August 14-16, 2018 - Hathersage Moor, Highclere Castle (Downton Abbey), & the Trip Home

With just a couple of days left before we headed home to Utah, we decided to squeeze in two more sightseeing adventures.  We were so glad we did!  On August 14th we took a day trip to Hathersage Moor and the rocky outcrops of Carl Wark and Higger Tor.  On August 16th, since we were going to be spending the night at a hotel at London's Heathrow Airport, we decided to make a stop at Highclere Castle (a.k.a., Downton Abbey) on our way.  Also in this post we'll say our final goodbyes to England and our sabbatical experience.

Hathersage Moor is beautiful and vast.  The pictures don't really do it justice, but we absolutely loved hiking through it and scrambling around on the two main outcrops of Carl Wark and Higger Tor.  It made it even more fun to be here because a scene from the movie Princess Bride (Just before Wesley and Buttercup go into the fireswamp) was filmed here. There are many other scene locations from that movie in the surrounding area.

Can you see Mark in the picture below?

They said that the Heather blooms in August, and we timed it well to see a nice display.

The plateau formed by these rocks is called Carl Wark.  There are remains of an Iron Age fort on the plateau, but little is known about its history.

The two pictures below are where the scenes from the Princess Bride were filmed.  Higger Tor is the plateau in the distance.

We copied this picture from the web of Prince Humperdink and his men heading off to "save" Buttercup.

What can be better than Heather in the heather?!

The picture below shows Carl Wark in the distance from on top of Higger Tor.

Too many great rocks on which to scramble!

Even with a bit of wind, this was a great spot for lunch.

We stopped by the National Trust-run mansion-turned-visitors center and gift shop nearby.

The sign on the wall in the picture below says that these buildings were used as a hospital during WWI.

They had a lovely vegetable garden behind the gift shop.

On our way back to Duffield we stopped briefly to explore a couple of shops in the tourist town of Matlock.

 Our last night in Duffield.

As I mentioned above, on our way from Duffield to London's Heathrow Airport we stopped at Highclere Castle/Downton Abbey.  Throughout our time in England we watched Downton Abbey as a family, partly as a way to study history.  After each episode we would study the historical events mentioned during the show.  It was fun to see the place with which we had become so familiar over the preceding few months! 

The ancient and enormous Atlas Cedars out in the lawn were breathtaking!

Apparently, someone in the military wanted to see the castle as well.  This military helicopter flew over us as we were waiting for our turn to enter.

The words on the exterior translate into: "One will I serve"- a rather ambiguous declaration, which no one clarified for us.

Unfortunately, they would not allow any photography or cell phone usage while in the castle, but it was really fun to see the beautiful rooms that are featured in the show.  In almost every room, on an easel, they had a large photo of a scene from the show that was shot in that room. There were cafes and gift shops in the servants' quarters.  These were the only parts of the house that did not look much like they look in the show.

The Countess of Carnarvon and her family are the present owners of the castle. They do spend time here, although we could not tell if they actually ever "live" here. There are associated apartments on the estate that have more modern amenities for better living accommodations.

 

Wherever we go here, there is always a place for afternoon tea!

The estate is quite large and the gardens were beautiful, despite the extra dry year.

The drive out of the estate was impressive, passing ponds, gazebos, and many beautiful cedar trees.

That night, we were able to meet up with our friends and neighbors from Salem, Sid and Nancy Cardon, who happened to be in London at the same time and were staying at a hotel near Heathrow Airport that was only about two miles from our own.  It was really fun to go to dinner with them!

 

Early the next morning we awoke to find out that our plane had been delayed by a couple of hours, which meant that we would miss our connection in Chicago.  Though we ended up getting home about four hours later than expected, we made it just fine.  Chicago was a bit of a pain because their train system between terminals was not working, so there were large crowds of grumpy people waiting for buses to shuttle between terminals.  Because of our missed connection, we had plenty of time to get to our departing gate without too much difficulty.  We were mostly just glad to be headed home.

We actually got home well after dark, but we were grateful to friends who welcomed us!  Adam and Ashley McDonald, who stayed in our home while we were gone did a great job of taking care of it and our animals!  We are extremely grateful to them for that!

We were extremely excited to be back with our cat, Peekaboo!

We had a fantastic six months, full of unbelievable, once-in-a-lifetime adventures!  We are so grateful that we had this opportunity!  We are confident that we will see effects from these experiences throughout the rest of our lives.  

We primarily kept this blog for our own record, but thank you to those who followed it and shared in our adventure!