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BRILLIANT: 🚤 Near Castleton in Derbyshire, the boat trip comes with a hard hat and 106 steps. Speedwell Cavern takes visitors by boat through an old lead mine, which is a splendid way of turning a Peak District outing into something rather stranger than a walk followed by lunch. The important word in that description is “mine”. Picture a low tunnel with rock close above the boat, rather than a broad underground river with room to stretch out and admire the scenery. The boat is part of the adventure, but getting to it means going down 106 steps, and getting home means climbing them again. A seated activity can be surprisingly committed to making your legs work. Once aboard, the narrow passage becomes the experience. There is water below, a low roof above and a hard hat that suddenly feels like an excellent addition to the outfit. This is a trip for someone who enjoys the peculiar feeling of travelling somewhere they could never normally go. If being enclosed in a low tunnel sounds miserable, the novelty of doing it in a boat is unlikely to improve matters. The destination is a cavern where passengers get out for the guide’s explanation before making the return journey. But the journey itself is the reason to choose Speedwell, so it deserves more thought than simply ticking “cave” on a list of things to do. Blue John Cavern, also near Castleton, offers a different sort of underground visit. Here, steps connect a series of caverns, with places to stop and look as the tour goes deeper. Blue John is a mineral with bands of colour, including purple, blue and yellow, and seeing it underground gives the name in the village’s gift shops a point beyond another attractive thing to take home. There is more looking around on foot, with the rock and the linked spaces providing the interest. The choice is between two experiences, rather than two interchangeable entrances into the same afternoon. Choose Speedwell for the boat and the low passage through the mine. Choose Blue John if the appeal is exploring successive chambers and looking at the mineral itself. Both involve steps, so choosing the boat to escape a climb is a plan with a fairly immediate flaw. Above ground, Castleton offers an equally useful choice about how much to squeeze into the day. Cave Dale opens off the village’s market place, with a path running between steep grassy sides and exposed rock. That gives a village wander somewhere to go beyond the next shop window, without needing to turn the entire outing into a grand walking expedition. Peveril Castle stands above the village too, adding another climb for anyone whose knees have not already submitted a written objection. The temptation is to put a cavern, the castle, a walk and lunch into one heroic itinerary. A better afternoon leaves room for the thing that actually brought you here. An underground tour takes time beyond the moment of stepping into a boat, and lunch becomes considerably less relaxing when the next stop is already waiting. Pick the cavern that sounds enjoyable, give it proper room, then use the village for a slower change of pace. The boat trip may be the unusual part, but there is no prize for emerging from it and immediately sending yourself up another hill.