Kendal

14th to 16th April 2023

Our first trip of the year to one of our favourite sites - the CAMC site outside Kendal.

Friday

We had a really good journey and despite driving as slowly as possible we ended up arriving five minutes before the earliest arrival time of 1pm to fnd the barriers up.  Quite rightly the wardens made us wait, but we were still first on site and we headed straight to pitch no. 21, the holy grail of pitches.

All caravan pitches should be like this.  No rows of caravan here.  We felt a bit guilty because we hate it when we arrive dead on time and have to join a queue of early arrivals who get the best pitches...but only for a moment.  A very good start to the trip.

We put the canopy up to make sure it is still okay, but it probably won't get many airings this year.  It's too small to be any use and a lot of hassle to put up.

What to do next?  We decided to get a bus into Kendal but as we waited at the bus stop we changed our minds and headed to the nearby Strickland Arms instead.  It was pretty empty and we ended up having dinner there.

Saturday

Quite a late start, we got a bus to High Newton and walked from there to Newby Bridge.  No mountains today.

Hurrah, blue sky for a change!

We had a quick pint in the Swan Inn, then headed back to the site for our first barbecue of the year, which after a shaky start due to last years coals and the firelighter not working turned out to be very successful.

Sunday

The journey back to the storage site was uneventful.

All in all a very good two night trip.  We have been very lucky on trips this year and our good fortune continues.

Coming soon...

It looks like there isn't any availability anywhere we want to go at the end of April and then almost every weekend is a bank holiday weekend in May so sites are pretty full...

Ingleton

31st March to 2nd April

Two nights at Thornbrook Barn, Ingleton, which is only about half an hour from our storage site.  As with our previous trips this year the weather forecast was not particularly good but turned out to be ok.  We left it until the last minute to book so were not surprised to get one of the less good pitches, but there aren't really any bad pitches here.

Friday

We set off a bit later than we would have liked due to work but were still onsite and set up by 2pm.  Not the easiest of pitches to get into but luckily the motor mover decided to work this time.

Ingleton is just a short walk away.  It's not what you might call a tourist village but that is not a bad thing.  We discovered our first choice pub (based on previous visits), the Old Post Office, doesn't open until 5pm so we popped into the Masons first, which is also a nice place to be.

Dinner was fish and chips sitting outside the chip shop.  It was just about warm enough.

Saturday

We thought about getting a bus to Settle but decided to drive instead, which turned out to be more stressful than we thought it would be as we inched over a 6ft wide bridge at Stainforth Force waterfall!

Quite scary at the peak of the bridge, with no visibility of the sides, but we got away with it.  According to specifications our car is 6ft 1in, so not sure how!

 

The object of today's walk was Smearsett Scar.

Lots of grey cloud but it didn't rain, so we can't complain.

Afterwards we popped into Settle and had a look around the shops, then back to the site for dinner in the caravan.

We summoned up enough energy to walk to the Marton Arms later in the evening, which is about half as far as Ingleton and another nice pub.  Three nice pubs in a village is pretty good going.

Sunday

No problems getting home.

Coming soon...

We will wait for the Easter rush to die down and hope to get away again before the end of April.