Peaks Walking 2

For our second day of walking we drove over to Castleton...lots of limestone and caves. Lovely town with norman castle - just 50m from this cross you go through a narrow (4m wide) gorge that opens into a rising valley with limestone outcrops and cave entrances along it.

Little M almost didnt make it past the start line...she had picked up a flower in the town and when she asked me to carry it and I put it in a pocket it was squashed. Buckets of tears and she shot up the side of the gorge and wouldnt come down for about 10minutes.
In the end though the opportunity to clamber about the outcrops was more enticing that sitting up the hill hurling abuse at dad so we made our slow and tortuous way up the gorge. Another very hot day, but she did really well until we got out of the gorge and ran out of rocks to climb. She was bored spitless by the walk across the plateau through farmland, but didnt complain until just before we started heading downhill again...saved by the timely appearance of another limestone outcrop she could climb on.
We stopped for an icecream at Blue John cavern/mine and did the mine/cave tour. They mine a purple fluourspar called blue john in the natural caves of the area...apparently there are one or two bowls of peaks blue john of roman vintage in italy so it has been going on for a while! On the way down to the town again we stopped for every odd shaped rock, dead sheep, butterfly, piece of grass etc. Once again we were out for about 7 hours for a 6 mile walk. She says she had a good time and wants to go again (to subject her brother to the horrors of the peaks). M & J arrived back from Paris with big M running a temperature of 39, so the full story of their trip will have to wait until she is up and about again.