Walking in the Peak District

Sheep up in the peaks, enjoying the view

We only had about two weeks of really cold weather this winter, and only really two snowfalls (at least in London).  Dave was really keen to see some snow, having never really spent much time in it, so I think he was particularly excited when we decided to go walking in the Peak District.  Especially with a big snowfall having fallen a week earlier.  

The Peak District National Park, near Wetton

The icicles tinkled in the breeze

I was monitoring the weather report quite closely in the week leading up to our trip, as it looked like the route to our hotel went right through the heart of the national park and I wasn't sure about our non-existent snow driving skills.  Especially given no one seems to use snow chains in this country, they just drive on top of the snow.  I guess they go a little slower than normal, but that's about their only concession to the elements.

We were fooled a little by the name of this park, Peak District, seems to conjure up pictures of towering mountains, and wild, untouched forest.  But the highest "peak" is only 600m high, and, at least where we were, most of the landscape seems to be farmland.  It think the wildest animal you may come across is a sheep with a sore foot.  The name of the park actually comes from an Old English word, paec, which just means hill.  

The national park is squeezed in between Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham, not exactly picturesque cities.  But I think that is what makes this national park so important, it gave those people living in these big industrialised cities somewhere to escape to.  

Sheep in the fields

Coal also used to be mined here

Before it was a National Park though, it was very much a no-go area for the workers, private land reserved for grouse hunting, sheep farming and water catchment ares.  But the English really like their "rambling" and so they began to trespass on the land, figuring if a lot of them did it together, the gamekeepers guarding the land couldn't shoot them all at once.  One trespass had 500 people taking to the peaks and when the ringleaders of that event were given gaol sentences of a couple of months, for something which is not technically illegal, public opinion turned against the landowners, and the right to roam was born for the English rambler.  

And it's great what they achieved, because you are now allowed to basically wander over farmer's fields and all the stiles and gates are kept in really good condition.  I always thought Australians were a nation of people who enjoy the outdoors, but they have nothing on the English rambler.  Even in the dead of winter there were a surprising number of people out and about in the hills.

A but wilder, looking down the Manifold Valley

A lone tree 

The national parks here are a funny thing, we were in the southern region of the park, and were surprised to see so much farmland in what was meant to be national park.  The Peak District National Park was formed in 1951 and was the first one in the British isles, but a long time after the first in Australia, being in 1879.  I'm still not sure why there are farms throughout the national park here, but it seems that even those farms are now protected, and a lot of the land within the park is still owned by private landowners.  So definitely a different feel to the wild, remote national parks in Australia.  

Walking along the Manifold Valley, avoiding the ice path in the middle

I've found a great series of walking guides for the UK, they are the pathfinder guides, and they give you topographic maps and detailed walking routes in almost every location in the UK.  So having picked a good walk, the Manifold Valley, of only 10kms we thought we were in for a good few hours.  It was a bit dicey getting the the start of the walk, a tiny little village of Wetton, as the sat nav didn't seem to have any option to chose main roads only, and not tiny little goat tracks that it constantly tried to send us down.  All of which were covered in snow, I might add, and rather steep.  

The Manifold River

After inching our way down one particularly steep and snow-covered road we arrived at the valley floor, and the village.  Parking was also a challenge as the car park was covered in a thick sheet of ice, which increased the degree of difficulty of just  exiting the car.  Lucky for us it was another beautiful day in England, not a cloud in the sky, and no wind to speak of.  I do wonder what we would have done if it had been raining or snowing.  They have this thing here called freezing rain, which is not sleet (as you might think) but instead rain, that because of the temperature inversions, turns to ice as soon as it hits the ground.  That causes a lot of accidents on the motorways as you can imagine.

Stalactites in Wetton

The walls covered in ice-mucus

But anyway, our day could not have been more perfect.  One of the famous walks to do in this region is along the Dove valley, but the one we did runs parallel, is quieter and has very similar scenery.  It was really a walk of two halves.  

Starting in Wetton, we were immediately in the peaks, though still only 300-400m high, which is really ridiculously low.  Here everything was frozen, stalactites hanging from every available surface, and each blade of grass enclosed in it's own ice sheath.  Definitely a good snow introduction. 

