Last week was amazing! About three weeks ago I found out one of my best friends was coming to England and had some time to see me, so I managed to get some time of work and we booked a last minute mini midweek getaway to the Peak District for some peaceful time amongst nature. Here’s what we got up to! (P.S. sorry about the photo quality I only had my phone with me)

Day One – Jane Eyre Trail and Stanage

We met at Manchester Piccadilly station, did a quick food shop at Sainsbury and then took the train to Hathersage (about 1h) where we arrived at our hostel just before 10am. We were very lucky they hadn’t locked the door yet (they are officially only open 5pm-10pm). I mean I knew check in was only at 5pm, but I didn’t expect no access at all until 5pm, usualy hostels are open and have at least a locker room for bags, but we found none of that here! The guy at least allowed us to dump our bags behind the reception after we put everything we needed for the day into my small backpack. We quickly put our food shop in the fridge, made a humous wrap to take with us for our lunch and went on our way. We didn’t really have a plan or a map aha so with the only information I had for a trail being it was called the Jane Eyre trail, we just asked about and the locals were friendly and pointed us in the right direction!

Hathersage was the inspiration behind many a scene from Charlotte Bronte’s classic Jane Eyre. On the edge of the village lies a church where Robin Hood’s friend Little John is buried and next to it is a quaint little parsonage (pictured above) in which Charlotte Bronte once stayed. During her visit she began writing her novel; her influences become clear as you wonder aound the area.  In the graveyard one can find gravestones engraved with the names of Eyre and Elliot for example. Furthermore, North Less Hall (pictured below) is said to be the inspiration behind Thornfield, and local ledgened has it that a mistress of the Hall was kept imprissoned as a mad woman and later died in a fire which destroyed part of the building and had to be rebuilt. It’s a pretty building but not quite as majestic as I had in mind from the BBC series aha.

The first good view of Stanage. The natural rock cliffs of Stanage and surrounding moorlands influenced Charlotte Bronte too, it is visible in the part of Jane Eyre where she wonders the moors lost before her cousin finds her. The scenery from here was stunning, although sadly it was a bit of a murky day to begin with.

Although murky to begin with, once we finished this roughly 3 and 1/2 hour trail we went and sat in a cafe when the sun came out and stayed all afternoon. We moved outside and soaked up some rays whilst enjoying our books.

Day Two – Win Hill and Lady Bower Reservoir onto Derwent Damns Viewing Point

Day two took us on an unplanned detour up Win Hill on our way to Lady Bower Resevoir, but it was well worth the extra 2 hours hike. Pictured below is our first view from the resevoir at the beginning of our climb up Win Hill.

Eventually after a hard climb for me and my unfitness aha, we made it to the top and the views were phenomonal! Absolutely stunning! Sadly it was just far too windy and cold to linger for long though.

What I loved most about this hike was the diverse landscape around us, we walked through fields, heather moor land, pine forrests and next to the resevoirs… The ever changing nature made the hike even more interesting to the eye!

In the evening I had the luck of being able to briefly meet up with a friend I’d made whilst volunteering in Corrymeela over last year, as she only lived a 15 minute drive away! This was super lovely as I hadn’t seen her since November.

Day Three – Hike To Castleton

Day three was probably my least favourite walk, although parts like the beginning where we walked along the river for a good 1-2 hours was really beautiful. However I am not used to walking for so long, so I was feeling not just physically but also mentally drained aha. (Garden envy shown below – I mean how idyllic!)

What made it worse was that I google mapped how long it would take to walk from Hathersage to Castleton failing to realise that the time given was obviously for the route following the main road and not the public footpaths. Annoyingly the public footpaths aren’t always sign posted very well at all either, so of course we also ended up taking a couple of wrong turns leaving us having to climb over barbed wire fencing aha and adding even more time onto our walk. So what I thought was going to be a 2-3 hour walk ended up being a 5 hour hike aha! But there was loads of cute lambs around, so that made it better aha.

Eventually we arrived in Castleton, I was rather tired so, so we didn’t stay long and got the first bus back to Hathersage. It was a long walk but not as inclined as the day before and not as varied scenery, but there was still some stunning views!

Day Four – Hathersage

On our last day we just chilled. We had to check out of the hostel by 10am and then we just browsed the shops in Hathersage and I did a little shopping. There was a little arty shop where we picked up some new reads, I bought Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee and Travelling to Infinity by Jane Hawking (the story behind the movie A Theory of Everything) which I am excited to read! There was also a little cute interior shop with some jewellery and I treated myself to some new little black stud earrings from Pilgrim. After some shopping we walked back to the Church, searched for the Eyre grave stones and then went for a short 30min walk. The sun slowly started to show it’s face as we returned to town and after grabbing some lunch at a little deli cafe we then basked in the sun outside the cafe for the rest of the afternoon reading our new books. It was a glorious end to a perfect mini getaway!