A Weekend In The Peak District
After lots of recommendations for amazing hiking spots in the UK, Katie and I decided that we simply had to take a trip out to the Peak District for a weekend. Originally we planned to go over the April bank holiday weekend, however we had an unruly amount of snow this year in April (and yes, Winter seemed to hit us in Spring..) so we postponed our little adventure for when the weather gets better – this was probably the best decision we made.
We drove up to the Peak District in late June – just as the warmer weather was kicking in. We spent hours trolling through online blogs and Instagram posts to find some amazing spots to fill our weekend with and came up with the following plan (you might want to make notes on this, because although jampacked, it’s a weekend you can’t say no to!)
Day 1
We woke up on Saturday around 6am – as we were only going to be in the area for a night, we decided to head up nice and early so that we could get straight to it. We made sure we had prepared lunch for both days of the trip at home, as this would make our lives a little bit easier over the weekend. As we are both based in Oxfordshire, the journey to the Peak District only took us about 2 hours.
Upon arrival in the Peak District, we headed straight for the campsite which we had only found the night before (click here to see where we stayed) – we were looking for somewhere close to Winnats Pass, as we planned to head here for sunrise on Sunday morning and we were definitely not disappointed by the location!! The camping area was held in a small field on a family farm. When we arrived, we were greeted by a few sheep in the field that we were staying in, which unfortunately did mean that we had to kick some sheep poo out of the way to set up camp, but that didn’t bother us in the slightest. When you’re only paying £6 each for the night, you can’t complain at a bit of sheep poo in the grass! We quickly set up camp on the far side of the field next to the wall (walls make great wind breaks on high hills) and then made our way out for our first day of activities.
The first hiking route on our trip was Jacob’s Ladder and Kinder Scout. The weather was incredible – the sun was shining through the clouds, but there was a nice breeze throughout the day that kept us nice and cool as we hiked through the hillside.
After a long and tiring walk through the hills of Kinder Scout, we decided to drive over to Stanage Edge (or Stanage Baratheon Edge, as we liked to call it). Neither of us really knew what to expect from this gritstone escarpment – all that we really knew was that it was a famous climbing area and had great views.
It was incredible. The actual length of the cliffs seemed to go on forever and although it wasn’t particularly high or hard to walk up to, the views were unforgettable over the Hope Valley and we spent quite a while just soaking in the amazing scenery!
We decided to head back to the campsite after Stanage Edge. We had originally planned to try and squeeze in a local reservoir, however we were both starving and absolutely knackered and thought we should just go and chill out, have some dinner and get a good night’s sleep before sunrise the next day.
Food was definitely well deserved – we had veggie fajitas (which may have been the first time I proved to Katie that veggie food is amazing) and then we just chilled out at the campsite. We decided to go to bed around 10pm, however we were kept up until about 2am by some Northern birds partying the night away and being generally antisocial. I guess that’s the only downside to camping in the summer – you can never tell who is going to be staying there too!
Day 2
After a long night of not getting a great amount of sleep (we will definitely be taking ear plugs with us in the future), we woke up around 4:30am to catch the sunrise on Winnats Pass. We had driven through Winatts Pass on Saturday a few times, so had an idea of where to walk to get to the best spot. Thankfully our campsite was only 2 fields over from where we wanted to be for sunrise, so at least the walk over wasn’t too strenuous after no sleep!
We couldn’t have found a better spot for sunrise. We had the whole place to ourselves, which felt really unusual as it was so busy during the day! Our only company were a few stray sheep on the gorge-side. If you have never been to or driven through Winnats Pass, it is definitely something I suggest you do at some point in your life. It feels like you’re walking through a Lord of The Rings set – the gorge runs through some limestone cliffs that are coated in moss and grass and the road itself winds amongst the limestone pinnacles, taking you past Mam Tor and through to Hope Valley.
If you have never sat at the top of Winnats Pass to watch the sun come up, this is something I definitely suggest you make the time for. Yes, the early morning start feels like hell, but once you sit down amongst the tranquil scenery and welcome the start to the day, you can’t help but feel relaxed and it definitely makes the lack of sleep worth it! And if you don’t believe me, maybe my attempts at capturing that tranquility could persuade you.
