Looking back to Sheffield across the beautiful purple heather of the Peak district.
After the adventures of the Gaeltacht and Cloone show we headed back to Dublin with Niamh's parents for a night then got up early for a ferry to Wales and a train to Shropshire to visit the area where Niamh used to study and work.
Aboard the Ulysses bound for Holyhead in Wales.
Holyhead ferry terminal.
We spent a lovely night in Oswestry in the house where she used to love, saw her old work, had dinner with her old workmates, stayed with a workmate in nearby Shrewsbury, which we spent a morning walking around, then hitched to another workmate's place in Sheffield.
The 140-odd km trip took over 5 hours! Although, to be fair, the driving instructions say it's almost a 3-hour trip, as it winds through lots of small roads and towns.
We spent three nights in Sheffield in west Yorkshire, a surprisingly pretty town of about half a million people.
A revelation to me was the Peak district, which we hitched through to get there - a stunning, wild area of rolling hills, big skies and, now in summer, covered in beautiful purple heath.
Niamh's mates are mad keen mountain-bikers, so we kitted up and headed out! I've done lots of riding, including on dirt tracks, but never properly ridden a well-equipped mountain bike with fat tyres and squishy suspension, so it was a new experience - and a good one! I didn't fang down steep, rocky paths like they did, but did manage to bounce down (and up!) much more confortably and easily than on a standard bike. We spent an absolutely lovely afternoon riding through this magical landscape of open purple heath, pockets of plantation conifer and ocassional deciduous forest, with big views, including back down to Sheffield.
Some photos here: -