The Peak District - Walking to Wetton Mill

Sunday morning and we woke to more rain, which today looked pretty much set in. It was Martin's birthday and we had another good lie in before getting up and opening cards. 

We then had another scrumptious breakfast come lunch and decided that it looked like we would be confined to barracks for the day. 

What would it be? Film, crochet, PS3, book, magazines, crossword, words with friends on the iPad or a mixture of the lot. 

We were not too unhappy to have a relaxing day as mum and dad were joining us, staying at a local B&B, for the next couple of days, so we knew we were going to be busy. 

We decided to make best use of this bit of quiet time to really chill out in the cottage.

Monday morning and we had an early start, with mum and dad arriving for breakfast at about 9.00am. We had our current favourite breakfast of parsley and bacon hot cakes with poached eggs before deciding that, as the weather looked ok, a walk was on the cards. 

Although we were only planning a short walk of a couple of miles, it was our first real time out so far this year so we decided to take one of the cars to Wetton Mill and park it there. 

The plan then was to walk there, along the path by the river, picking up caches along the way. We were then going to stop for a cuppa at the cafe before driving back. 

That way we wouldn't be over exerting ourselves and if we got caught in the rain we wouldn't have to walk back. 

Our walk took us down the drive of the cottage, right out of the gate and a short way along the road until we came to a gate which took us along a path, which ran along the back of our cottage, along the other side of the river Manifold.

The going was quite muddy, but we were booted up so we didn't mind too much.

We passed this little fellow just as we went through the gate and found our first cache of the day.

We carried on along the track, past an old mine, where we hunted for another cache.  Martin sent mum and dad searching up the bank, as it happened, behind the wrong tree!!  They slithered their way back down and we soon found what we were looking for.

As luck would have it, the weather was really kind to us and, whilst it was quite dull, the rain held off, giving us no need to break out the emergency waterproofs.  

We had a lovely walk along the river, with some great views looking back at our cottage. 

We found a fair number of caches before ending up at Wetton Mill for hot chocolate, where Martin and Mum spent a good half hour looking for 'just one more' cache at the top of the hill at the back of the cafe.  Dad and I waiting in the sunshine at the bottom.

We still felt fairly energetic so decided to move the car to Hulme End and park at the end of the Manifold Way which we walked back pretty much to our front door, again, finding a good few caches along the way. 

By the time we got back we had just about had enough and were covered in mud so we decided to pick up the car and call it a day. 

Then it was time for butternut squash pasta, with chicken, bacon and mushrooms and home made Focaccia bread, before mum and dad headed off to their B&B down the road.