Turning 50 in The Peak District
Our motorhome’s been parked up here at Carsington Water for almost two weeks now. Our first few days had us shuffling back and forth between sun and shade during a mini heatwave, the the weather’s since reverted to type. Sometimes the sun shines, other times we’re splattered with rain, a fairly typical British summer.
The temporary site here is just a few miles south of the Peak District National Park, a huge playground for lovers of the outdoors. My parents had a static caravan on a farm site near Wirskworth for many years, again just outside the park, but close enough I got to experience much of the area. Back then I can’t recall much appreciating walks in nature, and the grey stone used to build every last cottage felt a tad depressing to me. Matlock Bath was always a treat mind you, with its arcades, fish ‘n’ chips, annual light show and huge goldfish swimming around in the pool by the miner’s museum.
Fast forward thirty or forty years and I really appreciate the place now. When Ju’d asked me what I wanted to do for my 50th, it felt like a fitting place to be, up here in the fresh air surrounded by greenery. I’ve never been much of a party goer, and having opted to forgo the ale a few years ago, a boozy weekend at the pub was off the cards. That said, I did nip home one evening and catch up with old mates at the ‘Spoons, handily being able to give ’em all a lift home at midnight.
Having a car available to us has made forays around the park pretty easy. If you’re planning on touring through the park by motorhome, ignore your satnav’s urgings to use anything other than the A roads, wherever possible. We ignored our own advice a couple of years back and lost a fair few follicles and a wing mirror on a trip up to Edale. The minor roads are often narrow, sometimes steep and winding, and occasionally pass through villages packed with rather more parked cars than when they were surveyed for the Domesday Book. The only problem we’ve had is road closures which have forced some long-ish detours, although if we’d stuck to the A roads we’d have had no issue there either.
We’ve not explored quite as much as we might have hoped, partly down to a bout of food poisoning I inflicted on myself. I’m paranoid about being ill and have long eyed our motorhomes’ fridges with suspicion, especially during spells of really hot weather when they struggle to keep food as cold as I’d like. Giving them their dues, the fridges haven’t let me down. Instead I did a poor job of washing out a bowl which had contained raw chicken, then used it for my tea. Sigh. Next thing I was sick for about 24 hours, followed by a few days of not wanting to move very far. Ju drove the car to Ashbourne and raided Boots for me, and now I’m back up and running.
Unfortunately, my heels are still too painful for running, even long hikes are off the cards until I can get them sorted. Thankfully there are tons of great views around the park with only short walks involved, and we’ve enjoyed ambling around Dovedale, down through the temperate rainforest of Padley Gorge in the Longshaw Estate (to the famously cheap and characterful Grindleford Station Cafe for a nosh-up) and along Curbar Edge, a gritstone escarpment with cracking views. We’ve generally tried to stick to weekday wanderings, as some spots get packed at weekends, Dovedale in particular. The site here has seen a similar effect, busy with maybe 60 or 70 caravans and motorhomes (and the occasional tent) on Friday and Saturday nights, 80% are gone by mid-week.
Back at base we’ve been having a bit of fun with the Jackery and its solar panel. We’re off-grid here so running the fridge, cooking and heating water on gas. At least we were, we’ve found the Jackery’s 1kW built-in inverter will run our kettle, so we’ve been using it to boil water. It uses roughly 10% of the built-in battery to boil a full kettle (0.85 litre). When the sun’s shining, even at 9am in mid summer, the panel pushes out just over 100W and refills the Jackery’s battery in an hour. We tend to only boil half the kettle for a cuppa, so we’re getting a brew for about 30 minutes of full sun. When it’s overcast the panel pushes out about 20W, so takes five times as long to recharge.
Curious about how much gas we were saving, I looked it up. Apparently, it takes (very roughly) 25ml of gas to boil 1 litre of water (source). Each time I boil half our kettle on the Jackery I’m saving about 25 x 0.85 x 0.5 = 10.63 ml of gas. With LPG costing about £1 a litre, in term of money that equates to 10.63/1000 x 100 = 1.06p. Hmmm, not much, especially given the cost of the Jackery is. But maybe this is more about convenience, not having to go refill the bottles so often? Well, our rig’s self-refillable LPG system holds about 17 litres of gas. A single litre is enough to boil 1/(25/1000) = 47 litres of water, enough for over 100 cups of tea. Hmmm. Still at least we’re less likely to run out of gas by doing this, or if we do, we can still have a cuppa while we work out where to refill.
