Wirksworth-Manchester

It is time to leave old Wirksworth. (Or `Wazza´ as some call it). I´m glad of the company of Uncle Graham, who cycles with me to Buxton, in the heart of the Peak District. The name may conjure up images of our bikes ascending alpine pinnacles a la Lance Armstrong, but really it comes from the old English ´peac´ - rolling hill, and we biked along old railway lines. Mainly flat. And it was awes, man. We bike through the White Peaks - an area of limestone jutting like teeth from the green gums of pastures. Graham tells me that D.H. Lawrence (a local boy) calls this area the navel of England. It´s where the flat grain fields of the South give way to the hilly sheep and cattle pastures of the North.

A typical Ewan late start and it´s the mid-afternoon when arrive in Buxton. I fill my water bottles from the famous mineral water, flowing free like the speights tap in Dunedin. "It tastes metallic" Graham warns. Nonsense! Then, in understated English fashion, we part and I am travelling alone again for the first time in a month.