Castleton, England

Posted on January 13, 2024  •  16 minutes  • 3389 words

In the Peak District National Park, there are tons of YHAs, think in the teens maybe? A lot are closed for the season or only open if you rent the WHOLE place, but the one outside Castleton was the one that caught Dan’s eye the most. It was booked most nights so we were only able to get it for 2 nights. In hindsight, we should have just skipped it and stayed at the Hartington one 2 more nights and avoided a pack up/unpack day, but you know what they say about hindsight. It was so beautiful, kids had SO much space to roam and we could walk to town. Everything was great, but maybe because it was our 3rd in a row or because we only had 2 nights there, we didn’t like it as much. I feel a bit bad saying this, because there was nothing wrong with it. Well, our room was the smallest so far without a view, so maybe that contributed…but we are never in the room, so who knows.

The drive was supposed to be 40 minutes, but there was a communication error between driver, navigator and google maps. :) Still under an hour with a wrong turn, even with google now on our side. We came down through a beautiful green valley that I didn’t get to appreciate as much as the rest of the car as the road got even more narrow right here.

We got in, but couldn’t check in until 3pm. Not much different from this place from the last. Kids went straight outside to play while Dan and I snuck in a bit of work.

We wrangled the kids for a late lunch, basically handing them each a sandwich while they continued to play, and then loaded back into the car to meet up with Dan’s friend’s family for a hike close by. Once again another amazing place to stay.

Shuhei and Dan were both doing their post-docs in Boston at the same time and worked on a project together. And the reason we were so close to them is that Dan was going to be giving a talk in his lab the next day. Reluctantly back in the car, we drove the short 15 minutes to the trail head. After trying to figure out the online payment, and failing, I drove the car a bit down the road and parked on the road. We had driven by here on the way to our place and it was beyond packed. It was now 3, winds were picking up and all the smart people had headed home.

Their friends also came, so we had a nice group AND extra kids. We started up to the summit and it was very cold, windy and foggy. No one seemed to care, which was awesome. I think the kids actually preferred it this way.

The top was pretty close, maybe a 15 minute hike. So much mud and so much mud skiing, as they called it.

Mac knew the area and mentioned a couple options as loops and we continued along the ridge line until we came across a field of cairns. It was a cool sight, probably hundreds of them.

The kids did their best to make one also.

We just kept moving along, adults all chatting and getting to know one another and kids running around living their best lives. The other 2 boys were 7 and 10 (I think) so it was fun for all.

Shockingly I wasn’t actually cold, minus the 18 square inches of my face that were exposed.

We came to the point where we had to decide which loop we were going to do. It was starting to get a bit dark so we opted for the loop back to the car now loop and started heading down from the ridge.

Snacks had come out at this point as kids had to be getting hungry. Mac had mentioned this loop was cool because the end is a washed our road that you get to walk on. Sounds okay, but it was awesome! The road had fully failed due to erosion and you could see the cross section of the road and how it split apart.

Not sure why, my road construction education is limited to one summer in Chicago as an intern for IDOT, but the asphalt was over 2 feet thick! Maybe they thought they could do an extra thick section and avoid a retaining wall or tiebacks? Not sure, but whatever the plan was, it didn’t work. Max in photo for scale, or was he trying to climb over the gap without help?

It was hard to really see it all with the sun set, but I’m glad we came this way. We continued to the real road where the 3 drivers left everyone else to avoid kids walking on the road in more or less pitch dark at this point. Back with the cars and getting loaded up while a couple people found us a place for dinner. A last minute switch and we ended up at a new place that had a bit of everything. Kids were hungry and we needed food and distractions fast. Everything looked awesome but opted for the pizza that looked good going by. It was the super thin crust, baked in an stone oven kind. We thought we had ordered enough, but turns out all our kids needed their own, so we ordered another and Dan still ended up hungry. It was so nice to sit and chat, but the kids were done and I offered to take them outside to run around.

Would have loved to have stayed longer and chatted, but it was time to get the kids to bed. Said our goodbyes and drove just a few minutes back to the hostel.

As much as I would have loved a nice big hike, it was going to be better for everyone if we did a play/work/school day. Dan had his presentation the next day and I always have work to do. We did the breakfast at the hostel and the kids were thrilled to ‘pour’ their own cereal with the twisty thing at the bottom of the cylinder and to have mini chocolate croissants. It really is nice to just sit down and eat, not cook nor wash dishes.

Couple school sessions and the kids darted outside. I think of all the places they have had to play outside, this one might have been the coolest. Giant trees they could climb, fields that went on forever (not that they could go that far), little thickets where they could make their hideouts. I get whey this is all they want to do. Kids are back there somewhere.

Cool outside, but pretty cool inside for doing our school.

