Day 5: Driving to THE NORTH

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Max: Every time I told London people that we were going to drive to Derbyshire their answer was, "OOOOoohhh, you're going to THE NORTH..." We had a discussion with the concierge ( he, at least, had been to THE NORTH and enjoyed it tremendously.) and it was decided that we should hire a car to get us to the outskirts of London where we would pick up our wrong-side-of-the-car-steering-wheel car. Really there was already too much stress with the idea of driving that right side steering wheel, we did not need to make it more by trying to drag suitcases and bags down stairs to the tube. That at least was a good call.

Let's cut to the chase: we picked up a little gutless wonder automatic Vauxhall, we drove via the most difficult route imaginable that our GPS unit could conceive, and we arrived in Wirksworth just a little before dark and could not find our cottage. Our landlady had not supplied an address just the name and the post code. Wirksworth is a tiny medieval market town with teeny tiny rock lined single car roads that serve two way traffic. We finally found our cottage, where someone had parked in our allocated space against a rock wall, so we parked in the middle of the "street" unloaded our bags, and went out to find the grocery store. They do have gin and tonic here, thank God! Our idea was to go out to dinner or find someplace with take-out. Wrong. Finally we found Indian Pizza (really!). Luckily, gin and tonic is not so bad with Indian "Meat Feast" Pizza, honest. And because our cottage is on top of three short but steep hills, and because we didn't have a parking space so we had to park at the bottom of the hills, we were really, really hungry.

Back at the cottage, we found the heaters, lights and the wifi, which all worked, but realized that the pay phone and our cell phones didn't. We panicked that John Pegg, who was to join us for two days in the rold of guide through the Derbyshire, would not be able to find us in these dark narrow streets. Just when we feared that he had gotten lost and gone back home, John arrived, asked why we weren't at a pub, and whisked us off.

Caitlin: I have learned that if you don't have anything nice to say you shouldn't say anything at all.

Max: I think she means except we were really, really glad to see John Pegg on our doorstep all cheerful, positive, and ready to plan our next day.

Tomorrow we hike up Mam Tor!

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Photos

The Car
Caitlin is going to drive first

Rainbows!
Cars were driving through the rainbows on the M1.