TOP: The scenery and walks around the town of Castleton are stunning.

SECOND: Burrs Country Park.

THIRD: History is well preserved at Burrs.

BOTTOM: Well; the road was closed for goodness sake!!

It was only three degrees Centigrade with a bitter wind and a tiny sprinkling of snow but my stay this week at the Caravan and Motorhome Club’s sites in Bury, Lancashire (Burrs Country Park) and Castleton in Derbyshire was quite simply brilliant. I am a great one for my creature comforts and both sites have the latest of everything and on both sites my set-up time was a mere eight minutes despite one set-up at Burrs being at eleven o’clock at night in a snow storm.

Castleton is a tourist trap and has wonderful walks all around but the side effect for me is the tiny town can support six pubs and two restaurants. The Master Plan was for Faye and I to embark on our usual Dry February but my side of the bargain fell apart in Castleton so Faye is ahead of me in will power and smugness.

The A623 was closed but I never take any notice of those signs because mostly they are out of date. The weather was cold but dry – but on this occasion I was partially caught out due to heavy lifting equipment removing trucks and indeed closing the road. A truck in front of me had a major drama turning round but I took a couple left tuns into deepest Derbyshire countryside and was soon back on track. There was a slightly anxious moment when I came face to face with a seventeen tonne FedEx delivery truck on a single track road. We had a Camp David meeting in the mud between our two vehicles and the upshot was I put my reversing skills to work – such as they are.

Christopher Macgowan

@motorhomenews