Peak District Tourney!
Yes, I should call it a tourney. What else would you call four days of extreme excitement, adrenaline, sleepless nights and tedious days. To cut that short, this tour was unique of its own. Mostly for the following reasons:
The Christmas day was as expected cold and misty. We started off at aro
und 8:30 am after the Sun-god was just peeping out of his sleep. Our first stop was to be Cambridge. I volunteered as the navigator as I was the person with the best knowledge of UK roads and rules. Boy! Did I know it is such a tough job, made tougher by our great driver. Our car a silver coloured Vauxhall Corsa, was pretty cute one. Though it had its own mind while playing CDs which I burnt just the night before and they played nicely on my PC. The road was empty as expected, very few cars going to visit their family over Christmas. By the time we reached the motorway, our driver was already going up to 100 mph (well at times!).
With God's grace we reached Cambridge at around 10 am, parked at a nice MLPL. I say nice because it was free for that day. The whole city was still sleeping, it seemed so. I had been to Cambridge twice before this hence with a little help I was able to guide everyone to the main university area, with all top colleges lined up. A good bit of photo sessions with the first timers. A bit of scolding from an old lady, "Oh! Please leave us alone for one day!" It's Christmas dear! Well, seriously, it was a nice sight seeing the empty streets and the colleges. We even managed to get into a Church for morning session, but just slipped out in time.
Back to navigation after a lunch of sandwiches, pasta and fruits. My eye-lids were becoming heavy, but I was the navigator! I could not even blink (well that is too much though). The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. We just stopped once to re-fuel, had some coffee while sitting on top of the motorway. (see pic)
We reached Peak District at about 3 pm. It was nice, and cold as expected. Peak District is UK's first National Park which mainly covers the county of Derbyshire. It is around the middle of England toward the north. The main attraction here is the natural beauty and caves and caverns. Finally we reached our cottage, Orchard Cottage, in Shatton Hall farms (picture here). Very peac
eful area with some other farm houses. Old style English house with two bedrooms and bath/toilet on the first floor, open kitchen and drawing room in the ground floor. 100 % wooden and old. Really nice home for four days. The house cat and the owner welcomed us.
We made some light dinner and watched 'Dancing on Ice' special episode. Then were off to sleep as we had to get early for the Boxing Day sale.
Next day was a simple one, went to Manchester for Boxing Day sale but found nothing to suit our taste or pocket. From there went to Scheffiel
d to see 'Ghajini' but ended up seeing 'Rab ne bana di jodi', and at the end of it all of us decided that watching movies while away on a holiday is really a very bad idea.
Next day was the best of all. All the attractions were open, so we decided to visit Chesterfield first, but at the end of the day it was the only place we visited. Anyways, no regrets though, this is no summer! Chesterfield was just 20 mins drive from our cottage. A small village, a really small town with maybe 50 houses at most. All the famous caverns are nearby so we decided to give our driver a break and spend the whole day there. We took out tour guides and steppe
d forward for Peak Cavern also known as the Devil's Arse.
This funny name is due to the fact that there is a underground river which during rains becomes full. When the water flows out it makes a funny noise when the water and the air flow out through a small hole. It sounds like the devil is farting! The cave opened at 11 am for tour, you can only have guided tour. The guide displayed how ropes were made; the caves were used for this because it gives a long place to wind the ropes. We went into the cave, seriously if not for the electricity this place would have been pitch black. Not any light. The underground lake was like crystal, until our guide dropped a pebble in it, I was thinking it was just a piece of cave floor. We saw the first sights of stalactites, very small, maybe few millimetres and that also too 100 years to form. The overall experience was great, we were crawling at some places and jumping at others. Our guide was also good, cracking jokes as necessary.
Then we headed for the Speedwell cavern which boasts of a undergr
ound river boat ride. We were very excited to be there. The weather in the meanwhile was biting the skin even after three layers of clothing. Even then someone was gliding, maybe he was paid for that!
The Speedwell cavern was simply great. We all adorned with helmets went around 100 steps down to ride a boat. The 'river' inside is of course man-made. This was made as a path for the miners but it usually used to get filled with water, so they decided to use boats, fast and easy. The helmets were very necessary as we kept banging our heads to the roof. At the end of the ride we checked the Bottomless pit, really, it was eerie to see such a deep pit inside a cave whi
ch itself is around 20-22 metres underground.
