Castleton --> Manchester...

Ok, I admit it. We officially have ants in our pants, and it find it difficult to be in one place for any longer than about a month without some exploring...

Since getting back from Italy and Croatia we've been heading along to a small group, run by the Venerable Mr and Mrs Andy and Jess Wolfe, just around the corner from our house... Gutted we didn't meet these guys about 18 months earlier - would surely have had many more grand adventures had we as they are a coupel with a surprising amount in common to ourselves... Anyway Small group outing number one was to a small town in the Peak District National park called Castleton. Great wee place (quite near the Dam mentioned in the earlier blog) and the overall mission was to go for a wander in the British countryside, chat, and have a couple of beers in the local pub... About 13 of us (including Mez, Abbey and I) met up on the friday night at our accomodation - the Youth Hostel, then wandered through the town to one of the pubs for dinner and chats. Great evening in the middle of nowhere - kinda like camping I guess, but staying in much more comfy surrounds. On Saturday morning we woke and headed off for a wander, a further 13 or 14 joined us for the walk... and we divided into 3 parties - One to go across the bottom, one through the middle, and one over the top - supposedly an easy, medium and advanced wander. Mez, Abbey and I decided we were advanced. Well Abbey had no say in it actually - she just slept snuggled in by my chest in the front pack. Rosie (Andy and Jess's 8 month old Daughter) got the back-pack seat, as did most of the other kiddies on the trek, but it was a bit rough weatherwise so every one of the adults wound up sodden... the kids were the only ones who managed a state of dryness throughout. Great times though, and was great to go on a bit of a group adventure - not done one of those for a while!!! All good!

Saturday afternoon we each parted ways - most of the crew to head back for Nottingham, us heading for Manchester! Flying in from the long off distant Isle of Man were Jeff and Leanne Walker... Great to catch up with them, head out for dinner, drive round Manchester looking for a random church (where they had flag wavers during the worship, no less!), and stop in for some shopping and a wander through the War museum on the Manchester waterfront.

The War Museum is definately worth a visit... great bits and pieces, tanks, planes, guns etc, all the usual suspects, but wandering through there were some amazing war stories to be read, and every 40-50 minutes they had a multimedia display that covered all the huge walls in the place. Really awesome idea, though again, one of those places that makes you question your own human nature... Ultimately we're no more 'evolved' than those of a few hundred years ago, looking at such an evolution of technology used to kill in more and more ingenius ways, but put more and more distance between the shooter and the one being shot at, you could at least accept the notion that as a species we are on downwards 'devolution' spiral. Was great to catch the Walkers though, and hear some of their travel stories... hopefully we'll get the opportunity to again before we exit this place that we're actually beginning to grow a little fond of. (that's England). Anyway... reading through this you can see i'm not so flash at multi-tasking and am enjoying Ray Mears' bushcraft a little too much this evening so might just leave you there. I'm sure i'll think of something more interesting to say in the not too too distant future... might even write about it too! Ciao for now though. R