Chesterfield; Saturday, 20 July, 2024

I’d got maybe three hours sleep in fits and starts, including having two showers during the night just to try and cool off a little bit, so I really didn’t have to worry about having the alarm set as I was up and about long before it was due to sound – as were most people in the hotel as breakfast was pretty busy just after 7am on a Saturday morning.

The local bus company runs two open-top sightseeing bus tours from Chatsworth house inside the Peak District National Park, and some of those buses are housed at the bus depot in the town, which means there are four services each morning where the bus starts in Chesterfield and drives in service to Chatsworth before starting the regular tours (and four corresponding buses back in the evening), so I was able to pick up the first Blue Tour of the morning a full 45 minutes before it’s start time at Chatsworth outside the railway station.

The blue tour heads out into some of the most stunning countryside, as it heads over to the Hope Valley, which it then drives along to the town of Castleton before taking the steep and very picturesque Winnats Pass up to the foot of Mam Tor. This is also the location of the Blue John Cavern, a natural cave system created by the effects of streams of hot water eating away at the limestone to carve out the caves. In addition to carving out the caves it left behind valuable seams of Lead and a gemstone unique to this small cave system – Blue John.

The caverns are open to look around on a guided tour, and I’d arrived just in time to make the next tour so I was pretty soon heading down into the cave system, which on a pretty warm and muggy day were beautifully cool, if a little damp. It was 245 steps down to the lowest accessible section of the system, which means it was also 245 steps back up to the surface, so I was quite glad for the small café to stop off at for a quick refreshment stop before heading back over to the bus stop to catch the Blue tour back to Chatsworth.

At Chatsworth there was about a 10 minute wait before the next Red tour. Unlike the Blue tour which goes out to Castleton and then returns via the same route, the Red tour makes a loop taking in the towns of Pilsley, Bakewell, Ashford in the Water and back to Pilsley before returning to Chatsworth. I hopped on the first tour and caught it round to Bakewell where I hopped off to have a look around the town.

The town is the largest within the Peak District National Park and is also famous for the pudding and tart that are named after it. In the interest of scientific research I had to sample both after a quick visit to the Original Pudding Bakery – claiming to be the birthplace of the Bakewell Pudding. On the whole the pudding was slightly better than the tart, if only because the tart was quite dry.

After a wander around town I headed back over to the bus stop to pick up the next Red tour to head back to Chatsworth before taking the penultimate Red tour of the night to do the full loop without getting off. Back in Chatsworth I stayed on the bus and a few minutes later it headed off to Chesterfield. In the few minutes we had in Chatsworth most of the bus had disembarked meaning that the front seat was free and, unlike most of the top deck, it was under cover. A quick look at the skies suggested a move to the front of the bus was probably a good idea and just a few minutes later the skies had absolutely opened, sending most of my fellow passengers who had sat outside either under cover at the front, or downstairs to seek shelter.

The rain lasted most of the way back to Chesterfield, with it down to just a light drizzle when I disembarked, and thankfully finished by the time I’d had a quick dinner in town and was making my way back to the hotel for another poor nights sleep.