White to Dark Way

26th – 27th August 2023

This lovely trail involved my first ever wild camp and in our brand new tent the Helm Compact 3.

This route starts in Bakewell and ends in Hope! It works out at 30.5 miles overall. Now most people will do this trip over 3 days and camp at camp sites or stay in B&B’s but we wanted to test ourselves and do it in two and all the while complete my first wild camp, so we did just that with a story and a half to go with it!

As it is not a circular route, we needed to plan how we were going to get there and back. We decided to park my car in Hope, Plenty of places to park for free and get the bus over to our start point in Bakewell.

Day One

We parked along Castleton Road and got the 173 bus from a few seconds walk from outside the post office, ignore google as it got everything completely wrong for us! Google stated it would take 55 minutes as it was going to do a full loop round, this is not true! It is about 3 stops to the bridge which is the turning point for the bus and then you get off. From the same bus stop you then get the 257 into Bakewell. Overall it worked out about an hour and a half travel, which isn’t too bad and only cost us £4 a person as at the moment the buses are doing a £2 single ticket!

We were recommended a cafe to go to because someone travels 100 miles every weekend for their scones….The scones were basic and nothing special, I have 100% had better in the past, so take your pick where you go for breakfast I don’t have anywhere that really stood out. We had our breakfast before heading off as this was going to be our only cooked meal until the next morning.

We decided to go and check in with the information centre to see if they knew of any official start points. Turns out there isn’t one at the moment, so we pretty much used that as our start point and we headed off towards the bridge! This is where we found our first White to Dark way sign!

As you walk through Bakewell, you come across your first cow field (Which you can walk around, but they see people so much that they just ignore you!) You also come across part of the old train line above you, it is so stunning to see some of the old bridges, lines and buildings that are hanging about. They are just so beautiful and worth a stop to look at. You will find most of Bakewell is really well sign posted for the White to Dark way, but this isn’t always the case with the the whole hike! Sometimes you are making your own way up due to steps missing, overgrown fields or bulls in fields but sometimes you just have to find a way around!

Luckily we did not have to go into a field with this big guy! I got very brave and got right up to the gate because he was too lazy to get up lol, if he had moved I would of jumped out of my skin and done one though!

After a couple of short breaks, we started heading towards the Monsal trail. I had done the bridge before but never completed the tunnel so that was a lovely little surprise.

The Tunnel was interesting other than idiots coming down on their bikes messing about with each other and nearly taking us out even though we had moved off the path for them! And then the other idiots who just didn’t care that there was a family in front of them while flying through at stupid speeds on their electric scooters. Other than that the tunnel was pretty amazing and we enjoyed being dry for a while! Coming out of the other end of the tunnel, the Monsal trail is always busy and the rain was trying but it was still pretty amazing and we got to enjoy a flat walk for a while which was nice! You kind of forget you have so much up hill to complete after that!

I have done this part of the Monsal trail twice now and both times made the same mistake! If you are coming down and you cannot find it, you will find a building on your left just before a small bridge, well the down is at the side of the building and goes under that bridge! It then takes you over another bridge past some pretty amazing houses and a lunch spot which is where we stopped and had some lunch with the ducks!

It felt nice to sit down, but as you all know, you cannot sit around for long while hiking otherwise you get far to used to it and start to regret it! At this point we made a move again! It was one of those days where you constantly had to stop and start to put a jacket on, remove a jacket, remove a jumper, add a jumper, add a jacket, take a jacket off. It was very annoying! Just let us have sun or rain, stop with this in between all the time please! We came across more cows that were happy to see us and came over to say hello before we started heading back up into the hills.

When we started getting back towards the hills, we came across some people protesting as they were not happy about someone that had taken over Cressbrook Dale and were causing problems with the locals. We did find signs along the way that said the building was apologising for stuff they had done, like knocking trees down, which I can fully understand as it is a reserve we walked through. A beautiful one at that! We came across two options, an up or down, we decided on the lower route mainly because we had a lot more up to do over the 2 days and it seemed prettier. There were some lovely trees around and some poisonous red berry looking things, so just keep your eye out if you do end up through here at some point as they are pretty much on your path!

Before you know it, you end up coming back out into the open at the bottom of all of the hills, it is just a stunning view and so peaceful! We headed over the bridge, through the gate and up between the hills. This is where we came across a lovely couple we got chatting to a little bit, before we headed off and carried on over some stiles, through some gates and through a little town.

Our next stop on our trail was Peters Stone. This is such an interesting read, so if you have never heard of it, I would highly recommend checking google out for its history. It is a stunning stone that stands alone, which you are able to climb onto, which we will be going back to do at some point, but you know how it is, on the day we knew we had a long way to go yet and those extra steps just are not worth it there and then lol! We have all been there! There were many people climbing up it the whole time it was in view to us. We carried on through the fields and came across many cows, luckily again they were lazy and didn’t bother us at all, which was really lucky as when we got to the end of the field we had the smallest of gates to try and get through!

As we headed away from Peters stone, we headed towards Eyam. This place is a beautiful little town that has such big history about it as it was the town that had the plague come in via clothing that arrived from London. The town closed themselves off to stop it spreading further. In order to get food into the town, they would have everything sent to a rock and the collections would be from there so that they didn’t mix with others from out side of the town. People locked themselves within their homes if they caught the plague. One full family died and altogether 260 out of 273 who had the plague died in this small town. This town is worth a visit and worth a read up on!

