Buxton

7th to 9th September 2018

Back after a month long break.  Most places are too busy for us during the school holiday month of August, and even if we had been prepared to brave the crowds, we couldn't find anywhere with availability anyway.

Before we got out first caravan we had several tents and one of the places we visited a couple of times was Lime Tree Park, just outside Buxton.  With the C&MC site in Buxton full (as usual) we thought we would try Lime Tree Park for our first Peak district visit of this year.

After reading some reviews about road noise on the bottom part of the site we asked for a pitch away from the road on the top part of the site when booking online.  No chance.  We got a message mid week saying there were no pitches on the top part of the site, but we'd already paid in full so we took a chance anyway.

Friday

We knew more or less where we would be when we arrived and the pitch itself was ok.  It was quite near the road, which was busy during the day, but not as bad as some reviews made out.  Worse was the trek up a steep hill to get to the showers and toilets!

After setting everything up we managed to dodge showers walking into Buxton.  There are a few nice pubs in Buxton, our favorites being the Buxton brewery tap and the Red Willow tap, which is quite new.  The Cheshire Cheese is nice, too, and that is where we had dinner.  We noticed that a Pink Floyd tribute band were playing at the Royal Opera House on Saturday and thought about getting tickets, but didn't.  Only rubbish seats left, and too long at just over three hours, and a bit pricey at £18.50, we thought.

We got a taxi back to the site only to find a small motorhome with a massive awning next to us, with its guy ropes almost touching our caravan.  Pitches are a bit close together on this part of the site.

Saturday

It was raining when we woke up but it eased off enough for us to go for a walk around Chee Dale.

The fun part of the walk was very enclosed, with overhanging cliffs, popular with climbers, and stepping stones in a couple of places.  No open views, but it probably would have been too wet and miserable for a hill walk today.

We took no notice!

The walk started and finished on the Monsal trail, a former railway line, and we passed through a couple of recently re-opened tunnels.

It rained a lot in the afternoon, so we waited in the caravan until it stopped.  Then we headed back into Buxton.

We had dinner in the Buxton tap room, which we noticed was full of people wearing Pink Floyd t-shirts.  More and more came in as we ate and we started to feel that we would be missing out by not going to the concert.  We managed to get a couple of seats in the gallery, so high up we could barely see the band, but at least nobody sitting next to us!

We didn't enjoy the first half of the show much, but the second half was much better.  They played Dark Side of the Moon in full, which was great, especially the screaming girls in The Great Gig in the Sky.

Of course, we couldn't get a taxi afterwards and had to walk back to the site, but it's not too far.  Luckily the rain had stopped.

Sunday

We were a bit late getting up and didn't get away until 10.30, which is late for us.  No problems getting home.

Not sure if we will come back to this site, we like the C&MC one better.  If we do come back here we will insist on a pitch on the top part of the site.

Coming up...

Hopefully we will go somewhere next weekend, but not sure where yet.  We want to get away as much as possible in September.