With all the history in this place, there were a lot of posters/placards telling a bit about it. As I was waiting for beans to heat up for lunch, I found this one. A bit disturbing.

We were going to be in a hotel for one night after one more night here, so we were really trying to clear out our traveling food pantry. A bit obvious looking at the kids lunches.

It was 32 degrees right on the dot and the kid insisted on eating out side. ‘We are NOT cold. We won’t be cold!" they promised. I figured I’d let them learn the hard way and freeze. Ben and Sam never wavered and lasted all through lunch. Max, the smart one, came in after about 10 minutes. We think it a lot, about how much more you could enjoy some of this area if it weren’t middle of winter. Warmer, more day light. But honestly, so much wouldn’t have been possible had it been summer. All our reservations were last minute, we love having places not crowded. Some nights in the hostels we’ve had the library or the lounge or the kitchen all to ourselves, where I didn’t have to worry about kids being too loud for others. Sure, having lunch on the patio or hanging out with the kids more as they climbed trees would have been great, but what we had was pretty great too.

After lunch, right back at it.

I did make it out for a bit as they were dying to show me this and that, but just standing in 32 degree weather is not okay. Need to be moving, but had fun watching them with a nice view back to the place.

Wanting some walk and exploring, we decided to walk the trail to the town of Hope for a snack and then to Castleton for dinner. Kids took off like bats out of hell.

I mistakenly thought it would be a gravel path, not pure mud, so I opted for my warm shoes. A bit of tiptoeing around, but I had company. 2 sticks, just to be safe.

I don’t know what it is about the skies here, maybe with the sun always being low? No idea, but they have been so different and cool to look at.

We found a bridge over railroad tracks. Then we heard a train! All excited, then disappointed as the train was not coming down this way.

We found a little cafe in the back of an old inn/restaurant. Ordered a few slices of cake, talked a lot about fractions and made the older kids do problems in their heads. Average cake, but kids never seem to care.

Sam found this guy on the way to the bathroom and came back, basically shouting, “Ben, you HAVE got to see THIS!” I had been to the bathroom and knew exactly what he was talking about. Convinced them to finish the cake first and then Max all of a sudden had to pee SO badly.

Bladders empty and outside to walk to Castleton. It was now dark and walking on a muddy ‘path’ seemed like a bad idea. There was a side walk, so we just walked on the ‘main’ road. I say ‘main’ as it was a 25mph small road. Pretty easy and not busy at all. As we came to the down, we could see the Peveril Castle looming above. Seemed to be a bit in ruins (don’t quote me), no stark corners or full height towers, but looked pretty cool and ominus up there, especially as the kids talked about if it was the Peveril brothers’ castle (Harry Potter reference).

Small but cute town, this comment is more from when we saw it in the day time the day before. It seemed to have it’s share of taverns for food and Dan picked us one that had a booth in the corner by the fireplace. Kids were getting hungry, we could tell from the cries when we told them they had to get rid of their sticks. We have found that when Sam gets upset sometimes, he will busy himself with a task that helps the whole family, and will fixate on it. I think part of that is he knows he messed up by (for example) throwing a fit when he had to get rid of his sticks, knew he shouldn’t have yelled at Dan and wants to make it up to him without admitting fault. It’s really hard for him to say sorry sometimes, but he’s good at doing something nice in lieu of saying the word. I am very similar actually. So when we sat down, he immediately took it upon himself to get a fork and knife for everyone from the middle, wrap them in a napkin and pass them out.

They had kids mac and cheese, which Max and Sam wanted. They had 2 soups and I wanted both, but settled for the butternut squash one. Dan got fish and chips, which were HUGE. All smiles with food in front of us.

What did I love about the restaurant the most? The ceiling! So out of plane with very old beam running the length of the room, as they probably have for a couple hundred years. It’s so amazing to me how long and well old first growth wood beams can stay strong. Code these days is L/240 for the deflection limit of all loads. That means that the maximum deflection allowed is the length of the beam divided by 240. So if you beam is 20ft long, you can have a maximum deflection of 18ft x 12in/12ft / 240 = 0.9in. Pretty sure this surpassed it’s limits, but it was going strong.

Brisk walk back to the hostel and this happened! I was actually surprised it didn’t happen sooner. Very excited, but we decided that it might be hard for the tooth fair to find him here, so he should wrap it up really well, hide it in his backpack and then put it under his pillow when we were in a better place. And maybe this would give the tooth fairy some time to get some pounds.

Dan had to be at University of Sheffield at 12:30pm, but we didn’t want any rush. Breakfast of cornflakes to use up more stuff, one last look at the place and we were off.