I’m convinced that fully-electric vans are the future (no diesel, no petrol, no LPG, no butane, no propane), and I’ve enjoyed making freebie brews on the sun. The cost/convenience case for it just doesn’t stack up though. Not yet anyway. In terms of being ‘less carbon intensive’ I’ve absolutely no idea what energy is needed to manufacture the Jackery and panel, or whether we’d ever get that carbon back by using it to avoid burning gas?
Anyway, what’s next for us? Back home for a few weeks. The van needs fettling. The rear skylight I fitted has sprung a small leak so needs resealing. The bathroom tap needs replacing. The fridge is annoyingly working perfectly on gas now, but has refused to stay lit a few times earlier in the year, so I’m not sure what to do about it. The whole thing needs fettling, including a roof scrub. There’s a long list of other minor stuff too, which I’ve been putting off for a long-old-while so will get it done when the sun shines so Zagan’s ready for action for us later in the year.
Cheers, Jay
Happy 50th… welcome to the second half!
Thanks guys 👍😀
I suppose food poisoning is one way of making your 50th birthday trip into a memorable one, but probably not one that anyone would positively chose.
We’re either copying you, or great minds think alike, as Bertie-the-Motorhome is currently sitting for two weeks in a farmer’s field in the South Lakes, whilst we use our car (which, handily, is also a small campervan) for daily transport on the not-really-suitable-for-large-vehicles roads hereabouts (indeed, at least two roads we want to use have 2m width restrictions). It’s not the way I’d want to travel all of the time, but definitely has its benefits.
Dear Jay,
Happy Half Hundred! For the next decade I wish you health & fitness for many , many trips with Ju & Zagan..
motorhome regards Heide
Happy ‘belated’ birthday!
We were also in the Peak District this weekend meeting up with our son and daughter in law, and we walked along Baslow Edge. We hadn’t been up there for about 26 years – the views were still amazing! Can’t believe the mighty ‘Grindleford Cafe’ is still going strong – no time to visit this weekend, but maybe next time!
We also went to Bolsover Castle (probably quite close to home for you) – we drove past it every term for four years whilst our son was at Durham University, and it looked so scenic up there on the hill, but we never had time to stop. It did not disappoint as a castle – what a fantastic place, and the views were amazing looking out over the Peak District.
Enjoy your ‘fettling’; we are off to our seasonal pitch near Romsey for next week to stay in our van – the weather looks amazing; the commute will be different – a mini holiday whilst we work! Bliss!
Cheers guys, happy camping! Jay
Hi Julie and Jason.firstly happy 50th !
We’ve followed your adventures for years.
I wondered if I could pick your brains? We’re planning a 5 week trip to Italy in mid September, I’ve looked at ACSI card, but I’m unsure on where to get it from. If you buy on the ACSI website, is it in English ? As it’s priced in euros. The one on Amazon (U.K.) is more expensive, but in English, however the comments say it’s mostly for France.
Our trip will be a fly through France to lake Geneva, then into north Italy , then return through Germany. Have you any advice ? Thanks Richard & Julie
Hi Richard & Julie
The English edition of the CampingCard ACSI books & card is available from the official site here (it’s priced in Euros): https://webshop.acsi.eu/en/campingcard-acsi/campingcard-acsi-2022.html
On the campingcard.co.uk site you can search for sites by country, to give you an idea how many discount sites there are in each country, and see them on a map. It’s true that France has by far the most, 1381 sites, compared with the next best of the Netherlands with 376. Italy has 298. Click here if you want to see all the ACSI sites on a map.
Personally I’d get the books. You’d need only a few nights (4 or 5 maybe) on ACSI sites to get the money back. But! If you have a very specific itinerary in mind there may not be ACSI sites in the right locations for you. If you’re more flexible then I think there are enough sites spread across the countries you plan to visit to make the books and card worthwhile.
Cheers, happy travels! Jay
Thank you