The Spa Town Tour

Yummy ale!

Up north on a sad mission unfortunately. We did however manage to book a lovely apartment in Buxton one of our old stomping grounds. In the days when we were there the choice of beer was OK and there were some pleasant hostelries but the big change has been the Buxton Brewery. We were in town Monday and Tuesday and the Buxton Brewery Tap is closed on those nights - however the local supermarket stocked the local produce (well done Morrison's) and we were able to sample an aromatic Moor Top ale and a hoppy Lupulus X Simcoe. And I managed to get slightly lost on Comb's Moss. Setting off to attempt a run I'd done many times I realised once I was on the tops that it was going to take longer than I had first imagined.

Try again another day!

I had originally thought I could run round the good path on the edges of this big brown shape in an hour or so. But the good path was not so good and I thought I'd cut across the bog and cover a shorter distance. That's the top right section of my figure of eight however most of the brown bit consists of thigh high heather with an understorey of thick peat bog and my speed diminished dramatically. Deciding to cut my losses I headed home. Next time I shall start out earlier and stick to the perimeter path in order to get back in good time and enable us to have some more of that marvellous Buxton beer.

Some contours there!

Leaving Buxton we headed south to another splendid spa town. The lucky people of Great Malvern have a wonderful playground on their doorstep. And we could step straight out of our hotel over the road and onto the hillside. I took Skip for a gallop up North Hill and then to the summit of the Worcestershire Beacon, poor fellow Skip wasn't coping very well with the heat so we were lucky to find a stream on the side of this otherwise very dry range of hills. Our favourite dog friendly pub, the Nag's Head was open and we found more excellent beer in tip top condition and some good pub grub - I thought I'd found a small piece of bone in my cottage pie but - oops - it was a filling out of my tooth! Thanks goodness I already had a dentist's appointment booked two days later.

Here's Skip contemplating the descent!

All downhill from here!