Monday 5 September: Castleton to Youlgreave (19 miles). Sunny and cloudy with cold wind. The climb out of Castleton is up a limestone valley with a howling gale funneled straight in my face and it's blowy all the way to the Angler's Rest in Miller's Dale for lunch. My evening stop is the YHA hostel in Youlgreave, spelt Youlgrave on my Ordnance Survey map, oops.Tuesday 6: Youlgreave to Ilam (pronounced eelham) (17 miles): Blustery with showers. Picking field mushrooms most of the way I finally arrive at Ilam Hall, a super National Trust property used as a YHA hostel where one of the gardeners confirms that most of my mushrooms are edible.
Wednesday 7: Ilam to Abbots Bromley (22 miles). Cloudy becoming sunny. Mushrooms on toast for breakfast and I'm on the road again headed for Uttoxeter's racecourse campsite for the night - at last a town where I can perhaps buy socks. But, it's a town with no outdoor outfitters and worse the racecourse campsite and B&B's are full of racegoers, so I'm forced to carry on along the Staffordshire Way to the next village, Abbots Bromley. Here I find four pubs but no accommodation so, wet and hungry, I call into the homely Bagot Arms for a meal. Good news, I can camp in their beer garden or retrace my steps to Marsh Farm a mile or so north of the village which may do B&B. When I knock on the door a cheery face answers.
Landlady: "Come in your soaked, are you an End to Ender?"
Me: "How did you know?"
Landlady: "Oh, most of them stop here for the night."
Great en-suite room, use of the kitchen and great farmhouse breakfast. Good deal.
Photos from the Limestone Way. I've now walked 759 miles.Wednesday 7: Ilam to Abbots Bromley (22 miles). Cloudy becoming sunny. Mushrooms on toast for breakfast and I'm on the road again headed for Uttoxeter's racecourse campsite for the night - at last a town where I can perhaps buy socks. But, it's a town with no outdoor outfitters and worse the racecourse campsite and B&B's are full of racegoers, so I'm forced to carry on along the Staffordshire Way to the next village, Abbots Bromley. Here I find four pubs but no accommodation so, wet and hungry, I call into the homely Bagot Arms for a meal. Good news, I can camp in their beer garden or retrace my steps to Marsh Farm a mile or so north of the village which may do B&B. When I knock on the door a cheery face answers.
Landlady: "Come in your soaked, are you an End to Ender?"
Me: "How did you know?"
Landlady: "Oh, most of them stop here for the night."
Great en-suite room, use of the kitchen and great farmhouse breakfast. Good deal.
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