The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
How an active wellness break helped heal a family rift
A hiking and yoga holiday in the Peak District helped Jo Fernandez and her daughter find a new purpose and reconnect to what matters
Two years ago, our family imploded following a painful break-up between me and my partner. It sounds dramatic but it felt a bit like experiencing a death. A long and painful estrangement followed, along with a sense of grieving.
We muddled through. His absence was always felt, especially during major life events such as our now 19-year-old daughter Maya leaving home to go to university, as well as birthdays, Christmases and so on.
Our shared love of exercise and the outdoors helped Maya and me through some difficult days. She has practised yoga and meditation for years; I prefer weights and walks. We created happy memories from “healthy” trips, such as learning to surf at the Wave artificial surf camp in Bristol while visiting Maya’s grandmother in the city. In fact, that particular trip created such a feel-good experience, we longed to repeat it.
Searching online for something closer to Manchester – surfing in Cornwall wasn’t doable for a termtime weekend – I found a combined yoga and hiking trip in the Peak District. We met at Chesterfield station, an hour from Manchester, hugging and excited about the weekend ahead.
The retreat is hosted in a timber-clad, brick-built converted cattle shed overlooking the sheep-filled, emerald-green Hope Valley. The comfortable living space in which we ate and socialised had wide wooden floorboards, underfloor heating and deep sofas overlooking a decked balcony; beyond that, those valley views. If you chose not to hike, you could loll about with a book and a cup of tea, or count the sheep in the fields below.
The Friday to Monday weekend was bookended by yoga classes, 90-minute sessions each morning and evening in the loft of a barn next to the house along with daily hikes of between four and five hours. Nicky, the yoga teacher, took us through yin yoga each evening, a slower-paced style where poses are held for longer. It sounds simpler than “normal” yoga, but is actually harder in some ways: you hold each pose for around five minutes.
Towards the end of the session, we were invited to snuggle under blankets for the savasana (otherwise known as the cheerfully named “corpse pose”) guided relaxation before being left to our thoughts – or to sleep in some cases. This was when I struggled. My mind flooded with thoughts I wanted to push away or else a list of things I had to do. Maya loved it though, which made each of my twitchy evening sessions worth it as I watched her bliss out.
And so we became institutionalised in a healthy way, settling into a routine of yoga, breakfast, hiking, yoga, dinner, sleep, breakfast, yoga… you get the idea. Nicky tailored the yoga to help soothe post-hike aching, meaning we could start it all again the next day.
Morning yoga, with vinyasa flowing poses, was more energising. Afterwards, the two of us would rush to the wooden bar to see what was laid out for the help-yourself breakfast – some days quinoa porridge, some days bowls of nuts or oats sprinkled with cinnamon.
Dinners ranged from butternut squash curry with brown rice and lots of greens to refried beans with kimchi followed by sticky toffee pudding. Packed lunches were less bountiful – a spicy caper-and-olive wholemeal pasta salad or a slice of tortilla and undressed salad (a big no from me).
This was where the cute stone villages, to which we descended from the peaks, came in handy (as well as being helpful for toilets). After hiking for a few hours, you get hot, then quickly cool down when you stop. Cafés selling cakes and coffee filled hunger gaps and warmed us up after we had sat outside eating our packed lunches.
The local scenery varies dramatically, with soft, springy moss (sphagnum) carpeting exposed moorland laced with clear streams and stark rock formations. Rachel and Richard, the knowledgeable, enthusiastic owners of Peak Walking Adventures (peakwalking.com) steered us past points of local interest along the way.
Above Eyam, a famous plague village in Derbyshire, Riley Graves is the burial site of an entire family – bar the mum – who died in 1666 after the Great Plague arrived from London, carried by fleas in a box of cloth delivered to a local tailor. Isolated, they were left food and drink at a designated boundary stone outside the gritstone-cottage-lined village; coins to pay for the goods were dropped in specially drilled holes filled with vinegar to sterilise them.
We would return each afternoon muddy and tired but in good spirits. Aside from having to share a room with me, Maya loved us being together, although the occasional “stop helicopter-parenting me!” comment when I dared to ask if she wanted a cup of tea caused smiles among our fellow retreaters. In reality, they appreciated our mother-daughter dynamic, part loving and tactile, part me getting on her nerves (snoring, apparently; getting up to go to the loo in the night; and revealing embarrassing stories).
A few of us formed a mainly middle-aged “girl-gang”. Although we mixed with the others, we were as thick as thieves, sharing mealtimes, life stories and in-jokes. Maya has aunties and also enjoys spending time with my female friends, so she loved being in the thick of this lively group of women with a common interest.
I enjoyed the combination of exercise and being outdoors for so long, getting to know different people as my walking pace set me alongside them. I also enjoyed not having to think much: our daily routine was already laid out before we arrived.
On the last night, we lit a fire and a few of us chatted later than normal, aware that our little Peak District bubble would soon be coming to an end. Maya lay across my lap while I played with her hair (a regular routine of ours at home). A few people commented on how lovely it was to see that level of closeness.
Despite the hardship of the past few years, I am fully aware of how lucky we are to have such a strong relationship. During our very first yoga session, when Nicky invited us to set an intention, my mind foraged around and came up with the word “peace”. On the last morning she reminded us of this again, and I decided to change it to “joy”.