Sunday 30th: Rambling at Hayfield, Peak District

[ I took quite a few photos this day to make up for no photos for so long: https://picasaweb.google.com/110144623598348247797/20110130?authkey=Gv1sRgCJSZtYznlrbLSg# ]

This day I had my first rambling event. We were heading up to Hayfield which is in the Peak District. The Peak District is a geographical region in the UK which has nice hilly scenery and is nice for people to go walking. Lots of good walking tracks.

Due to being woken up at 4:30am I really wasn't ready to wake up at 7am. So I missed my alarm and woke in a panic thinking I'd missed the thing. But it was 8:37 so I could still make it. The bus stops near my hall at 9:10. Unfortunately I didn't have time to eat anything. I skipped a shower too. I just woke up, put on lots of clothes, got the chocolate biscuits, water, and some yoghurt, and then headed off.

At the bus stop I met a girl called Sarah from Toulouse, France. She was very nice and friendly. On the bus I met a nice girl from Hong Kong. She is involved in the 'Traveller's Society'. Every two weeks they travel by bus to somewhere for the day, at a cheap price, have a look around, and then head back. It seems like another good society for exchange students like myself.

There was lots of good scenery on the bus.

On the University Park campus. Waiting for the bus.

I think those are some mole hills.

Every building in this town is made of stone. Actually most towns along the way were like this...

This building is built into the side of a cliff.

It may not be visible in the bad photo and low resolution uploaded version, but there are lots of stone walls in this field. More than usual.

 The bus ride took about 2 hours. Along the way I ate two small tubs of yoghurt that the American girl, Amanda, had kindly given me (you can get them when you get a meal, and then take them away with you).

On the bus we were given descriptions of the choice of walks and then asked to choose one. I was restricted to choice one or two since I didn't have water proof shoes and they said there could be a lot of water today (they were fairly strict about it). But walk 2 sounded good. It was 14km too, which is decent.

We organised into our groups and then headed along the way.

Walking through, then out, of the town.

There was lots of ice! It formed in ruts on the path where water had gathered. It dropped to quite cold the night before.

Awesome stone path.

On the hill behind, I could see a section of white. I was sure it must be snow. Matthias is on the right. He's a nice guy from Stuttgart, Germany. Here we are stopped for lunch.

Group shot. Curious feature: look at the legs of the girl in red fourth from the left. She has four legs... Someone is ducking down!

Crazy ice.

Steep hill.

back down towards the town.

Afterwards we had time for one beer at this local pub. It was nice.

I had a really nice day here. Everyone in our group were exchange students so we all had lots of conversations. They were all very nice people too. The past week was very lousy, so I was very happy to have had this day.