Trip to Matlock Bath

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Matlock Bath is probably best known for the Heights of Abraham and its cable car ride up there. The town itself kind of has an almost “sea-side” feel to it - even though it’s in Derbyshire and therefore in the middle of the country! I think the “sea-side” feel comes from having touristy type shops on one side of the road, and the River Derwent on the other. We spent a short amount of time in the town, (which has more fish & chip shops in one place than I’ve ever seen before!) but most of our visit was spent at the Heights of Abraham.

To get to the top of the Heights of Abraham there is an Alpine style cable car to take you up. To get to the station at the bottom there is quite a steep pathway, which could be difficult for wheelchair users. We didn’t use George’s chair on this occasion because it wouldn’t have made it up the gradient of the path, so we made sure he had plenty of opportunities to sit down and rest. The tickets that you buy at the bottom cable car station enable you to access everything at the Heights of Abraham. We purchased an adult ticket, child ticket and I had a carer’s ticket.

Personally, I found the cable car ride terrifying, although John and George were fine with it. I found the swaying very unnerving, and the way that the cable car almost slows to a stop about half way up, while it passes the cable car on the way down, I found to be disconcerting too. I travelled up with my eyes firmly shut, while gripping on to my seat, and telling John and George not to move, to reduce the swaying! On the way down, the operator at the top suggested that I sat with my back to the direction of travel, so I was looking at where we’d been, rather than where we were going. I found doing that made it much easier, and I actually travelled down with my eyes open!

Once we were at the top, and my feet were on solid ground, I really enjoyed the fantastic views that you get from up there. Besides the views, there’s a cafe, a restaurant and a shop near to the cable car station.

There are also two caverns that can be explored, with guides. The cavern at the top has steps down and some low ceilings, so you need to duck as you are walking through. We didn’t go in this cavern, partly because we were unsure how George would manage without his chair, and partly because a lot of the walk involved walking in single file and it would be tricky to guide John, and to make sure he ducked his head in the low parts. There is an option to watch a film about the cavern instead, so that’s what we did.  The lower cavern is reached by a steep path, which signs posted nearby recommend that wheelchair users do not use due to the gradient, so we did not go down there.

There are a few children’s play areas and an old Victorian tower, which can be climbed to get an even better look at the view. The steps go round inside the tower and, to me, looked like the stuff of nightmares! As I wasn’t feeling particularly brave that day, I enjoyed the view from the bottom of the tower!

We had our lunch sitting on a balcony in the cafe and enjoyed a Bakewell slice, while taking in the panoramic views of the town. We found the food to be reasonably priced and it tasted pretty good too.

All in all it was an enjoyable day and we would visit again. Next time though, I will make sure that I sit with my back to the direction of travel in the cable car!

Visit to Bakewell

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We visited Bakewell in Derbyshire, the home of the Bakewell pudding and tart.  This was our first time visiting and, unfortunately, our first impressions were not good.

We found it very difficult to park, and found that the disabled parking spaces on the main car parks were quite small. We eventually parked near to Boots, where the disabled spaces were of a reasonable size. In Bakewell, everyone has to pay to park, even Blue Badge holders, so the next task was to find a machine to pay for parking. Where we parked there was an arrow pointing to the right, that was supposed to indicate where you could pay for parking. It wasn’t very clear though and I had to ask an attendant where to pay. He directed me to a nearby car park. When I got to the machine, I discovered that the maximum parking time was two hours, which meant that we felt kind of rushed for the whole visit. We did see a long stay car park while we were driving around, but that was full. The machine said that it took card payments and cash, although like most machines it would not give change. There were also notices saying that attendants wouldn’t give change either. I wanted to pay by card, however the machine would not accept the payment. The same attendant that I saw earlier told me that the machines were temperamental and sometimes wouldn’t take card payments. This was a time that the machine wouldn’t take the payment. Luckily, I managed to scrape together enough change to pay the parking charge. A woman trying to pay after me was extremely annoyed that she had gone through the hassle of trying to park, to then be unable to pay by card as she didn’t have enough change.

Eventually, after all the problems with parking, we went for a walk around the town. It’s very picturesque and has a lot of places where you can get something to eat and drink. It was also very busy as it’s popular with tourists, and as it’s in the Peak District, a lot of walkers go there too. There are a few shops around that (not surprisingly) sell Bakewell puddings and Bakewell tarts, and these shops also offer a postal service where they will send a pudding or a tart to you at home. We went into one of the shops and we had some Bakewell tarts, and we bought a large one to bring home. After eating a Bakewell tart from Bakewell, I can honestly say that I could never eat a mass produced Bakewell tart from a supermarket again! They were delicious and I wished that I had bought more than one tart to bring home! I shall definitely give serious consideration to using the Bakewell postal service to get another Bakewell tart.

It’s unlikely that we will visit again because, although the town is very picturesque and the people are friendly, the whole parking situation has put us off.

It’s been awhile since we updated our blog. Apologies for that. We have been updating our YouTube channel on a weekly basis, as usual, but have not had the time to update the blog as well. Things are a little less manic now, so we can get back on track. 

Since our last update John has started an application for a guide dog, and we have videos about the process to date. We have also visited quite a few places and have videos about where we’ve been 🙂

You can catch up on our YouTube videos here and keep checking back for new blog updates, which will be resuming very soon.