I’ve saved our favourite day in the Peak District for my final post about the trip. We’d been carefully watching the weather forecast for a clear, dry day so we could really stretch our legs – and we were thrilled to see a warm, sunny day on the cards.

Packing up a big picnic, snacks and sweets (to motivate the kid!) and plenty of water, we headed off for Edale and to hike up to the Kinder Scout plateau, the highest point in the Peaks.

Our 14km route took us along part of the Pennine Way, up Jacob’s Ladder to the Kinder Scout plateau, along to Edale Rocks and then back down to Edale via Grindsbrook Clough.

Here’s Sophie at the start of the Pennine Way, ready to lead the way:

The weather was absolutely perfect for us – glorious blue skies, little wind and warm sunshine. There were plenty of other hikers (and dogs) out and about to say hello to as we followed the well maintained paths.

The scenery was of course stunning.

As usual, the children enjoyed meeting more of the locals!

It wasn’t too long before we reached Jacob’s Ladder – our route up to the plateau. The promise of lunch when we reached the top was enough to motivate Family Agar up the long staircase!

The views on the way up were stunning and we stopped for pictures at the cairn along the way.

Thankfully, as little legs were beginning to tire, the Edale Rocks came into view so we set that as our lunch target and picked up the pace.

They looked so dramatic up close.

We picked a picnic spot amid the boulders and admired the view!

As soon as they were done with their sandwiches, the children were immediately off searching for brilliant bouldering routes!

It was hard to drag them away!

But the promise of more scrambling later (and haribo) helped encourage them to rejoin the route.

We gradually made our way across the Kinder Scout plateau stopping to inspect the little streams we passed. The kids were intrigued about their unusual colour – we couldn’t convince them it was because of the peat in the soil, they insisted it was rivers of mummy’s diet coke!

And of course, there were more than enough opportunities for climbing along the way for Alex and Sophie!

Our favourite part of our favourite day in the Peaks was our route choice off the plateau. I took some convincing from the map that it really was an official route, but the way down was really was down a boulder strewn waterfall! The children couldn’t believe their luck at getting to scramble all the way down!

I was glad we’d chosen to do the route in the direction we did – we passed a lot of very hot, tired people scrambling up the steep slopes! Meanwhile our kids bounded down like goats!

Once we reached the bottom of the scramble, it was a beautiful walk through the lush valley back to Edale, the car and a well deserved slab of cake from the station cafe! It really was the perfect day. We were all exhausted after 14km but so satisfied! I absolutely cannot wait to go back and explore more of the Peaks.