Our first Peak District walk: Thor's Cave, tired legs and a tactical retreat

Five months after moving to the Peak District, I finally went for my first proper walk.

An honest walk report from Jason at Lane Head Barns

This is the first in what I am calling Walks for Normal People: an attempt to become the walker I had confidently assumed I already was. No expert route reports, no heroic summit photographs and, at least for now, no expensive technical equipment. Just honest accounts of what the walks are actually like when attempted by an ordinary person whose outdoor footwear has spent the last few years in the garden.

Living here, you might imagine that Angela and I spend every spare afternoon striding purposefully across the hills in expensive waterproofs. The reality is that moving house, running two holiday cottages and trying to open a new bakery have left remarkably little time for actually exploring the place we now call home.

So when Angela's niece's husband-to-be suggested a walk through the Manifold Valley, we set off from Wetton Mill with good intentions, considerable enthusiasm and, as it turned out, a slightly optimistic assessment of our own fitness.

I was expecting the walk to come in at about 12,000 Jason-sized steps. We managed roughly 6,000. On paper that sounds modest. My legs, however, were firmly insisting that the full allocation had already been used.

I should also mention that I undertook my first proper Peak District walk in a pair of 20-year-old ASICS now ordinarily reserved for gardening. In fairness to them, they held up remarkably well. By the end of the day, the trainers were in considerably better condition than their owner.

The River Manifold at Wetton Mill, where everything still felt reassuringly flat.

A deceptively gentle beginning

The early part of the walk followed the valley past the river, old stone walls, sheep and limestone crags. It was exactly the sort of countryside we had moved here to enjoy. The path was easy, the conversation flowed and our original plan still seemed entirely sensible.

Then Thor's Cave appeared above the trees. From the valley floor it looked dramatic, ancient and, most dangerously, perfectly achievable. We continued towards it with the confidence of two men who had not yet attempted the climb.

The words "walk up" conceal quite a lot

Up close, the words walk up to Thor's Cave turn out to conceal quite a lot of upwardness. The path becomes steep and uneven, and the cave keeps looming above you while apparently making very little effort to get any nearer.

We carried on, partly through determination and partly because neither of us wanted to be the first to suggest turning round. Eventually, tired, hot and considerably quieter than when we started, we reached the entrance.

The entrance to Thor's Cave. Short on paper; considerably longer in the legs.

We made it to Thor's Cave

That deserves saying clearly, because this was not a failed walk. We climbed right up to one of the best-known landmarks in the Peak District and stood inside an enormous natural entrance that has sheltered people and animals for thousands of years.

It is bigger and more imposing than photographs suggest. The rock underfoot is steep and polished, and the entrance frames the valley below. Once your breathing returns to something approaching normal, the view is magnificent.

It was also a little busier than we expected, with a steady procession of walkers making their way into the entrance and negotiating the rock. It did not spoil it, but if you are imagining having Thor's Cave entirely to yourself, an earlier start would probably be wise.

The view from above the valley. This was the reward for all that upwardness.

The Crocs made it up, but not down

Looking down, we found evidence that somebody else had been even more optimistic about their footwear than I had. A solitary Crocs strap lay beside the path, its owner presumably having completed the descent with one considerably less secure foot.

The Crocs strap made us laugh. The discarded water bottles did not. There were more than I expected around such a beautiful and well-loved place. If you can carry a full bottle up to Thor's Cave, carrying the empty one back down should be the easy part.

A Crocs strap with a magnificent view. The Crocs apparently made it up to Thor's Cave, but not back down in one piece.

The tactical retreat

Once we had admired the valley, we looked at one another and conducted a brief but honest assessment of the situation. We were both over 50. We were both absolutely knackered. And the ambitious Manifold Valley route we had imagined at Wetton Mill no longer held quite the same appeal.

So we made the sensible decision. We abandoned the heroic version of the day and headed back over Wetton Hills instead. The Peak District would still be there tomorrow, and neither of us had anything to prove to it.

That is the deceptive thing about walking here. A distance can look perfectly manageable, but elevation does not care what your step counter says.

A tactical retreat sounds much better than turning back, so that is what we are calling it.

The Wetton Mill duck protection racket

Back at Wetton Mill, we sat beside the river with our legs dangling over the edge and began the first stage of recovery: two cans of full-fat Pepsi and two packets of Walkers from the café.

As a food operator, I could not help thinking the café must do a roaring trade in full-sugar drinks from people returning from Thor's Cave with considerably less energy than they had when they set off. I cannot speak for its wider sales figures, but that afternoon it had two extremely receptive customers.

It would have been a peaceful little moment had we not immediately been surrounded by ducks.

These were no ordinary country ducks. They operated more like Devon seagulls: organised, fearless and entirely focused on separating tired tourists from their chips, or in our case, crisps.

They edged closer with the quiet confidence of birds that had done this many times before. One particularly determined individual made its move just as I lifted the camera.

One local resident declined to be interviewed.

A successful walk is measured in cheese

We defended the Walkers, restored enough sugar to remain upright and moved on to the Manifold Inn, where the recovery programme continued with two well-earned pints.

A visit to Hartington Cheese Shop completed the day.

We may not have completed the route we originally intended, but we had reached Thor's Cave, crossed back over Wetton Hills and discovered a little more of the extraordinary landscape just beyond Lane Head Barns.

Local cheese: the proper conclusion to any serious athletic endeavour.