Dan was struggling with the directions for a bit as we were already driving, no connection, and all the kids were interrupting. Dan yelled to all be quite until we were on the road and knew were we going. Sam kept going and Dan said unless it’s very time sensitive, just stop. Sam claimed his WAS time sensitive and I braced for it. Well, he was right…he had left his glove in the tree. U-turn, grabbed glove and back on the road. Ugh. A couple wrong turns, again google/navigator issues, but we made it there in plenty of time.

With my back acting up so much, I just couldn’t bear the thought of being in the car for 5.5hrs the next day to get to Edinburgh, which we had to get to for our interview. Looking at train tickets and car rental places, we decided to try and drop the car off early. Not wanting to deal with someone on the phone forever, we swung by the place and made the decision in about 5 minutes. We had all our stuff and I just couldn’t deal with a cab and the stuff and Dan had to get to the university, so we dropped him off, went to the hotel and would come back with the car after. It was only 10 minutes away. Dan walking into his building.

A bit stressful as there was no place to park for the hotel, but then I did find street parking…which wouldn’t take my credit card. There was a big lot for a store and I went in to ask if we could leave it there while we checked in quickly, maybe 20 minutes. The woman said no problem. It was NOT 20 minutes. We checked in, went back to the car to get all the stuff, walked the normal 3 minute walk back to the hotel with ALL the stuff (kids were awesome), dropped it all and raced back to the car. Literally, dropped it all!

In hindsight, we should have just brought all the stuff the first time, but oh well. Back in the car, got gas, dropped car off, Uber back, got to the room and crashed. Peanut butter and jelly for everyone as I was too tired to go out to get food and kids watched a couple shows as I did some work and repacking.

We finally ventured out to get out passport photos printed and get some apples. It was not an easy 20 minute outing. We were all feeling it. Back at the hotel, I checked into the other room (only did one early check in) ordered food downstairs for dinner. I assumed the pizzas for the kids would be similar to the other night, as they were both advertized as 12in, but these were huge! Good thing Dan texted around then to say he was walking back.

He joined us just a few minutes after we had gotten our food. We heard about his day, it went well he reported, and we told him about ours. I actually had a bit of work I had to do quickly (yes Rich, if you are reading this, this was for you!) so I gobbled up my food, grabbed my computer upstairs, ordered a Moscow Mule and went to a table on the other side of the downstairs area to work…desperately trying to not make eye contact with the children, who oppositely, were trying very hard.

When I came back upstairs, Dan surprised me with telling me to sleep in the other room (we needed 2) and he’d sleep with the kids in that room. He had 3 lined up in the queen and he took the single. A night ALONE in SILENCE with no one to bother me or interruptions? OKAY! I did a little more work, wrote a bit and fell asleep for a night of peace and quiet. HA, the universe has different plans! At about midnight the fire alarm goes off! Yup, can’t make this up. It was so loud (I know, it should be) and it did not stop. I got up, put on pants, grabbed my jacket and opened the door to see 3 very confused and half asleep kids. Dan had jackets in his hand as he was ushering the kids. As this all happened, the door behind him shut and he didn’t have his key! I had my door open with my foot still and the alarm stops. Pretty shitty! So what happens, I find Dan’s passport so he can get a new key and I now have 2 kids in my bed with me and a kid in the single. By the time he got back with a key, they were all asleep and didn’t want to move them. So much for my night of being alone. But I did see this in the morning when I woke up.

Thinking about it now, I could have gone to the kid-free room, but the moment had passed. In the morning, they were so tired, well we all were. Got kids clothes from Dan’s room, convinced kids to get dressed and send them down to breakfast with Dan while I got about 10 minutes to pack without help. Breakfast was just what we needed and so nice to have it all included and right downstairs.

Packed and ready to go, we grabbed an Uber for the short ride to the train station. I can’t be in a train station without taking a photo of the ceiling.

I don’t see these signs often, but they probably need a few more of them as even the British can’t walk on the left side correctly. It’s like everyone wants to be like (a lot of) the rest of the world.

Kids were very helpful as I really didn’t want to lift anything with my back.

We have had a few train station instances where we are waiting on the platform for the rain and it comes in and is way down the platform and we have to run. This has happened more than once and the kids love it. They think it’s just too hilarious. While I appreciate this sign, it does take away a bit of the fun. We only had to take about 15 steps laterally to get to the door of our car.

I hadn’t drank enough coffee and went to grab a latte while we were standing on the platform. Looking at the menu board, they had a babyccino for free. It actually said ‘free’ in the column for price! I got one for the kids to share, but could I have gotten 3? They put in 2 marshmallows, but I explained that I had 3 kids and they gave me another with a smile.

At points it was a struggle to get kids to do their work, but sometimes it works.

We really had beautiful sights on the train.

And inside the train when Max borrowed my phone.

Continued on Edinburgh page…