Warm weather at last!

16th to 18th May 2014

Our second new site in 2014, and another one we have thought about visiting for a while – Kendal Caravan Club site.

Friday

This is a foresty site, with pitches scattered randomly amongst trees, which is nice once you are in but it does mean some pitches are a bit difficult to get into.  D likes to be able to line the caravan up with the side of the pitch, but not this time.  The pitch we chose was sloping quite a bit from front to back, too, so we had to lower the front of the caravan right down.  A bit shady for some, maybe.  Good facilities, but not enough of them (in the gents at least), with queuing both mornings!

Kendal is not really within walking distance, but we had a go anyway.  A nice walk along the river Kent to start with, then along the disused Lancaster canal.  We got a couple of miles, then saw a sign saying 2.5 miles still to go so we gave up!

The river Kent

Back at site the weather was nice enough for our first barbecue of the year, which was a resounding success.  Afterwards we walked to the nearby Strickland Arms, which has become one of our favourite pubs anywhere.  It was even warm enough to sit outside for a while.

Saturday

Too hot to do any strenuous walking, so we strolled to nearby Sizergh Castle, hoping to use our National Trust membership cards to gain free entry.  We managed to get into the gardens but the actual castle is only open Sun-Thu.  Oh well, the gardens were nice and we got to see a bee keeper in action.

Stopped off at the Strickland Arms on the way back for a quick drink, then in the evening we drove to Scout Scar.  It took us a while to find the starting point of the walk, and when we got onto the ridge it was very windy so we didn’t hang around long.

The “mushroom” on Scout Scar – nice place for a picnic

  

Back to the Strickland Arms in the evening and once again it was warm enough to sit outside for a while.

Sunday

A very early start because J had to get home to go to a baby shower!

Gallery

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Coming soon…

Nothing booked yet, but probably a three night trip to Coniston at the end of the month.  We’ve started looking at caravans on Ebay, too…..  

Barmouth

25th to 28th April 2014

Our second visit to Hendre Mynach, Barmouth, our first visit being around the same time last year.  We really are creatures of habit, aren’t we!

 

A pretty good site, facilities not quite up to CC or C&CC standards, but an excellent choice if you want to visit Barmouth, which is just a short(ish) stroll or cycle ride along the promenade.

Friday

It’s a long way to Barmouth from Liverpool, mostly on A roads, so having to go home when we were halfway to the storage site to get forgotten cash cards didn’t help!  We got there later than usual, and then it took ages to put the awning up, but we got a good pitch in a nice, quiet part of the site.

A very rare outing for our bikes this weekend, so we were in Barmouth town centre a few minutes after setting everything up.  Not sure why we don’t take the bikes away more often…well, it’s a bit of a hassle getting them on, then having to worry about tight turns and nose-weights…!

Our pub of choice for the weekend was The Last Inn, and we had a couple of drinks there followed by fish and chips on the promenade.

Saturday

Not a particularly good weather forecast, so we shelved the idea of a walk up Rhinog Fawr - supposedly the toughest in Wales! - and went for a stroll in the hills above Barmouth instead, culminating in the “panorama walk”, which we thought sounded nice.  It turned out to be a steep walk through trees, although it is possible we missed the best bit due to poor navigation!

 

No chance of a barbecue this weekend, so we ate in the caravan and then cycled to the Last Inn, stopping on the way to take some picture of the high tide waves.

 

The pub was very crowded and we couldn’t get a seat, so we sat and shivered outside for one drink. We popped into the co-op on the way back for treats, then headed back to the caravan.

Sunday

The weather forecast for today…nice in the morning, horrible in the afternoon.  It turned out to be pretty accurate.

We cycled along the Mawddach trail to Dolgellau in the morning.  We’ve walked and cycled along this trail before and it is one of the best traffic free cycle paths we have ever been on.  Easy going and nice scenery.  Dolgellau was pretty much shut when we got there, but we managed to get a cup of tea.

     

Stopped at the George III pub, Penmaenpool, on the way back.  This is a really nice pub, one of D’s favourites anywhere, but we have never been able to spend any time there because we have always had to get back somewhere.  Same today, so just the one drink.

Got back to Barmouth just as it started to rain, but you can’t come to the seaside and not have an ice cream…

 

It continued to rained into the night.  We drove to the Last Inn and had an excellent dinner…sea bream for D, steak for J…but just the one drink.  Had we not been driving we would have stayed all night!

Monday

Homeward bound, after a short stroll on the promenade.  A long drive, not helped by missing a turn early on and having to backtrack!

Coming soon…

Nothing planned…D is struggling to get time off work, and other commitments are making planning difficult!

A new site

13th to 15th April 2014

We like to try a new site every now and then, and we have been meaning to try the Buxton Caravan Club site for a while now.  We booked it a twice last year, but had to cancel both times, once because of the weather and once for some other reason which eludes us!

A typical Caravan Club site, with massive hard standing pitches and excellent facilities, and not too far from Buxton town centre, albeit a bit of an uphill slog on the way back.

Sunday

A Sunday start, due to work getting in the way of life!  We arrived early and were soon tucking into lunch and a cup of tea, outside the caravan for a change.

 

After lunch we headed up into the hills around the site and visited Solomon’s Temple, which has excellent views of the surrounding countryside and the town of Buxton.  Quite a popular spot, so we didn’t have it to ourselves.

Solomon’s Temple, also known as Grinlow Tower, is a Victorian Fortified hill marker near the spa town of Buxton in the Derbyshire Peak District.  It is said to have been built by Solomon Mycock in the 1890s, paid for by public subscription to provide work for the locally unemployed with assistance of the seventh Duke of Devonshire. The tower was restored in 1998 by public subscription.  The structure is a 20-foot-high, two-storey tower built on top of a Bronze Age barrow, sitting on top of a ridge at a height of 440 metres (1,440 ft) above sea level. From the open top of the tower there are good views over the town and the surrounding countryside and parts of the Peak District. The tower does not contain anything other than the staircase to the top.

View of the site from near Solomon’s Temple 

Then we descended into Buxton and had a cup of tea in the park and listened to a brass band.  Didn’t get charged for the cakes we had with our tea…hurrah.

Afterwards we went to the Buxton Brewery Tap Room and sampled some of their beers (D’s favourite was Buxton Spa).  We had dinner there, too, before the long, mostly uphill, walk back to the site.  Quite a windy night!

Monday

Much less windy today, in fact a really nice day for a gentle stroll through Wolfscote and Biggin Dales, starting and ending in Hartington.  About 6 miles in total.

More pics in the gallery, including the usual cute lamb pics we always take around this time of year.

As on our last trip, we toyed with the idea of having a barbecue, stopping of at a supermarket on the way back and buying burgers and sausages before deciding it was too cold.  Partly because we were shaded from the sun by the caravan, partly because of the wind.  Anyway, the result was another indoor barbecue!

In the evening we walked up to Solomon’s Temple and enjoyed the sunset.  We almost had the place to ourselves this time.

Tuesday

A bit of a disaster on the way home!  We forgot to pack the microwave away and it fell off the shelf above the fridge in transit, resulting in lots of broken glass from it’s shattered door.  Luckily no damage to the caravan, but we will have to invest in a new microwave before our next trip.

Gallery

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Coming soon…

A three night trip to Hendre Mynach, Barmouth.