found there we weren’t on the outskirts after all and there was actually a shortcut into the centre over a bridge across the river. While the town had attempted to encourage visitors to socially distance with roadside parking areas now being use as coned off pavement extensions, we still found the town to be way too busy for our liking. We visited the National Park Centre there to pick up some souvenirs but unfortunately, the few park exhibitions there were cordoned off due to Covid restrictions so the centre was operating as little more than a gift shop. From here we made our way to the famous Bakewell Pudding shop and glanced through the window at the baked goodies on offer. The puddings themselves didn’t look particularly appetising and the cakes on offer seemed alittle overpriced so we moved on to find another bakery eventually settling on the Bakewell tart shop where we got a very generous portion of Bakewell tart for a more reasonable price.

We finished our visit to the town with a walk along the river to see the historic Bakewell Bridge before returning to the car and driving on to the town of Buxton.

Buxton was much quieter. We parked at the Pavilion Gardens and walked past the Buxton Pavilion into the lower part of the town where we visited the old Pump Room which now doubles as a visitor centre. While mainly just a gift store now, part of the building has been left as it would have been in Victorian times and information boards give an insight into the spa town’s past. Just outside is the historic St Anne’s Well from which you can fill your water bottle with natural spring water.

Part of the original Pump Room at the Buxton Visitors Centre

We picked up a leaflet outlining the Buxton Heritage Trail from the visitor centre which contained a town map pointing out the highlights. Many of the places mentioned were around the visitor centre area so it didn’t take long to walk to some of these. We finished our visit with a walk through the beautiful Pavilion Gardens before driving to the nearby Buxton Country Park for a late afternoon walk up to Soloman’s Temple.

Hiking in the Peak District – walking to Soloman’s Temple and, below, Soloman’s Temple and the view from the top

Rather than using the main car park, we parked at a smaller car park at the back of the park from which it was an easy hike to the rotunda on top of a hill. It was possible to climb a few stairs to the top of the building from which there were 360 degree views across the Peak District. The country park was a really great place to walk and get out in the open after spending time in the busy towns.

With the weather forecast now showing sunny spells rather than the originally forecast rain, we decided to spend the next day cycling the Monsal Trail, a former rail line now converted into a space for walking and cycling stretching from Bakewell to Wye Valley. Bikes can be hired from either end so we drove to the old Hassop Station near Bakewell and parked up for the day, arriving around 10am so there’d still be plenty of bikes to rent.

Map of the Monsal Trail at Hassop Station

Cycling towards Wye Valley, the track was at a very slight, almost unnoticeable incline. It was just under 8 miles to the end of the trail and we’d been provided with maps showing the villages lying just off the trail should we want to visit them as well as the position of the Monsal Viaduct and the four tunnels along the route (which were great fun cycling through!!) so we could track our progress along the way. We chose not to leave the trail to venture into these villages at any point but there was a cafe at the old Millers Dale station directly on the trail which we stopped at for a well lunch. Once at the end of the trail, we turned around and cycled back the other way.

Instead of returning our bikes as soon as we got back to Hassop station, we continued on to Bakewell to ensure we had fully completed the trail. It was a short downhill ride from the old station at Bakewell into the town centre and we headed straight to a cafe we had seen the day before to get well-deserved ice creams. Exhausted, we wheeled our bikes back up the hill to Bakewell station again and picked the trail back up to ride the mile back in the other direction to Hassop and finally return our bikes.

Although it is possible to complete the whole trail in under 2 hours, we took our time on the outbound cycle, stopping regularly to enjoy the views and read the information signs dotted along the trail and managed to make a day out of the activity, not returning our bikes until 3.30pm – more than 5 hours after we hired them. A really fun day out!

The next day, we’d be leaving the Peak District National Park for our next stop in the Yorkshire Dales National Park but we had one more activity planned that morning before heading off. Having spent most of our time in the south of the park we drove a bit further north instead to the Hope Valley region where we planned to walk up Mam Tor, a large hill in the High Peak area of the park. It was a Saturday and as we drove to the National Trust owned car park, we found cars already parked all along the roads around the area wherever they could fit. It was only 10am but the site was extremely busy and the car park was very tight, made worse again by people parking where they shouldn’t and not just in the marked bays. Luckily as we struggled to manoeuvre our way out of one section of the car park, someone parked there left and we managed to grab their space. Our National Trust membership gave us free paring here.

Mam Tor now in the distance as we make our way back along the circular walking route

We followed the circular walking route from the National Trust’s website for our walk but many people were just walking to the peak of Mam Tor then returning back down the way they came. The instructions for the walk were easy to follow and the walk wasn’t too difficult at all with the steps up to the peak of Mam Tor not being too steep. The worst part was descending along a narrow, overgrown, sandy trail down the side of the hill towards the woods.

Evidence of a landslide walking back from Mam Tor

Once back down on the ground, the last part of the trail back up hill to the car park seemed to go on forever, especially as we seemed to complete the trail up to that point pretty quickly, but there were plenty of places to stop for a breather under the pretense of taking in the scenery!

And with that it was time to say goodbye to the Peak District. It had been a fun few days and we felt we had fit a lot in but as always, there was plenty more on our list of possible things to do which we hadn’t got around to such as walking in The Roaches near Leek or touring some of the many caverns in the area. I guess I’ll just have to go back someday!

