86 Mark

So long schedule, so long income... hello holidays

Well Saturday 31 March was my last shift at The Living Room, where I've worked for the past four and a half months. I was scheduled for an evening shift, the very one I had started on. Of course then I was a kitchen porter (dishwasher) and I had never worked in a restaurant kitchen before. The evening seemed like a regular Saturday. There were a heaping handful of us working, and fellow chef Maddog, who had the night off, came in with his camera to get some shots of us during service. We finished up around 11:30, enjoyed several complimentary drinks and that was that; 86 as they say in the industry.

The following evening there were more festivities for another departing member of staff, having been transferred to the Edinburgh unit. I joined in that celebration as well, but not before meeting up with a fellow Winnipegger who I found on the Internet quite by accident. It also turned out that he was a long time friend of a fellow Environmental Design grad. He has travelled extensively around Europe and I was interested in hearing some pointers. We stopped in at a Wetherspoons for a couple of pints after meeting up in the new Old Market Square, recently completed after several months of redesign and reconstruction. This was the final night of concerts and activities in the Square, the bulk of which had occurred the weekend before, with fireworks shooting simultaneously from the Council House (on the square) and Nottingham Castle (several blocks away). Of course during that time I was knee-deep in service in the kitchen about a quarter mile away. We heard the fireworks from there, but couldn't stop what we were doing to see them.

So with my freedom I've decided to continue exploring the country before Darryl joins me in a few weeks time. However, with no more money coming in, I have to be rather stingey about how much I spend to get anywhere. A quick stop at the Trent Barton bus services shop revealed that for a mere £7.50 I could take a journey through the beautiful Peak District, alighting and reboarding at my leisure, and get as far as Manchester if I so desired. So on Thursday morning I did just that.

I had been through most of the places along the route before, as John and Marian had taken me on a drive on that road during my first fortnight in the country. We had visited Masson Mills at Cromford and went as far as Chatsworth. My plan this day was to stop off at Bakewell to try some authentic Bakewell pudding, famously discovered by accident in the town some centuries ago, and then on to New Mills, where there was some sort of bridge walkway pictured in the busline's brochure.

At Matlock Bath, near the Heights of Abraham, (named in the Eighteenth Century by a repatriated officer in General Wolfe's army, who had fought at the Plains of Abraham in Quebec, and likened the landscape to that of the Canadian battleground.) I started to get antsy, and feeling I was missing out on some nice scenery decided to get off the bus at neighbouring Matlock. There I discovered a town built on the hillside with a park in the valley below. Above, high on a peak in the distance, was the silhouette of a castle ruin. There were hundreds of people out and about as the weather was sunny and warm. I decided to backtrack along the bus route to Matlock Bath. It was supposedly, according to a billboard, only a couple miles back. Unfortunately I realised too late that the billboard was for opposite traffic and before long I ended up north of Matlock at Darley Dale. Just to verify that I was going the wrong way I stopped in at a garden centre coffee shop diner, where the smell of food was terribly tempting. I settled on buying a packet of crisps to hold me over until lunch. The waitress, using some term of endearment like 'love' or 'dear' kindly told me that Matlock and Matlock Bath were that way, pointing the direction I had just come from. Oh well.

Examining the bus schedule on the walk back I realised that it wouldn't be possible to stop at Bakewell and New Mills if I wanted to get to Manchester, as buses only came every hour and they were running nearly an hour behind as it was. I decided to skip out on Bakewell and go straight through to New Mills. When I got back to Matlock, the TransPeak coach was just arriving so I figured I should get on it. I rode straight through to Newtown, at the border of Derbyshire and Cheshire. New Mills was just across the street and Disley was further up. This was the area known as High Peak, a collection of towns just southeast of Greater Manchester.

I was in search of the Torrs Millennium Walkway. Having found it early on, I headed down the high street to explore a bit and search out some food. I had held out long enough and those crisps just weren't sustaining me. I found a nice little diner and had what has now become my standard order for places like that... yes, the Full English Breakfast. So what if it was 3:00pm.

As I walked back across the viaduct over the River Goyt toward the entrance to the walkway I realised I was probably just going to stay here for the remainder of the day and head directly back to Notts from here. This was verified when I descended into the valley and saw the massive viaduct I had just crossed over. It resembled the Romanesque aqueducts of this historical bath-spring district. There was another one up stream. It was like being in a Poussin painting, without the nude and scantily clad Romans about. There were human-made cascades and natural rapids along the river, all of which had once served the mill downstream.

Further on I saw the steel walkway, whose photo had drawn me here in the first place. It was an incredible site. As I crossed it, I realised that across the river was a chunk of land, upon which stood the ruins of the mill complex. The walkway stood on thin black columns, along a vertical stone wall, above which was the railline. It was a great decaying landscape, and my mind was immediately brought back to my third year Thunder Bay waterfront project. This is what that project should have been. There was a bridge across to the ruins. Being by myself, I didn't think it would be a good idea to go across. I continued on my way.

The sights in New Mills made the entire trip worthwhile. I would love to take the trip again and spend a proper day in Matlock Bath, and perhaps even Bakewell or Buxton. It didn't seem to matter to me that I didn't make it to Manchester. But at least now I know that I can get there and back for a reasonable price. Click here to see the photos from Sheffield to the Peak District.

So now I will continue to prepare myself for the big Continental trip. But there's still lots to see before then I hope.

Cheers.