Walking from Surprise View above Hathersage

Today is our last full day in the Peak District and one on which we have

Pretty mosaic sign on house near Aston 

been able to spend an hour or so sat out on our comfortable chairs soaking up the sunshine with a good book in between bouts of packing and stowing. Tomorrow our UK tour continues northwards to York where we have four nights booked at a Caravan Club CL that is within cycling distance of the city. Neither bike has had much use here in Hope as the walking has been so fantastic. One walk about which I have not yet written began in the Surprise View car park on the road between Hathersage and Sheffield.

We had noticed yet another variant on local scenery while driving to and

Setting out uphill from Surprise View car park 

from Sheffield for the two great gigs we attended at The Greystones. Both Chris Smither and Slaid Cleaves were on good form and I am so glad we got to see them play. I'm not sure I would return to The Greystones if an alternative venue was a possibility though. The almost continuous stream of people going to the bar is very distracting, especially on the night when we were sat with the door exactly to our left, and both gigs were plagued by chatterers! I digress. The path from Surprise View is an easy clamber over tumbled stones and through wide expanses of heather to a ridge up above the road. Once there, the view is spectacular out across the valley and there are amazing huge stones too. They are described as cairns on our Ordnance Survey map, and looked naturally eroded rather than man-made.

Huge rocks above the valley 

Once up, we continued walking out through heather following a well-worn path that gave the impression of having been there for centuries.

Dave eating his ice cream in a stream - as you do 

We ended up at the head of the valley, fording a stream after taking advantage of a conveniently parked Peak District Dairy ice cream van! The vans were out in force until about 4pm when cold rain started to fall. Unfortunately, we were not far after our half-way point at that stage so got drenched and chilly on the return leg. The sheer cliffs of Higgers Tor to our left did look particularly dramatic against the dark sky, but I didn't want to risk my phone getting soaked while taking a photo. We did cut our planned circuitous route short, but still enjoyed seeing more of the wonderful variety offered by this part of the world.

I also did get to visit the Go Outdoors shop in Hathersage. It has quite a lot of stock, albeit crammed into a pretty small space. They only had a single pair of convertible trousers in a small size though so I was disappointed not to be able to get my new pair. I also tried the shop opposite and the sporting section of Manchester Debenhams to no avail as well. There were choices in men's convertible trousers, but not women's and the men's ones don't fit comfortably. We have googled ahead though and there is a Blacks and a Weird Fish in York so fingers crossed for success there. It would be just my shopping luck that fashion has dictated against me! I might have to resort to separate trousers and shorts instead!