4/30/02: It's been quite a few months since any photos were uploaded. This has mainly been due to the fact that Kitty's old camera was frequently tempermental and that the procedure required developing time and scanning. With the "excuse" of a trip abroad and a birthday, Kitty acquired a digital camera which has it's debut here. (Enlarge by clicking on images.)
We worked up right till the morning of the day we flew to Manchester England via London, 4/16/02. Tom is gathering the strength here to take his computer to the shop to be repaired while we are gone; it had been giving him great difficulty for the previous few days.
We followed the instructions to get to the airport 2 hours before the 6:10pm departure and then found ourselves waiting in the gate area for about 90 minutes before boarding began. Having had no sleep in the preceding 20 hours both of us were tired and hoped we'd be able to do some sleeping on the plane.
Tom gives it the old college try minutes before we board.
After arriving at Heathrow we had 90 minutes to wait for our 50 minute flight to Manchester. Tom took advantage of the opportunity to relax since no sleep was possible on the red-eye flight from Toronto.
Tom in the English version manual diesel Renault after surviving the drive out of Manchester. No photos were taken to record our first harrowing hours driving on the wrong side of the road. (See Kitty's verbal description.)
We reached our preliminary goal of Buxton, a fair size village in the Peak District SE of Manchester, and did a little sightseeing - enjoyed a cup of tea too.
The drive from Buxton to Eyam was filled with narrow roads which required the attention of both of us and limited our enjoyment of the view. On one pullout we gazed down the hill at this lovely stone manor house with a quarry (and train access) adjoining its lands - or maybe part of it.
The Eyam Hostel was our first experience with hosteling and the walk-in closet-sized room was somewhat of a surprise. Tom was too tired to care or even much appreciate the view from the window, but did feel much better after we woke from about an hour's nap.
The hostel itself was once a manor and now houses dormitories, dining room and lounge in the main building. "Our" room on the 2nd floor of the "coach house" - with only 2 and 4 bed rooms, sharing toilets and showers - in the foreground can be seen in middle photo. The grounds are quite lovely and the view from the lower driveway is of the main portion of the village.
Most of the next day was spent on an approximate 5 mile walk north and west of the hostel through a mixture of sheep pasture land, open moors, and village lanes. The route we followed is marked in pink on map.
After a late lunch at the Miner's Arm Pub (first photo below), we stopped at the local butcher for free range chicken and started back towards the hostel, noting various village "attractions" along the way. Our "in-town" route can be seen on map below - before lunch in pink; after in green. (Entire map provided for the curious.)
After we stopped at the grocers for fresh local vegetables, we headed up the hill back to the hostel, enjoying more scenery. Later that evening, once we'd rested and planned the next day's trip towards Mellor, we prepared our chicken and vegetables in the "self-catering" kitchen and enjoyed a non-competitive Scrabble game while it cooked. (We preserved the game on "film" at the point where we stopped so that we can resume it on our first trip to the cottage.)
The next morning and afternoon were so filled with readying ourselves and surviving the drive that no more pictures were taken till we actually arrived at the Millstone Inn Hotel in Mellor northwest of Blackburn. The blurred quality of the one pic is testimony to my shaky condition when the experience was over. (See Kitty's verbal description.)
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