Our caravan blog

28 Apr 2019

1 Apr 2019

Keswick

29th March to 1st April

A three night trip to one of our favorite sites - Castlerigg Hall, Keswick.

Friday

No problems on the roads this time, so we arrived more or less when we wanted to and slotted into pre-allocated pitch no. 22. Great view from this pitch.

It was warm enough to have lunch al-fresco and sit outside for a while, even for J! Then we walked down the hill into Keswick and had dinner in the Wainwright, which is our pub of choice in Keswick. We got a taxi back to the site.

Saturday

Not as sunny today, but it didn't rain until late afternoon when we were safely back in the caravan.

We drove to Derwent water and got a ferry to Lodore, then walked back along the shore to Nichol End, about 4 miles.

Nice easy walking, D was saving himself for a more strenuous walk the next day.

The plan was to get a ferry from Nichol End back to Keswick, but we had all day hop on hop off tickets so we got one going anti clockwise round the lake instead, which took about 45 minutes.

A couple off odd looking trees...

We stopped off at Booths on the way back to the site to pick up some supplies for a quiet night in - cheese, beer, crisps etc. The weather improved later and we got to see a pretty good sunset from the site.

Later we popped in to the nearby Heights Hotel Crag Bar, but it was almost empty and we only stayed for one drink. It's very dated and lacking in atmosphere (although the background music was nice and jazzy this time, a nice change from the usual classic rock), but it serves Loweswater Gold and we like the man who runs the hotel with just his wife helping, we think. A trip to Castlerigg Hall wouldn't be the same without going to the Crag Bar.

Sunday

An early start for D, for a walk up Grisedale Pike (791 metres) and Hopegill Head (770 metres) from the village of Braithwaite. Two more Wainwrights ticked off.

Just about perfect conditions for walking. although not many people about except runners and on the way down cyclists lugging their bikes up the hill.

The last of the snow near the summit of Hopegill Head

Force Crag mine

J stayed in the caravan and had a nice relaxing start to mother's day.

Youngest daughter L is working in Tweedies hotel in Grasmere at the moment, and son A drove up for the day so that we could all have huge roast dinners in Tweedies. A insisted we stay for the Liverpool match, which they won courtesy of a last minute own goal to keep their title dreams alive, much to the delight of just about everybody in the bar.

A dropped us off in Keswick before heading home, but we we didn't stay out long.

Monday

Up and away early, we got home well before midday.

Coming soon...

Nothing booked but we might try and squeeze another trip in before Easter weekend, which seems to be fully booked everywhere.

24 Mar 2019

Windermere

22nd to 24th March 2019

Our first "real" trip of the year, the last one was more of a fact finding mission to see how the new car would perform and whether the caravan had survived the winter. The caravan is fine and now that it has been fixed the car is growing on us.

Our destination this weekend - the Windermere C&CC site.

Friday

The aim was to get there at 1pm, the earliest arrival time, but signs saying that the M6 was closed soon put paid to that! Fortunately we managed to navigate around the closure using the A58 and then the M61 and we ended up getting there just after 1.30pm, so it could have been a lot worse.

We got reasonable pitch, but forgot to take a pic of the caravan this time.

As soon as we had set everything up we headed across the fields in the rain to Staveley, for the Hawkshead Brewery Spring beer festival.

Lot's of beers sampled, we stayed for about 6 hours! It was really busy in the afternoon but we managed to find a seat when we wanted one, and it seemed to quieten down a bit in the evening anyway.

Saturday

Better weather today. We went for a walk from the site along the Dales way to Windermere, about 6 miles in total.

We got a train from Windermere back to Staveley and returned to the beer festival in the afternoon, but it was packed and we didn't stay long. We thought the Eagle and Child might be a bit quieter, and it was...a bit. We sat outside in the beer garden overlooking the river. The Eagle and Child is a nice pub but we only seem to come to this site when the beer festival is on these days, something we might remedy later in the year.

Some friendly sheep who followed us for a while on the way back to the site.

We got back to the site around 6pm and had dinner in the caravan and a night in. A fabulous sunset but by the time we noticed it it was too late to go up into the hills to get a pic, and the pic we took from the caravan was rubbish. One that got away!