The last cavern left for us was the Blue John stone mine. Blue John stone is a semi-precious stone, slightly bluish in colour. It is mainly used to make tableware and decorative pieces due to its unique grain which gives a nice design to the decoration. But the amount of labour needed makes it costly. For example a medium sized soup bowl would cost around £2500. That's really costly for a bowl!
This guide was a bit boring, but the place was interesting. This is an active mine and we could see the pathways for miners. All around were huge deposits of the stone. The guide said that particular opening had £ 30 million
worth of stone! He then guided us to the best collection of stalactites and stalagmites.
Coming to some geography and chemistry, you can make stalactites and stalagmites by making water drips from a cave ceiling. Not just any cave, you need to be sure that the cave has a limestone cover. The water dissolves the calcium carbonate and drips form the ceiling, where it again gains its solid form slowly giving sharp spikes that hang from the ceiling, called stalactites. When the same water drops on the form, they also make fair amount of deposit and give rise to stalagmites. Stalagmites are very blunt and grow slower than stalactites. The
Treak cliff cavern has a growth rate of 1 mm per 60 years, or 1 cm per 600 years for stalactites.
This cavern was full with some huge stalactites which would have taken 1000s of years to form thus making us go to a place which existed 1000s of years ago too. That's creepy (in comparison that the modern era is only 2000 years old).
Well, here ended our days journey of caves and caverns. We all were very satisfied and tired. We dropped into a local pub called the Bull, to have our late lunch. The chicken was really good, with a unique Italian taste.
The last day was again not much eventful. We visited Matlock Bath with was in our return way. We trekked a few feet (as our driver was really tired, we feared he might sleep off while driving!) on to High Tor. We missed the Heights of Abraham as it is closed at this time of the year. We visited a great exhibition on 3D holograms and saw the petrification well. Well, it is not as dangerous as it sounds. You won't turn into stone by drinking its water, but yes if you constantly let its water run over you for say 100 years you will turn into stone. (A man who can sit for 100 years at same place is anyway a stone!) Scientifically speaking, the high quantity of limestone and other minerals in the water causes this.
That was the last stop, I was back to serious navigation within moments. With one lunch break and one pee break we could make back to Ipswich by 4:30 pm. The tourney ended! Everyone is happy and ...!
- We were starting on 25th December when the whole of England is supposed to be inside home.
- It was very cold sub-zero temperature.
- All shops were closed (we were very apprehensive about the fuel stations being open!).
- Our driver was just great. It was the first time he was driving in UK and it seems "traffic rules" is not something in his dictionary!
The Christmas day was as expected cold and misty. We started off at aro
und 8:30 am after the Sun-god was just peeping out of his sleep. Our first stop was to be Cambridge. I volunteered as the navigator as I was the person with the best knowledge of UK roads and rules. Boy! Did I know it is such a tough job, made tougher by our great driver. Our car a silver coloured Vauxhall Corsa, was pretty cute one. Though it had its own mind while playing CDs which I burnt just the night before and they played nicely on my PC. The road was empty as expected, very few cars going to visit their family over Christmas. By the time we reached the motorway, our driver was already going up to 100 mph (well at times!).With God's grace we reached Cambridge at around 10 am, parked at a nice MLPL. I say nice because it was free for that day. The whole city was still sleeping, it seemed so. I had been to Cambridge twice before this hence with a little help I was able to guide everyone to the main university area, with all top colleges lined up. A good bit of photo sessions with the first timers. A bit of scolding from an old lady, "Oh! Please leave us alone for one day!" It's Christmas dear! Well, seriously, it was a nice sight seeing the empty streets and the colleges. We even managed to get into a Church for morning session, but just slipped out in time.
Back to navigation after a lunch of sandwiches, pasta and fruits. My eye-lids were becoming heavy, but I was the navigator! I could not even blink (well that is too much though). The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. We just stopped once to re-fuel, had some coffee while sitting on top of the motorway. (see pic)
We reached Peak District at about 3 pm. It was nice, and cold as expected. Peak District is UK's first National Park which mainly covers the county of Derbyshire. It is around the middle of England toward the north. The main attraction here is the natural beauty and caves and caverns. Finally we reached our cottage, Orchard Cottage, in Shatton Hall farms (picture here). Very peac
eful area with some other farm houses. Old style English house with two bedrooms and bath/toilet on the first floor, open kitchen and drawing room in the ground floor. 100 % wooden and old. Really nice home for four days. The house cat and the owner welcomed us.We made some light dinner and watched 'Dancing on Ice' special episode. Then were off to sleep as we had to get early for the Boxing Day sale.
