castleton
We’ve been hearing all about how close the English countryside is from Manchester, and how beautiful it is. So we were happy when a group of friends from our church invited us to go on a hike in the Peak district this Saturday. With all the crazy terrain we crossed on the hike (more on that in a second), the worst injury of the day ironically happened right when we stepped outside our flat. Wendy fell on the slippery rock path and knocked her head a bit. She endured a headache and a few others aches, to go ahead with the trip. Honestly, the biggest injury was probably to her ego. (I mean really? We’re going on a hike and I hurt myself in our yard!)
After meeting friends in the church parking lot and hopping into a car, we were totally surprised that the country can look this different after having driven just 20 minutes somewhere. We’ve only spent time in cities but the countryside here is beautiful, very green with rolling hills and tons of small stone walls that one of our friends said can date up to 1,000 years old. The village of Castleton, where we arrived, is really charming, with a number of pubs, a couple of small hotels, and, yes, an actual castle looming up on the hill that apparently dates back to the Norman Era.
We initially thought we’d be starting off with a steep climb up to the castle, but the group leaders noticed some snow accumulating at the tops of the hills and decided to go the long way around. After walking by a lot of open fields and seeing a few ponies and sheep, we managed to run smack-dab into that show drift we were trying to avoid. I can’t emphasize how bizarre it was to be walking through totally normal (albeit still pretty cold) English weather and then all of a sudden have a blizzard hitting you in the face. You can see from the pictures that it was coming from our left, and so everyone in the group basically had a funny accumulation of snow on that side of their bodies. The snow actually got really thick, to the point where we could barely see 15 feet in front of us, and then as quickly as we were in it, we were walking back out again.
We waded down a small ravine and past some amazing views of the castle overhead, to finish up back in castleton and enjoy a nice little pub lunch. Zeke tried steak and kidney pie for the first time (verdict: steak was awesome, but he will be avoiding all kidneys from now on. they were gross.) and we warmed up a bit by the fire. For all the weird weather we experienced, the hike was actually really fun and as many people said, better we walked through snow than through rain!
for more pictures look at the slideshow