The rolling hills of the Peak District, covered in snow, with our awesome new walking guide

A single blade of grass, encased in ice

It was here that we also discovered one of the difficulties with the lack of snow we had been getting.  The snow we were walking on was from about a week ago, and what with the warm days and cold nights a thick crust had formed, making it quite difficult to keep your balance.  Though I think this is partly due to lack of experience, as other people we saw seemed to have no difficulties striding across this ice sheet.  

The second half was much easier, after dropping down off the peaks we followed the Manifold River for about 5kms.  This part of the walk was created in 1937 and it follows the old Leek and Manifold Light Railway, which used to carry milk and a few tourists, but was only around for about 30 

Thor's cave in the hill, looking quite symmetrical

years, from 1904.  It's about halfway down the river that you come across an old mill, which used to ground corn until it closed in 1857.  And here is where we truly appreciate the rambling in England, being able to stop here for a warm cup of tea and a big slice of cake really felt luxurious, and made the second half of the walk a lot easier.

The entrance to Thor's cave

Just after our tea break, we round a corner and looking up you can see Thor's Cave, in a hill rising up from the river.  Archaeological excavations have shown that this cave was used in prehistoric times, as you can imagine, it was a massive cave, and close to water too.  I was pretty keen to get up to this cave, to see where real cavemen lived would have been a treat.  Unfortunately a lot of people before us had the same idea, and the staircase was now a frozen waterfall.  There were one or two points where we thought we may be stuck, but by throwing ourselves into the undergrowth we could inch closer to the cave.  In the end we were defeated, a combination of a sheer cliff and a frozen waterfall, meant that the closest we could get was about 20m from the entrance, but it was impossible to get inside.  And now we had a frozen waterfall to walk back down.

This was a particularly hard section to navigate, steep and incredibly icy, walking right next to the wall seemed to help

In the end we skirted around another hill and then it was just a matter of a few more fields, and a few more icy encounters, before Wetton came back into view.  All in all a great walk and then our nights stay in a luxurious hotel in Hope with an incredible dinner, made the sore muscles less painful. 

Ice forming in the Manifold River

Walking along the Wetton roads

Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms

Churchill on the phone to the American President

Beneath a fairly dull looking office building, around the corner from the Houses of Parliament, there is a rather scary looking staircase, dripping with water.  The only sign that it isn't an entrance to a boiler room is the guard standing out the front, and a small sign pointing to the Cabinet War Rooms.  It was here, underneath the streets, that the British second world war effort was headquartered.  When the bombs were falling it was decided that the safest course of action was to head underground.  Though even with a 1.5m thick concrete slab placed over the top of the headquarters, a direct hit would have destroyed everything.

Once the war was over everyone moved out again, and the rooms fell into disuse, and their preservation was passed through a number of departments, including the Department of Works and the Department for the Environment.  During this time only very limited numbers of the public could visit.  Eventually the Imperial War Museum got their hands on it and redevelopment commenced.  Now it is quite popular and all the rooms are intact, as they were during the time of the war.  Half the space is taken up by these Cabinet War Rooms and the other half is taken up by a museum to Churchill.

The door Churchill walked through

The War Rooms were really quite interesting.  At the time junior staff members would work long hours and then sleep underground as well.  There were typists working around the clock.  Churchill and his wife both had rooms there as well, though I think Churchill only spent a total of 3 nights there, and his wife didn't spend any.  In one of the bedrooms, there was a bed and a desk, just another bedroom, except this one had a bit of carpet under the desk.  Apparently that used to be a sign of status in the civil service, the more senior workers got some carpet.  I wonder if that is still the case?

The Churchill part of the museum was good, I just think they were missing some interesting facets.  I didn't really know all that much about Churchill going in, just that he was the Prime Minister during the war and liked to give speeches.  They had an awful lot of his stuff, spread over his entire life, and to be honest it felt like because he had a museum devoted to him, they felt they had to gloss over certain points.  There was some mention of a debacle in the Dardanelles by Churchill, but this was never elaborated on.  Upon later reading I find out that Churchill was responsible for the failed Gallipoli landings.  You would think there would be some Australian and New Zealand visitors who may be interested in a bit of a discussion around that.