Next day was a simple one, went to Manchester for Boxing Day sale but found nothing to suit our taste or pocket. From there went to Scheffiel
d to see 'Ghajini' but ended up seeing 'Rab ne bana di jodi', and at the end of it all of us decided that watching movies while away on a holiday is really a very bad idea.Next day was the best of all. All the attractions were open, so we decided to visit Chesterfield first, but at the end of the day it was the only place we visited. Anyways, no regrets though, this is no summer! Chesterfield was just 20 mins drive from our cottage. A small village, a really small town with maybe 50 houses at most. All the famous caverns are nearby so we decided to give our driver a break and spend the whole day there. We took out tour guides and steppe
d forward for Peak Cavern also known as the Devil's Arse.This funny name is due to the fact that there is a underground river which during rains becomes full. When the water flows out it makes a funny noise when the water and the air flow out through a small hole. It sounds like the devil is farting! The cave opened at 11 am for tour, you can only have guided tour. The guide displayed how ropes were made; the caves were used for this because it gives a long place to wind the ropes. We went into the cave, seriously if not for the electricity this place would have been pitch black. Not any light. The underground lake was like crystal, until our guide dropped a pebble in it, I was thinking it was just a piece of cave floor. We saw the first sights of stalactites, very small, maybe few millimetres and that also too 100 years to form. The overall experience was great, we were crawling at some places and jumping at others. Our guide was also good, cracking jokes as necessary.
Then we headed for the Speedwell cavern which boasts of a undergr
ound river boat ride. We were very excited to be there. The weather in the meanwhile was biting the skin even after three layers of clothing. Even then someone was gliding, maybe he was paid for that!The Speedwell cavern was simply great. We all adorned with helmets went around 100 steps down to ride a boat. The 'river' inside is of course man-made. This was made as a path for the miners but it usually used to get filled with water, so they decided to use boats, fast and easy. The helmets were very necessary as we kept banging our heads to the roof. At the end of the ride we checked the Bottomless pit, really, it was eerie to see such a deep pit inside a cave whi
ch itself is around 20-22 metres underground.The last cavern left for us was the Blue John stone mine. Blue John stone is a semi-precious stone, slightly bluish in colour. It is mainly used to make tableware and decorative pieces due to its unique grain which gives a nice design to the decoration. But the amount of labour needed makes it costly. For example a medium sized soup bowl would cost around £2500. That's really costly for a bowl!
This guide was a bit boring, but the place was interesting. This is an active mine and we could see the pathways for miners. All around were huge deposits of the stone. The guide said that particular opening had £ 30 million
worth of stone! He then guided us to the best collection of stalactites and stalagmites. Coming to some geography and chemistry, you can make stalactites and stalagmites by making water drips from a cave ceiling. Not just any cave, you need to be sure that the cave has a limestone cover. The water dissolves the calcium carbonate and drips form the ceiling, where it again gains its solid form slowly giving sharp spikes that hang from the ceiling, called stalactites. When the same water drops on the form, they also make fair amount of deposit and give rise to stalagmites. Stalagmites are very blunt and grow slower than stalactites. The
Treak cliff cavern has a growth rate of 1 mm per 60 years, or 1 cm per 600 years for stalactites.This cavern was full with some huge stalactites which would have taken 1000s of years to form thus making us go to a place which existed 1000s of years ago too. That's creepy (in comparison that the modern era is only 2000 years old).
Well, here ended our days journey of caves and caverns. We all were very satisfied and tired. We dropped into a local pub called the Bull, to have our late lunch. The chicken was really good, with a unique Italian taste.
The last day was again not much eventful. We visited Matlock Bath with was in our return way. We trekked a few feet (as our driver was really tired, we feared he might sleep off while driving!) on to High Tor. We missed the Heights of Abraham as it is closed at this time of the year. We visited a great exhibition on 3D holograms and saw the petrification well. Well, it is not as dangerous as it sounds. You won't turn into stone by drinking its water, but yes if you constantly let its water run over you for say 100 years you will turn into stone. (A man who can sit for 100 years at same place is anyway a stone!) Scientifically speaking, the high quantity of limestone and other minerals in the water causes this.
That was the last stop, I was back to serious navigation within moments. With one lunch break and one pee break we could make back to Ipswich by 4:30 pm. The tourney ended! Everyone is happy and ...!
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