Arriving at Dale Farm, Derbyshire
I’m not writing much on this short trip. Partly because it seems so inconsequential compared to travelling to Spain and compared to my flickering dream of Siberia. I’m in Derbyshire now in the Dales in Dale Farm campsite, a very different model to the large field with tents around the edge at Cuckoo Farm last night. Here the site is narrow sloping and terraced with a stepped series of generous grassy plots each for one large tent and car leading up to a broader field at the top where there are four plots under mature Ash trees and two yurt type tents just higher up. The evening sun shines, under the trees into this space. As an obvious sign of the different atmosphere, we say hello to each other here. I knew it felt comfortable after being here just a few minutes. Down in Cuckoo Farm it was very different with large groups of a couple of families in little inward looking huddles. That tends to be the norm in most, especially the large, campsites. Its quite unusual, though it does happen, to find people that you'd describe as travellers, in most campsites.
There are cows here who moo loudly causing me to ask the Internet “why do cows moo?” To find each other is sweet one reason. There are other reasons which I won't go into now. Also the wash building is an amazing very recently renovated barn amazingly white and scrupulously clean and brightly lit. It could be an operating suite.
Of course many campsites feature difficulties for parking and un-parking heavy motorcycles. It can be because of heavy gravel and stones, narrow spaces, slopes or, usually, a combination of these - oh and all often with an audience which is probably the worst part. Funnily, its the more interesting sites that tend to have these features. And this one because of its slope creates the need for some careful heaving upright without dropping the thing on the grassy slope followed by also careful paddling backward across bumpy terrain in an arc to end up pointing in a roughly down hill direction. All leaving me tense and colouring the first part of my ride with thoughts that I am not up for this and wouldn’t get very far on the route to Siberia.
Up on my avenue there seem to be two tents of two women who could be friends, partners or mother and daughter. And one huge and fancy tent over to my right that appears to house one solitary female walker. Then there are the two yurts a little way off up the hill opposite with young nice seeming families in each. By chance my plot with its pub table where I am sitting tapping this into my phone gets the evening sun which this evening is beautiful and warming. Yesterday when I arrived it was cold and threatening rain.
And then some hills beyond. Now that the sun is out I can say that this is a very nice site.
It’s good to be secluded here as out on the roads there were huge numbers of cars parked along the roadside at every beauty spot and the nearby town is heaving with people on holiday doing staycation like me. The Bike book route was ok and nice in places where I got into the zone of riding fairly briskly through a series of curves with double white lines down the middle. But overall I found it not that impressive as some of their routes definitely are, in Devon for example. Perhaps the traffic and dull weather didn't help.
Technically the new tent is good. It’s small and light and is definately a keeper. its certainly well made. It’s smaller and more cramped than my Vango (am I repeating myself?) the porch part especially. It came with two too few pegs. But it does the job nicely. The snazzy Thermarest I've taken on this trip is thicker and more comfortable than the standard orange model Ib ought nearly ten years ago but is too long for the small tent space. It’s slightly lighter and packs down to the same size so is also a keeper though - for another trip where lightness is important I may leave it at home.
Keeping all the electrical things charged up is tricky with a mixture of plugging as much in to the bike's socket while I ride and using a power bank in the evening. But I seem always a step behind and something is uncharged that needs to be. It needs constant thinking about. And the Sony helmet cam eats through batteries - and its clever remote controller does too and turning the camera on and, most importantly, knowing that it is on is almost impossible without the remote. (I wonder how all those motorcycle vloggers with GoPros get on). Campsite bathrooms don’t seem to have sockets any more perhaps because everyone was charging up their phones and bills were starting to climb. Pity, though even that would involve brushing your teeth r e a l l y slowly to charge something up as much as possible.
Tonight it will rain, the weather app says, but tomorrow will be bright and much warmer than today. Hooray.
Click here for the next day