We sat and watched the sun come up for about 3 hours and not once did we see another person on that gorge! We then wandered back to the campsite, had an hour or so nap, made our breakfast (baked beans, scrambled egg and left over fajita powder – best idea ever) and then packed away to venture out for another full day of activities.
Our route for the day involved venturing to a few spots on our way back down South. We headed to Lud’s Church, which took about an hour from where we were staying in Hope Valley. It probably would’ve been a quicker journey across, however actually finding Lud’s Church proved to be a challenge. We headed to a post code that took us to the beginning of a few mile long circular walk along The Roaches and Gradbach. However, we were looking for something a bit easier due to the lack of sleep, so drove around for a while before we found a car park that was a lot closer to Lud’s Church itself. The car park was alongside a river under some trees – it’s quite small so I would recommend getting there earlier in the day to make sure you get a good space. We were lucky enough to arrive as someone else was leaving, but I could imagine it being difficult to find a space when it’s busy! (Click here to see the location of the car park on Google Maps)
The walk from the car park took us past a Scout centre and through the forest to Lud’s Church. We walked for about half an hour before we found the chasm in the forest and it was actually a really easy walk there and back. The forest leading up to Lud’s Church was absolutely beautiful and offered some well received shade in the midday sun.
If you ever get a chance to experience Lud’s Church, it will be like something you have never experienced before. Nobody really understands how the chasm formed in the first place, apart from the fact there was some kind of landslide on the hillside above Gradbach. The walk through the chasm itself feels like you’re adventuring through the Jurassic Park. The minute you walk into Lud’s Church, the temperature noticeably drops by a few degrees and the only noise you hear is the constant high buzzing of flies and mosquitos living in the moss enriched walls. I would recommend wearing some fly spray, as you’re never really sure if you’re going to get bitten, so it’s better to be safe than sorry. I also recommend wearing some good walking boots or even wellies as certain areas of the chasm get very wet and boggy and if the weather has been particularly bad, I can imagine that it gets really muddy and horrible down there!
We spent hours wandering around this fascinating place; back and forth, finding all the nooks and crannies of the chasm, before heading back down through the forest and onwards to our next location.
We had intended upon hiking up Chrome Hill, but neither of us really knew what the hike was going to be like (and we were both pretty shattered), so we drove that way to have a look and decide what to do when we were there. The weather on the Sunday was incredibly hot and still and Chrome Hill didn’t seem to offer any sort of protection from the midday sun, so we decided against hiking up the hill. However, just the view of the hill from the bottom was insane – it looked like the back of a Spinosaurus laying on the grass. We spent a while looking upon the giant hill from the bottom and then moved on to try and fit in our last point of interest before our journey home.
Our final place we wanted to see on this visit was Thor’s Cave – a natural cavern located in the Manifold Valley. Our sat nav took us straight to the closest car park and the walk from there took about 5 minutes to the view of the cave. We didn’t realise that we would have to hike up a hill to get to the cave itself and we discussed whether we should do this for a while as we didn’t know how long it would take. After contemplating it for about ten minutes, we decided to go for it as we both really wanted to get inside the cave and have a look around.
The walk up the hill was so tiring. I don’t know whether it was due to the lack of sleep or the fact that we had hiked for hours on end the day before, but I have never experienced steps quite like that before. There must have been hundreds upon hundreds of steps up to that cave and it felt like we were rambling for hours, but I think realistically we were probably only hiking for about half an hour. Once you actually get up to the cave itself, you have to do a bit of basic climbing to get into the cavern – I would definitely recommend removing your shoes for extra grip, because the rocks in the cavern are so smooth and slippery and the cave itself is so high up, that I definitely don’t think you would want to risk a slip and fall to your death down that hill….
We definitely didn’t spend as long as we could have done in that cave. There was so much to explore, but it got very dark very quickly and we decided that we would have to leave soon as we still had a long journey to head home and get ready for work the next day! So after a couple of hours of taking photos and exploring the areas that weren’t too dark and creepy, we shuffled down the entrance on our bums and walked back down the hill, exhausted but elated from the wonderful weekend we had experienced in the Peak District and definitely ready to head home and get a good nights sleep.
Would I recommend a weekend in the Peaks? ABSOLUTELY!
In fact, I would recommend a few weekends or a few weeks or months – there is so much to explore and so much natural beauty around that part of the country and who knew it was right on our doorstep?!