Bunting-free zone

After a very late night of much talk, lapsed blipper Bundle and I were not early birds this morning. But we eventually left her flat, no later than 11:30 (oops) and headed for Castleton. Not surprisingly, given that it was a lovely day and a bank holiday, there was masses of traffic, so it took a while, and when we got there we had to hunt for a parking space. But we fairly easily found an enterprising farmer charging 4 quid a car to park in his paddock.

From there, up to the Great Ridge, then a right turn to Back Tor, up steep rock-hewn steps (blip). See extra 1 for the many cairns that had been built at the top. The conditions were perfect for amazing views back to Castleton, over Edale, and along the ridge in both directions. We paused here to admire the view and eat lunch and then headed on, wisely deciding that no we wouldn’t climb to the top of Lose Hill for more views. Instead we decided to take a path back down to Castleton rather than go further along the ridge. The descent punished our knees and as we hauled ourselves wearily over the third stile we were gutted to find that Bundle’s high-tech watch reckoned we’d done 3 miles. We’d been out for over three hours by then and were knackered. Second extra: Bundle admiring typically magnificent Yorkshire trees.

We made it back to the car just over four hours after setting off. I had to check the map after dinner, by which time we’d recovered, and I reckon it was 8 km and about 250 m climbing. Four hours does sound a a bit pathetic, but we did spend probably close to an hour eating lunch and admiring the views. There were hordes of people up there enjoying the views too, but not enough to be annoying, and everyone was cheerful and friendly.

I can report that there was a certain amount of bunting in the villages, but Sheffield, aka the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire, is a bunting-free zone.