Ravenglass

17th to 20th May 2019

The C&CC site in Ravenglass never disappoints, so we were looking forward to this three night trip, and a half decent weather forecast was the icing on the cake.

Friday

We weren't looking forward to the grueling three hour journey, though, but that's the price you have to pay to get to what is still our favorite site.

Whenever we book this site we ask for one of a range of pitches, much to the wardens amusement, and they didn't let us down this time.  If we were being picky we could moan about the motorhome next to us parked the wrong way around, with its door facing us, but we went in nose first (with the wardens permission) so maybe they were moaning about us too!

After setting everything up and testing our new dab radio aerial (which was a great success) we strolled into the village and had a drink sitting outside the Inn at Ravenglass, which was surprisingly busy all weekend.  There aren't many better pubs to sit outside on a nice sunny afternoon.

Then we had our first barbecue of the year.

Later we went back in to the village but it had clouded over, so not the best sunset we have ever seen here.  Still pretty good, though.  The pubs in Ravenglass close at 10pm so we didn't stay out late.

Saturday

A solo walk for D, to Buckbarrow and Seatallan.

Quite steep to start with and then a long, gently sloping slog from Buckbarrow to Seatallan.  Excellent views of the surrounding fells, although it was cloudy most of the time.

After lunch, we went for a walk along the estuary and more drinks in a couple of pubs.

Dinner in the caravan, then back into the village for a charity pub quiz at the Inn at Ravenglass.  We thought it would be packed but there were only four teams.  We came third.  The man in last place was on his own!  The site wardens won.

No sunset tonight, it was too cloudy again.

Sunday

A walk on the beach, which turned out to be quite hard on a hot, mostly sunny day.  Well worth the effort, though, and we didn't see a soul.

We think Drigg dunes and gullery nature reserve is a really nice place to be.

Nice place for a picnic

Later we had dinner in the Pennington hotel (because the Ratty Arms was full) and then watched the sunset outside the Inn at Ravenglass.  Again, not a very good sunset because it had clouded over.

Then we had a visitor...

We didn't let her in!  Apparently she is nothing to do with the site and must live in the village somewhere.  Too well groomed and friendly to be a stray.

Monday

The long journey home wasn't helped by a bit of traffic near Sizergh, but apart from that it was uneventful and we are up to date with the Archers again.

A really good trip, we'll be back in September or October.

Coming soon...

We'll probably stay at home for the bank holiday, then maybe somewhere in Cumbria again.

Castleton

12th to 14th May 2019

It's pretty much impossible to get in to the Castleton C&MC site at weekends...so we gave up and opted for a Sun/Mon trip instead!

Sunday

A downside of any trip to Derbyshire, for us, is the journey through Stockport and other suburbs of Manchester, but today there was almost no traffic to contend with.  We arrived just after midday and joined a queue of caravans and motorhomes waiting to get in.  A daily occurrance according to the warden.  This is a very popular site!

The check in process was pretty quick, though, and we managed to get a good pitch overlooking  a field with sheep and lambs in it...and squirrels, who we had to keep chasing away from the bird feeder.

The village of Castleton was packed in the afternoon, but it quietened down a lot later in the day.  After a couple of drinks we had dinner in the caravan...well, pizza and chips sitting outside.  We were kicking ourselves for not bringing the barbecue.

Then we went to the Cheshire Cheese for their weekly pub quiz and bingo and play your cards right...pretty much everything really.  We didn't win anything, but we did get more in the quiz than a team of 10  people so we were pretty pleased with ourselves.

Monday

We ended up doing an out and back walk to the summit of Kinder Low, abandoning the original plan of a circular walk taking in Brown Knoll.

We like the summit of Kinder Low...lots of interesting rock formations and quite atmospheric.  Can't immediately think of a better summit anywhere.  In comparison Brown Knoll looked pretty featureless and an unnecessary diversion on an increasingly hot and sunny day.  Not many pics because we forgot to charge the camera and had to eke out battery life.

In the afternoon we had another wander around the now much quieter village of Castleton, and had dinner in the George.  This pub is under new management and much improved, we think.  Then more drinks in more pubs.  Far too much drinking this weekend, but that is what always happens when we come here.  Too many nice pubs!  We visited four out of six this time.

We noticed a poster advertising concerts in one of the caverns and booked to see 80's and beyond Liverpool band Half Man Half Biscuit in August.  Of course, the Castleton C&MC site is full (the concert is on a Friday) so we have booked to stay at the one in Buxton instead and drive in.  A concert in a cave...sounds interesting.

Tuesday

Not such a good journey home...lots of weekday traffic.  Annoyingly, the stabilizer has started creaking a lot recently but we are telling ourselves it's just because it is working properly.  Let's hope that is the case.

Coming soon...

A three night trip to our favourite site...the C&CC site in Ravenglass.