My first three days in England were spent at the Peak District. It’s a beautiful pastoral area about three hours north of Cambridge. Being used to the wild beauty of places like Australia and New Zealand, the tame English countryside presented a new kind of prettiness.

These sheep were in front of our hostel.

On our ‘day off’, a large group of us decided to climb Back Tor, a very large hill near Edale.

The 2.5 hour walk ballooned into a 4.5 hour hike when our navigator got lost SIX TIMES. He once said, “I’m 99% sure we’re going the right way!”

I don’t normally post photos with recognisable people in them but I couldn’t resist this time. I hope you don’t know him but if you did, you would understand that this photo captures a lot of this person’s personality.

As a group, these scholars represent some of the best and brightest in the world. The following photos show that intelligence didn’t stop us jumping an electric fence or two.

After jumping electric fences, we trespassed on very pretty private property. When people are lost, they tend to be willing to cut across anything to get to a recognisable landmark.