12th to 15th May 2023
Second trip of the year to Castlerigg Hall, just outside Keswick. We are trying to go north as much as possible this year.
Friday
We arrived shortly after 1pm and fell foul of what must be a new policy, whereby a warden escorts you to your pitch. J booked us in and came back to the car to say wait to be shown to our pitch, D declared there was no need as we'd been here many time before. We drove straight to pitch 24 with the warden in hot pursuit! D apologised profusely, J looked the other way. Something to do with traffic management apparently.
Pitch 24 is a pretty good pitch, tucked away in a corner with excellent views of Keswick and Bassenthwaite in the distance.
As we usually do here, we walked down the hill into Keswick after lunch and had a look around the shops and a few drinks before getting the last bus back to the site at 7.30pm We decided on a cheap chippy tea before going back and saw they had seating upstairs: 2 fish and chips, mug of tea each and a slice of bread £30! No wonder so many were eating theirs on a bench outside!
A pretty good sunset.
Saturday
Two lesser Wainwrights today - Broom fell and Graystones. They all count.
A hot, sunny day and for once we were prepared, with sun tan lotion and lots of water. Quite steep in places, especially the trudge up Broom fell, and a bit of scrambling over felled trees when we got a bit lost towards the end of the walk.
In the evening we popped into the Crag bar for a pre dinner drink, before having a barbecue. A bit of a mix up meant we ended up with two gin and tonics and a pint of Loweswater Gold, so we shared the extra gin. It was warm enough to sit outside until quite late.
Sunday
The weather wasn't quite so good today, with rain forecast in the afternoon. We decided to see a film at the Alhambra cinema in Keswick...The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. The film was quite good, apart from 20 minutes of adverts at the start. We are used to its equivalent, the Bijou cinema in Southport, which is a not for profit business and doesn't have any adverts.
It must have rained a bit while we were inside because the streets were wet when we came out, so perfect timing.
We had dinner in the Crafty Baa, Nachos for J and a very hot goulash for D!
Got a taxi very easily back to the site. The driver remembered us from last time!
We polished off a bottle of wine sitting outside the caravan in the evening, watching an even better sunset.
Monday
We left about 9.30 and got home just after midday.
All in all another very good trip.
Coming soon.
Nothing booked but we hope to get away again at the end of May or early in June.