It seemed Churchill liked his good food

The spooky corridors

Another point which was glossed over was the annihilation of Churchill's party (the Conservatives) in the first election after the end of the Second World war.  At this point there hadn't been an election for 10 years, and you would think that Churchill's popularity would be sky-high, after just defeating the Germans.  Instead his party got destroyed by the Labour party, but again this wasn't really elaborated on, I mean why was he so disliked, having just led the country to victory?

I did like the part where they talked about what a workaholic Churchill was.  They gave you a timeline as to a typical day of his.  He would wake up at 8am, then have breakfast in bed whilst he read the papers.  Eventually he would get up at 10am and have a bath and get dressed before having some meetings.  Then a one and a half hour break for lunch, with wine, before more meetings/work in the afternoon.  He also managed to fit in an afternoon nap, then another bath, before having dinner in the evening, with more wine.  I think he would get to bed by 1am.  I'm thinking that actually doesn't sound that strenuous, an afternoon nap?!? During the second world war? 

Anyway I would suggest a visit if only for the Cabinet War rooms, they were really quite interesting to see, and the complimentary audio tour is one of the good ones.

In the map room, each pin hole is where a cargo ship was sunk, seems a bit unbelievable

Telephones in the map room

 

Regeant's Canal Walk

Little Venice - Maida Vale

You find that after a while you get a little over museums and art galleries and need to get back to nature, at least I need to.  On a whim we bought a Walking UK magazine, and one of the walks suggested was along the Regeant's Canal, it's 14kms long and runs through the north of the city, from Maida Vale in the west almost to Canary Wharf in the east.  Whilst it's probably not as picturesque as most walks in the UK it's nice to know that you can get out of the hustle and bustle even in the middle of London.  Having done the full 14kms I would suggest for anyone keen to just do the first couple of kilometres, the stretch from the start to Camden Town is definitely the prettiest, though if it's a nice day you have to fit in a detour to the top of Primrose Hill.  Once the walk is over you can have lunch at Camden markets.  A pretty good walk, though somewhat lacking in wildness.

There were a couple of spooky looking tunnels, walkers were forced on longish detours above ground

I will say it certainly gives you a different side to London.  I think London can sometimes have the

Pretty colours near Regeants Park

impression of being all dirty streets and cars and concrete, whereas with this walk you would only be on roads for about 500m all up.  It is certainly a lot more peaceful than the streets.

The walk starts in Maida Vale, which is a suburb in the west of the city.  Apparently this area is known as Little Venice, but it seems to me every big city has to have some sort of "Venice" residing there.  Having been to Venice I really can't see the resemblance, I mean there's some water there, but then there's water in the Thames too.

There were a few longish tunnels in this first part of the walk, which necessitated detours through the streets.  It must be a bit spooky to traverse them on your barge.  The first part of the walk was also the prettiest, London is the opposite of Sydney, in that the nice suburbs seem to be in the west half, and then it gets a bit more dodgy the further east you go.  This is only in the north of the city though, the south doesn't seem to feature much.

Some big mansions near Regeants Park

This mansion was typical of those in the western part of the town.  I'm not surprised though, backing on to the canal like these houses do, you would think it would be fairly sought after.  I think there were either security guards or residents in this place, which is why I've taken a sneaky corner shot of the house.

Free view of the hyenas at London Zoo

London zoo is located in Regeants Park, and I didn't know this but the grounds span either side of the canal.  Which means that you can see some of the animals as you walk along.  So a bit of a free zoo trip, so long as you only wanted to see hyenas.

At this point we had nearly reached Camden Town, but a detour up to the top of Primrose Hill is highly recommended.  You could stop for a meringue at one of the bakeries there, just to keep your energy levels up, there's still a long walk ahead of you after all.

The city skyline from Primrose Hill

Sinking boats

You know you have nearly reached Camden Town when you see the Pirate Castle!  I'm not sure why it's a pirate castle, but this is where to come if you have grown tired of walking and want to kayak the rest of the way.  Another thing it tells you is that it's nearly lunchtime!

Pirate Castle! near Camden Town

Camden Town is famous for it's markets, and for Amy Winehouse.  It's absolutely seething on a Saturday night, and I would recommend not catching a taxi right through the middle.  But on a sunny Saturday afternoon it's very civilised and the perfect spot for a roast pork sandwich.

