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Its sunny, its Saturday, its about 10am - Either the new "phone to pay" bays or the old free ones.
Or has the new reduced capacity (which i fully understand) made it a foolish endeavour.
From a trip in May, the visitors centre would be sold out by then. There was a another carpark just out of town with a phone to pay option and a field like parking area that worked out for us though (more shade with trees over some of the parking too). I am not a regular peaks visitor though so may have done a regular tourist thing.
I was there this spring - Castleton was packed by 9.30am.
We parked in Hope, Pindale Road where there were spaces and easily not blocking things.
It was absolutely rammed up there on Sunday, and in most of the places around it. I think that there was parking at the bottom of the broken road?
Like Fairholmes (labybower res), if it's after 09.30-ish I wouldn't bother personally. In the sunny weather it's been extra rammed. There are some fields that get opened by locals (that also get rammed pretty quickly) but I don't know what the opening times or what the schedule is.
Often parking on the road up to the broken road before the Treak Cliff Caverns is possible. A bit of a walk into Castleton, but it can work. Well, at least on many Mondays before 10:30.
Pindale Road out of Hope is a good shout as it rarely fills up, doesn’t really cause any major obstructions (it’s a dead end in everything but name) and is a pleasant warm up spin into Castleton. Also means you’ve got the excellent 18 Bikes easily accessible at the start or end of a ride and some great cafes too.
Great shout re Pindale. Cheers.
I'd always park on the free spaces up towards the broken road (tended to ride up that way anyway). There are a lot of camper vans there now though it's like a trailer park on a busy weekend, felt actually pretty creepy riding down through there at night
There are a lot of camper vans there now though it's like a trailer park on a busy weekend, felt actually pretty creepy riding down through there at night
The newly painted red lines have forced a lot of them away. There are still spaces and I guess when everyone works out where is free, the vans will come back wherever possible.
But yes, it can get a bit weird along there. Sometimes felt like you were riding through a thousand different front gardens as you passed all the van lifers living their one life.
Usually aim to meet my mate there at 9am and we can get into the main carpark.
How quick we are to free up our spaces for those queuing at 1pm very much depends on their attitude. We have been known to load the bikes in our cars, pay for an extra couple of hours and go and get a decent lunch just to piss off an arrogant **** in a Tesla who didn't like our "give us 5 minutes" offer.