Watch my vlog of my trip here:

Find out what I got up to at the next National Park on my road trip, the Yorkshire Dales, here.

A UK National Parks Staycation

Like many people, I had big travel plans for this year, namely a 5-week mammoth USA road trip passing through California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Utah and Arizona visiting a variety of National Parks. Luckily, while our route was planned, we hadn’t got very far in the booking process with just our return flights to LA and our first 2 nights’ hotel accommodation booked by the time we went into lockdown. We put our planning on hold and thankfully, as it became more and more apparent that our trip had no chance of going ahead, our flights with Norwegian Airlines were cancelled and promptly fully refunded and we went ahead and cancelled our LA hotel reservation.

While travel to the USA was out of the question, as restrictions in the UK slowly began to be lifted, we started to wonder if a trip here would be a summer possibility. While I’ve extensively explored the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Italy and a range of European cities, there is very little of my own country I have spent time seeing in anywhere near as much detail. Trips here for me mainly consist of city breaks to see a concert where more time is often spent travelling to and getting ready for our night out than sightseeing, or a few days somewhere on the Welsh coast walking my dog on the same 4 or 5 beaches each time. With our original trip being based on visiting USA National Parks, we wondered if we should maybe spend some time in the UK Parks.

So, still unsure if our trip would even become a possibility, we tentatively started doing some research.

With Wales and Scotland under separate rules and restrictions to here in England, we decided we should plan to stay away from the parks there in case we were still not allowed across the borders by the time August rolled around. That straight away cut down the possibilities to 10 English National Parks. The Norfolk Broads on the east coast, the Southern Downs, New Forest, Exmoor and Dartmoor in the south and the Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, North York Moors, Lake District and Northumberland National Parks to the North. Living in the Midlands, any direction would suit me as nowhere is very far in comparison to the distances we’d have driven in the US.

After some research, we decided rather than being over ambitious and attempting a full 5-week road trip taking in all of the parks when local lockdowns were very likely to come into force and disrupt our plans, we would concentrate on the parks in one area of the country and aim to spend about 10-14 days on our trip. Having seen a number of reports on crowds rushing to the south of England, we eventually decided to head to the parks in the north and came up with a 14 day itinerary during which we would hopefully spend time in the Peak District, the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, Northumberland and then the North York Moors. We’d begin our adventure midweek to avoid weekend traffic and made sure the days spent in the Lake District, the park we expected to be busiest, were also midweek when it might be slightly quieter.

By the time that it looked as if lockdown would be relaxed enough for our ideas to possibly come to fruition, we found that with everyone being forced into staycations, accommodation options were either very limited or extremely expensive so rather than staying in the parks themselves, we opted for chain hotels in towns on the outskirts of the park – making sure we went for the fully cancellable room options of course, just in case!

Hotels booked, a basic plan of possible activities was next. Covid restrictions meant spontaneity was not as much a possibility as usual. Attractions including National Trust properties, farm parks, boat trips etc were all working on a time-slot booking system and spots were filling up quickly but we were pleased to see most places offering transferable or even refundable tickets in case circumstances changed and visitors couldn’t it.

We wanted to stick with outdoor activities for the main part anyway so were banking on the weather staying mainly dry at least so we could busy ourselves with a range of walks to see the parks’ highlights. In preparation, we found the postcodes for all the car parks we might use and collected together as much change as possible – which is more difficult than it sounds in a world where contactless card payments are preferred everywhere – in case any of the park machines were cash only.

With the government’s Eat Out To Help Out scheme running Mon-Wed throughout August, park attractions weren’t the only thing we couldn’t be spontaneous with. Most restaurants were also operating a book ahead only policy so we had to think ahead as to where to eat on our trip sometimes booking more than a week in advance. Staying in the towns on the outskirts of the parks at least gave us more choice with this and allowed us to vary our cuisine a bit more. The scheme helped us to keep the cost of the trip down a lot along with finding various online vouchers to use at chain restaurants for the remaining days of the week and we kept the cost of eating out down further still by carrying a box of cereal with us for breakfast, buying rolls to make our own lunch and even taking a flask of hot water with us each day to make our own tea!

As we set off for the Peak District, we were fully expecting to have to give up and head home from our trip before reaching the end either due to weather issues or local lockdowns suddenly coming in but surprisingly we made it to all 5 of the parks on our list without interruption. It was certainly very different from our experiences of visiting the National Parks of America in the past with the UK parks being large areas containing lived and worked in towns and villages rather than being actual parks like in the US with an entrance, exit and a route to follow through taking you past all the highlights. We discovered early on that it was best to mainly keep out of the villages and towns after we arrived in Bakewell to find crowded streets and very little social distancing going on and from that point forward we aimed for open spaces where we could hike out to beauty spots on easy to follow trails, keeping a distance from others.

It was great to see a bit more of our own country, to get out into the countryside and go hiking and to drive through such beautiful scenery and while not quite as exciting as the trip we had planned, it was an adventure we would probably never have planned or experienced in normal circumstances.

Keep checking back for my write up of what we got up to in each park starting with our visit to the Peak District!

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A UK Staycation visiting the Lincolnshire coast and Wolds

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A UK Staycation

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