Yummy markets at Camden

One thing Dave and I have realised is that pork is the lamb of the UK, in that it is uniformly delicious, but sooo much cheaper than lamb here.  I think everytime we see a recipe for lamb we'll just replace it with pork.

On my infrequent runs into work I actually run over this lock, though I stick to the road across it.  So it was nice to see it from a different angle for once.

The action of the Camden Lock

There was a lot of bird action along the canal, even in the middle of winter.  And quite a few white swans, which I still get a kick out of seeing. If you are in London and have some spare time then I would definitely recommend this walk, it's a completely different feel to the rest of London and it's really quite peaceful.

A lot of birdlife out and about

Definitely a different side of London

Over the canal

The locks in action - this group was waiting for it to fill so they could carry on

I think these are gas rings, but I don't know how they work - I'm pretty sure the gas doesn't just coalesce there.

Our destination - Canary Wharf in the distance

What's all this white stuff?

Dave in the snow by the Thames

Britain finally got a touch of winter the other week.  For about two weeks we've had temperatures below 10 degrees, we're back to much warmer temperatures now, but for a short while it actually felt like winter.  We also got our first touch of snow, again it was much milder in the UK than in the rest of Europe.  This cold snap came across from Russia, and managed to kill a lot of people in eastern Europe before making it to London.

Dave and I had been off to the National Theatre to see Juno and the Paycock, we had been promised snow all week and yet every day it was clear blue skies.  On Saturday the same forecast was made, and once again it was clear blue skies when we woke up.  I'd thought that was it for Saturday, I'd have to wait for Sunday and see what the skies looked like.  I had thought too soon though, as come the afternoon the temperature started dropping and the skies were clouding over.  We set off for dinner, which was at this awesome Polish place, Baltic, they specialise in Vodka cocktails.  When we came out the snow had just started falling.  It was super exciting, it wasn't yet really settling yet, but the hopes were raised.

Snow falling around the National Theatre

Everything was covered

At intermission we saw that London had been transformed.  Everything is so much brighter when there's snow around.  It was already maybe 5cm deep and was falling heavily.  I was almost looking forward to the end of the play so we could get out there.

It was at times like these that I find out again how lucky we are to be living where we do.  If there's one thing Britain can't handle it's any extremes of conditions, and snow is pretty extreme around here.  But luckily we are living on the Northern line, which runs through the bowels of the earth.  Meaning that there was no snow on our line, at least up until our stop anyway.  The other lines were really struggling, and had intermittent cancellations for the next two weeks.

Dave playing in the snow outside our flat

Snow in Hyde Park

It's funny that once the snow had fallen it hung around for at least another week, it must really insulate itself.  Though the one snow drift outside my work building lasted for at least an extra week, proving what I had always known, that my building is one of the coldest spots in London.

The next weekend we were out in the city and the snow was still thick in Hyde Park.  Though the snow in the streets had started to take on a distinctly black tinge.

The ducks don't mind the snow

The Dubliners - Part II

Waterford chandelier in the castle

I decided I had to split the Dublin adventures up into at least two posts.  There was an awful lot to see in this town, and we did spend quite a bit of time there.  I'm definitely keen for a return visit to Ireland, probably get out more into the country side next time though, maybe try and get across to the west coast area, that seemed quite a bit wilder.

Something we had to visit whilst we were there was the Dublin castle.  As far as castles go it wasn't super impressive, being squashed in quite a bit in the middle of the city.  It is impressively old though, a fort was first built here in the 13th century, and for seven centuries this was the seat of English rule.  The castle is still in use today, and the only way to view it is on a tour.  

The throne, Queen Elizabeth II did not sit here when she visited recently

Justice at Dublin castle

I think the people of Dublin have had a troublesome relationship with the castle, it being a symbol of English rule over them.  There have been a few atrocities committed here by the English as well, which perhaps doesn't help the situation.  This attitude between the English and Irish is perhaps well demonstrated by the below statue.  It is meant to be Justice, she is standing on the castle gateway, but she is positioned facing the castle, with her back towards the city.  And the locals long viewed that they would get no justice from the English.

Queen Elizabeth II was the first British monarch to visit the castle in 100 years, when she travelled to Ireland in 2011.  The last visit was by George V in 1911, though in the intervening period there had been a rebellion, independence and a civil war, so you can understand the reluctance.  

