23rd to 25th May 2021
At last a caravan trip....after an 8 month break, during which time we haven't so much as seen the caravan thanks to our decision to store it so far away in Lancaster. The second lockdown last year took us by suprise. No winter precautions, no strategically placed bowls of salt, no opening of cupboards and re-arranging of cushions, bedding left in place, but luckily we did at least drain the water out after our last trip. We weren't sure what sort of state the caravan would be in.
So where to go for a fact finding trip, with no weekend availability anywhere! It looks like the new normal is going to be struggling to find a pitch this year. The Windermere C&CC site is an old favourite and after a few searches we managed to book a Sun/Mon trip.
Sunday
We needn't have worried about the caravan, it was ok apart from a bit of mold on the sheets and duvet cover and a flat battery. We took fresh bedding. It was even quite clean!
Since our last trip the not much liked Nissan Qashqai has been replaced with a Kia Sportage 1.7 tdi. A much better car, we think, albeit without many frills like parking sensors and warning beeps for just about everything. We had one before the Nissan, so didn't expect any problems towing and there weren't any.
We usually get to choose a pitch at this site, but not this time. Not sure if that is because of covid or just because the site was completely full. On arrival we were taken to pitch 46 which we've been on before. Not a pitch we would choose but ok for a couple of nights.
The flat battery meant no motor mover but D did a pretty good job of reversing for a change, but we couldn't then level the caravan so had to put up with a left/right slope!
After setting everything up and a bit of cleaning we headed off across the fields to Staveley, stopping on the way to check on our geocache. The last people to find it hadn't done a very good job of hiding it...
Lots of lambs around...
With rain threatening we didn't hang around...
We got a table in the Hawkshead brewery beer hall and had a couple of drinks, but they are not serving food at the moment. We tried the Eagle and Child on the way back but it was fully booked, so we ended up having a home cooked hotdog and chips back at the caravan.
Monday
Heavy rain in the night gave way to heavy showers in the morning.
We got up early and drove to Kentmere for a walk up to the reservoir. An early start in order to bag a parking space, which is something we have tried to do in the past without success. This time there were a couple of spaces left.
It rained a bit early on but was ok after that.
