An almost wild camping trip: alternative family fun in the Peak District

The children were asleep in the little tent behind us, wrapped in two sleeping bags with extra wool blankets. Earlier I had seen their faces half-lit by torchlight as I read them a book about rivers to the sound of rain on canvas; they fell asleep as fast and thick as the fog pooling in the valley below.

My partner and I sat outside, huddled together under a waterproof coat, perched on our daughters’ foam swim vests because the ground was saturated, laughing at the mix of absurdity and beauty that comes with being parents. We had lucked into a stay at the Beeches, a former Quaker residential house on the edge of the upper Derwent valley, where Vanessa and Max welcomed us.

At the end of a wildflower path, past allotments and woodland, two outbuildings look like sheds from the outside but are cosy cabins within; “A family of deer lives here,” Vanessa told my daughters. By the firepit we unloaded still-hot pizzas, cold beers and marshmallows, and as the dark set in the children drew shapes in the air with the ends of sticks set alight.

peak district, wild camping, family camping, beeches, derwent valley, quaker house, cabins, fire pit, wildflower path, sleeping bags