Mirrors so you could see all

The back of the castle, viewed from the Chester Beatty museum

Whilst we were waiting for our tour to start we decided to check out the Chester Beatty museum.  For anyone who loves books this is a must see, it was also named European Museum of the Year in 2002, and there's an awful lot of museums in Europe!  It was a bequest of the collection of American and mining magnate, Alfred Chester Beatty, who died in 1968.  During his lifetime Beatty had collected almost 300 copies of the Koran, there was also a 6,000 year old Babylonian stone tablets, as well as numerous east Asian scrolls.  Unfortunately no pictures were allowed, but the collection was definitely impressive.

Strange sand sculptures at Dublin castle

The ringing (or cacophony)

There's one thing Dublin is not in short supply of (apart from pubs) and that's churches.  It seems that most Christian denominations are represented here, with the Christ Church cathedral being the official church, being home to the Church of Ireland (which is basically the Church of England). Christ Church's is a lovely old building, it was first built by a Norse king, before being rebuilt in 1186.

They do a bell ringing tour every hour or so.  At first we thought it was just a way to get up to see the view from the bell tower.  But no it was an actual bell ringing tour, in that we got to ring the church bells.  But first we had to sit through a 30 minute talk by the head bell ringer.  I never knew there was so much to discuss regarding bells.  Apparently the big thing with bell ringers is to be able to ring the changes.  It was here that I finally learnt what this actually means.  When you have a set of tuned bells then you can ring them in a certain order, each order is called a change, once you have rung all possible combinations of the bells, only then can you say you have rung the changes.

Dave pretending to ring a bell

They do it once a year at the Christ Church cathedral and it takes a couple of hours to complete.  Fun times for the local residents.  The tour guide was certainly a passionate bell enthusiast, and it was kind of fun to be able to ring a church bell for once.

Dessicated cat and rat found in the bell tower

Pretty Christ Church cathedral

Campanile - a 30m bell tower

Another place that is a must visit on every tourists itinerary is Trinity College, particularly the Book of Kells.  Again this is a no-photo venue but the illumination of the manuscript is particularly stunning.  It was created in 806 AD by monks who were fled to Kells from Iona to escape Viking raids.  We turned up a little late and were hoping that we could stay as long as we wanted, but no, the book was shut at 5pm, so we had to follow the crowds around.  It also meant we didn't get to spend as long as we liked in the Trinity College library.  Trinity College was founded in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth I, Catholics were only allowed in any numbers after 1970, when the Catholic Church relaxed it's opposition to their attending.

St Patrick's church

Having visited Christ Church cathedral we thought it only fair that we also paid a visit to St Patrick's cathedral.  These two massive churches are literally 500 m apart, but serviced completely different groups of people.  St Patrick's church was more the people's church, it is Ireland's largest church and was founded beside a well where St Patrick is said to have baptised people in around 450 AD.  There's certainly a lot of stuff collected around the place, but I think I preferred Christ Church inside, the outside of St Patrick's was definitely prettier though.

The stone slab covering what was thought to be the well of St Patrick

Dave and the spire of St Patrick's

Can't get away from this guy here - St Patrick

Jameson whiskey - though this was only water

There is one church that I don't have any photos of, but I would recommend a visit purely for it's freaky factor.  This is St Michan's Church and is on the north side of the Liffey.  It is a rather boring looking church, but it's star attraction is what lies in it's crypts.  There are a number of bodies preserved due to the church's magnesium limestone walls.  Their caskets have cracked open and you can see perfectly preserved bodies, with hair and clothes still intact.  In one vault is said to be Hamilton's body, that vault is still in use by the family today, so definitely a no-go zone.  Their star mummy is the crusader knight, a giant man, they cut off his feet to fit him in the coffin.

Out final visit was also our most touristy - the Jamison whiskey distillery.  We had already been put off visiting the Guinness brewhouse and thought we had to try some of their famous whiskey.  It was OK, a very smooth operation, I just didn't really like their whiskey, and there were an awful lot of people crammed in on the tour.

I'll leave you with some final pictures of pretty Dublin

Grafton St, main shopping drag, in the early morning

Molly Malone, without the usual hordes of tourists, as it's before 10am

A canal in east Dublin

Georgian terraces