Journals
Friday,Aug 11 2006, 05:12:42 PMBUXTON SPA – High Town Enjoying Everlasting Spri
BUXTON SPA – The High Town Enjoying Everlasting Spring.
This year Dilys & I decided to spend a week at the highest English town (over 1000 feet above sea level) for our summer holiday. It was chosen mainly for the fact that it was on a railway route, easily accessible from Scarborough by train, was not too far away and had a (bed & breakfast) guest house advertising in the Vegetarian. Though not exclusively vegetarian, they did cater for and understood various diets and provided us with excellent breakfasts (as well as a friendly welcome and a good bedroom). The rest of the day we had to eat out.
It is always Spring-time in Buxton, at a constant 37 C (blood temperature). The Spa water was always gushing out at a fair rate at a lovely mild temperature. Apparently it stays this temp all the year, and is quite natural. There always seemed to be people filling up bottles of this free water. We even saw one family filling up about 50 bottles!
On arrival at Buxton Station we were greeted by driving rain. We had a 20 minute walk to the guest house, which because of a wrong turning took almost twice that time. But we did find “Wild Carrot”, a lovely little Organic Health-food store, where Chris found a ready meal (Vegan & Organic pasty), as he had left his packed meal in the kitchen at home! We eventually arrived rather drenched at “9 Green Lane” our guest house. We ate out at the Taj Mahal and had a lovely, but HOT meal.
The Thursday, 3rd August, saw an improvement in the weather, though it was still a bit cooler that we hoped at the beginning. We decided as it was our first day that we would not venture far, and walked to Grin Low Country Park, where we found “Poole’s Cavern”. The underground temperature being at 7C, we in shorts decided that that was rather too cold, so we walked to the top of “Solomon’s Temple”, a “Folly” tower that overlooked all of Buxton. The sunshine and our exertions soon warmed us. We had a picnic watching butterflies and insects eating pollen & and nectar, with Chris’s camera clicking. By now we were warm enough to go underground on the cave tour to see the wondrous stalagmites & stalactites. We had an early meal at the Great Panda followed by a frightfully funny ghost tour of Buxton.
On Friday we took it easy, spending much time in the amazing second hand book store in the morning and lazing in a park in the afternoon. Our evening meal was taken at Solomon’s Bistro, which has a regular veggie menu.
Saturday was more adventurous as we took a train to Chapel en le Frith and had a nice long walk, seeing some interesting wild life, along the old tram route to Bugsworth Basin, where we came upon a huge number of narrow boats celebrating 40 years of the Narrow boats organisation, with TV cameras filming. Walking on to Whaley Bridge we returned to gain an “Early Bird” meal at the Firenze Italian restaurant.
Sunday, the hottest day, was a lot less adventurous as we went on a shortish country walk in the morning, going back to the Bandstand in the Pavilion Gardens to listen to the Holymoorside band play pleasant music. This was followed by another visit to the Firenze restaurant for an “Early Birds” meal. (Early birds are MUCH cheaper!)
On Monday we took a bus (changing at Matlock) to Crich Tramway museum. Chris last went there in the late 1960’s, not long after they had opened. The museum was a maze of old trams rescued from all parts of Britain and the world. Four trams gave us rides of about a mile up the hill with wonderful views. The whole experience returned one to older times. Old buildings had been taken down & re-erected to give the correct tone & feel to the old trams. There was also a lovely “exhibition” of wood carvings scattered along a woodland walk trail. Much improved from the 1960’s! Go there and see what towns miss without their trams! We returned to eat out at a Thai restaurant.
Tuesday was our last day. The morning we spent looking at the art, geological and historical displays in the Buxton Museum, and later, in the afternoon, we played crazy golf in the Pavilion grounds. I managed one “Hole in One” and a two! I won’t say how many shots I needed to finish some holes though! Many more photos were taken of the birds in the park. The weather was still fine, as it had been every day except the first – we were lucky.
When we booked our stay we had not known that we would arrive in the middle of a three week festival of Gilbert & Sullivan There was something on every evening. We chose to go and see “Ruddygore”, as I had NEVER seen that one and Dilys had been in the Chorus at university! Three of the people taking part in the shows were staying at our B&B. Ruddygore (the Original version) was being performed by an “INTERNET” group of enthusiastic G&S people from around the world - USA, UK, Australia South Africa Belgium & Netherlands. This was one of the amateur groups taking part in the festival, and after each performance they were adjudicated. They came all this way for just ONE public performance. And it was exceptionally well received. On top of this we found that our Quaker friends, Bob & Jean Bates, from Scarborough were also in the audience that night!
All in all a wonderful week.