Our last point was now to head to Sir William hill and find somewhere to wild camp! We had seen a YouTube video that showed a really good place to wild camp, which was slightly closer than where we were originally going to try and camp which was within a forest. As we reached the top of the hill, we soon realised we could not find the place that was on the video, nor could we find anywhere flattish or not full of heather. We knew this was not going to be easy, we were getting tired and hungry! We found somewhere that could of been okay ish but then we seen lightening not to far away and thought it was best to try and head down off anywhere high in case it hit us! We walked much further than planned before we found a hill that was pretty flat, with heather that had been controlled burning in the past. We stopped here and set up camp. Before we knew it there was a farmer out on his quad and our panic hit! After what felt like forever of the farmer going up and down the path and not once coming over, even though he could clearly see us. We were left alone for the night and we got to settle in, have some food and head to bed. What an adventure for my first ever Wild camping that was!

From this point it was goodnight!

Day Two

A big good morning that we shared with the Midges. We survived the night and my first wild camp. My sleep was shocking but that was down to being cold due to my new mat, it is 100% for summer and not the colder weather, which it was over night! But we woke up to some low cloud and it was dry so we were not complaining! We were up early and on the move ready to head to Hathersage for breakfast as it was on route!

We had to pass by the farmers house from the night before, my anxiety hitting the roof again, but as Tom said if he was going to say anything it would of been when he seen us the night before, not wait until the next day! We seen a little grouse that instead of flying away decided to follow us down the hill for about 1/4 of a mile before realising it could run and hide in the bushes.

As we hit a farm, we had the option of going down into the farm or up into the hills, we decided on the up, mainly because we didn’t have the energy for any cows that morning. We decided to follow some sheep up the hill on the road for a while before they moved to the side and let us past, At this point we were hitting the top of the hill and got some stunning views!

Heading down out of the hills, we had to walk through a field…One that seemed safe and okay as we were walking through it…But as we got out of the field and into a little path between two fields, one with horses in and the other with a bull in…..We realised the field we had just been in was open and had sheep, the same horses and the same bull in and they were all able to roam around all of the fields. Thank god we spotted that afterwards! Not that any of it ended there! Somehow one sheep had got out of all of the fields and was stuck between our little path and a river….A river that we soon realised we could not cross without either a big jump that my small legs were not going to take or getting soaked!

One of the stepping stones over the water had moved and it had gone too far to be able to use it. Tom was ready to try and jump it and was taking his boots and socks off, before a guy and his dog told us about another option…While the same guy and his dogs jumped it! But our excuse they do it every day and the guy was much taller than Tom never mind me! So our other option was a mile out of the way to a bridge….Which we decided to take! To be honest it worked out well as we were still very early for anywhere to be open for breakfast on a Sunday morning!

We got into Hathersage just as Hathersage Kitchen was opening its doors, so we stopped here for breakfast and I am glad we did as the food was beautiful, the staff were wonderful too, To the point where we went back a few days later for Tom’s sisters birthday lunch! And we will be back again! They were just as wonderful the 2nd time we went even offering Tom’s sister a birthday drink! Well worth a visit if you are in the area and even if you are not in the area it is worth a drive!

We headed back out and up to Stanage edge, it was a tiring slog up but worth it for about 5 minutes to get a picture or two before the worst of the weather kicked in. It felt like it was raining sidewards, we were soaked, we walked across the top and back down to the road, which is where the rain came to a stop thank god! We had good weather the rest of the day which was nice! The road walking on Manchester Road was just horrid, speeding cars, walking across grass, just not my cup of tea.

We came off the horrid road and headed into the fields which was much better, it was a long walk down to the River Derwent but we made the most of it and enjoyed the views we were getting. As we were walking, we could see our last hill of the day! Win Hill! It seemed so far away but we were so close to the end!

As you can imagine as we hit the River Derwent we also hit all the people. We hadn’t been used to this for 2 days so to go back to the business just sucked a little but we got on with it, it wasn’t going to be for long! We walked down the river and headed across the bridge with a stop for a photo.

We headed up into the forest for our last up of the day! Win Hill here we come! It wasn’t as bad as it was the first time I did it but it still was not easy! We slowly pushed ourselves up to the top and I put myself in a race with some teenage lads who didn’t even know they were racing me to get to the top….I won though lol! Not that they will ever have a clue about it. But still….I won! Tom realised what I had been doing though haha! Finally at the top, touched the trig point obviously. We all know by now, if you don’t touch the trig….did you even climb that hill and go to the trig point? I think not!

We got our photos, we recorded for our new YouTube channel and we headed back down finally to go the car! We had a big decent on us, which was really steep and not nice to go down but we did it and was so happy to get completely down! we walked down a path through some fields and came across the most funny looking horses I have ever seen! Pretty sure they look like sheep and not horses but maybe I am completely wrong!

Before we knew it we were back at the main road and back at the car! Ready for our trainers, a drink, a shower and bed!

It was an amazing 2 days and an amazing experience. It is my first complete start to end through hike and my first wild camp. It was great to get some training in for something huge coming next year! If you are looking for a through hike but don’t want to do more than a day or two, this is one I can recommend trying, it has lovely views and as the name says…It takes you from the white to the dark peaks!

Go on give it a try!

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