The Peak District National Park

After staying in Brighton for 3 days, we headed north to Oxford to pick up another graduate school friend, Anders. From there, we drove 2 1/2 hours north, to the Peak District National Park, near Manchester.

For all of you in the states that complain about gas....complain no more. A gallon of gas in the UK costs over $8.50 a gallon! We filled the minivan during our trip and it cost us about $166 dollars! As Grigo said..."holy sh*t" after we put gas in the car.

Keena had located a cottage on line that we were to stay in for the weekend. Let's just say, don't rely on google maps when it comes to finding a needle in a haystack. Our adventure was rather comical as we had a number of missed turns, talked to a few strangers (one of them happen to be riding a horse), and at one point had Anders and Anna running in different directions down two different streets trying to find our cottage. In the end, we located our wonderful place to live for the weekend.

While it was a "cottage" it was very modern inside with all the high end appliances...including a dryer! This is the view from my room.

Despite the name, there are no peaks in the Peak District National Park. It is called "Peak" because a British tribe "the picts" once lived in the area (why is it not the Picts District?). According to my guide book, the park is the busiest in Europe and the second busiest in the world after Mt. Fuji. The park is covered with rolling hills, villages, caves, livestock, farmland, and stone fences.

After we arrived, we set out on our first walk/hike. Many of the trails go straight through people's private property. So you find yourself going through fields filled with sheep and cattle. The animals are extremely friendly as they are use to strangers walking by.

This trail connected to Monsal Trail, which was a converted railway line. The picture below is us walking through one of the old stations.

Grigo and Anders on our return walk back to the cottage.

That night, we decided to hit the pub in the village. It was only about a 5 min walk from our cottage and had excellent food. As Rica was still not feeling her best, Keena decided to take Rica home early. The rest of us stayed around for another round of drinks. The next morning we had one of our funnier moments on the trip. As we set out for another hike, we walked past the pub.

This happens to be our stroller that we left at the pub the night before. Apparently, Keena did not take it when she left early and we forgot to grab it on our way home. It must have looked funny to see a stroller parked outside the pub the entire night.

This is the next hike we did. We actually hiked down this hill, crossed the bridge that you see and then walked the valley below the bridge. Grigo carried Rica all the way down...and Keena carried her all the way back up.

A view on the hike.

Resting on the walk with cattle in the background.

Here is Keena carrying Rica back from the hike.

In the afternoon, Keena, Grigo, and I set out on another walk. This is Grigo and I climbing over one of the many stone walls. Many of the walls have built in stone steps so you walk over the fence. It was definitely one of the neat things on the trip.

On our return, it was about 7 pm at night and there were hot air balloons taking off in the distance.

We also discovered this beautiful horse.

More tomorrow on the last day of the trip.