Castleton – Gateway to the Devil’s Arse and the Fire Swamp

From David’s Perspective:

Christina and I took a few days to further explore the region in central England called “the Peaks District”.  One of the towns that caught our interest was Castleton.  It looked beautiful, there were caves and castle ruins to explore, and it was another one of the shooting locations for The Princess Bride.

We started our day ready to explore the castle ruins, only to find that they were closed for the day.  Well, that’s a bummer!  So we found the walking trail to Cave Dale.  It is a unique, deep canyon cutting through the hillside.  For those of you Princess Bride fans, you will know it as the location where Wesley and Buttercup rolled down the grassy hill and then entered the fire swamp.  As with Robin Hood’s Stride, as soon as we entered the valley, the scenes of the movie came to life. (Aaaassssss Yoooooouuuuu Wiiisssshhhhhhh!)  In addition to the movie set, it was a gorgeous hike!  We were following a rocky, gurgling stream up the center of the valley, with sheer walls of green grass rising above us on each side, sheep grazing, and birds circling lazily above us.

We could see the castle ruins on the hill above us, and I got the brilliant idea to follow a sheep trail (literally) up the steep grassy slope to see if we could get to the ruins from the back side (so Christina could get some pictures, of course…).  Christina followed me up the trail until she suddenly remembered that she is not a fan of heights.  But at that point we were 15 feet from the top and “down” looked even more treacherous, so I helped her the rest of the way up.  Once she was on flat ground and away from the edge of the cliff we had just scaled, she looked at me with tears steaming down her face and said “Never Make Me Do That Again!”  It all ended well, because we got a few shots of the castle ruins and then followed an ACTUAL footpath down the pasture and back to town. I then bribed my way back into her good graces with some English hot tea and Christmas scones with clotted cream!

Notice the castle ruins at the upper right and then look at the goat trail that we followed up that sheer wall to get there……no wonder Christina was freaking out!

Our view back over the valley once we reached the top near the castle ruins.

The last leg of our adventure in Castleton was touring the Peak Caverns – also known as the Devil’s Arse.  Christina and I were privately cracking all kinds of jokes about making fart noises in the cave and we thought we were really funny and original.  Little did we know that something to that effect is exactly how the cave got it’s name.  About halfway through the cave tour we stopped at a small, innocent looking pond about the size of an average living room.  Our guide explained that it is connected to over four miles of underground caves and waterways.  During certain times of the year with heavy rains or snowmelt, many of the underground caverns begin filling with water.  They would flood, drain, and empty multiple times, and each time it would make a loud gurgling sounds, (much like a bathtub as the water drains out).  The loud sound carries through the cave and out the trumpet shaped main entrance and directly at the town downwind…the result is a loud, deep farting noise. The rest of the cave tour, I listened and learned, but in the back of my mind, I kept thinking about standing in front of this giant cave listening to the blast from the Devil’s Arse.