Well it sort fo got off to a not so good start, with the bus ride to Cardiff taking around 3.5 to 4 hours. OMG what a horrible ride, no leg room, a rather large person sitting next to me that didn't appreciate the fact that I was supposed to have a whole seat, but basically the length of the journey (yes I know, just trawling for sympathy, you can almost hear the violins). The train is much more preferable.
Got to Cardiff and as it turns out Sarah had had a pretty big night out on the town. Well not my falut that she had had a bit to drink, so the sympathy didn't really flow.
She met me at the train station and from that point till we were nearly to the Lakes I was designated driver. In Sarah's words "She didn't really think this through". Oh well not to complain. The trip was uneventful and thanks to my superior skills at putting the car in the right direction, and a heavy right foot, we may have made it to the lake district in record time.
Well. The scenery was spectacular. The cottage was situated alongside the road out of Grasmere but also at the base of the Lion and the Lamb, as well as down the road from the travelers rest. I guess that both Sarah and I were relieved to arrive, me to have a break from the driving and Sarah from the continuous stream of "is it that one, is it that one..." I kept directing her way. The cottage was built over a hundered years ago, and it turned out to be a pretty good deal, 90 pounds a week plus electricity. It's a three bedroom place with two sitting room and about 5 DEGREES most of the time. The fact that it was built over 100 years ago also meant that it still was back in the 19th century. No heating, weird carpet, tiny fireplaces that didn't give out that much heat and tiny beads. Oh well, it still was a steal.
We spent the week in the lakes district checking out the local towns in the area, Grasmere, Ambleside, Kendal as well as a few of the pubs and outdoor camping stores that they contained. The weather was not as friendly as I had planned, but to my delight we were lucky to have a bit of proper snow.
The snow continued throughout the night and when we both finally got out of bed the next day all the hills around us were covered in the white stuff. It made the scenery even more spectacular.
On Tuesday we spent the day trudging along the alcok Tarn walk. This was in fact a nice and easy walk that took us away from the town of Grasmere and up into the hills that surrounded it. The heavens opened up ahlfway through the walk and we were hail rained upon for only a short while, enought to lower the temperature for a while, but we continued along neverltheless.
Another highlight was our hiring of some bicycles for a nice pleasuarble ride around windermere. They proved to be a great idea, hiring the bikes, but they were slow mountain bikes that coundn't coast for all the gold in the world. So they were great for going along the flaat but not so great for going up hills. It was still a great idea to hire the bikes. We followed the suggestion of the hire man and made our way along the back roads towards the lake, then across the lake via the ferry. I felt a bit ripped off by the ferry, apparently they had doubled the price without even changing the signs and this only became apparent when you were half way across the lake. Oh well, we were a bit of a captive audience, so we payed. We continued along the far side of the lake until the path seemed to go up hill. That was where we decided to turn around, witha bit of encouageemnt form the icy haily rainy weather. Once we got back to the other side the sun decided to come out and shine, so I rode along the foot path and kicked a few swans inthe backside before they could turn around and bite me. good fun.
Near the end of the week we went on another walk around Elterwater. It was a fantastic walk - a bit longer than we anticipated but the scenerey made it worth while. Very picturesque. That was the last of our walks as the end of the week came around far to quickly and we had to set off on the journey home. For Sarah it was back to work but for me it was the start of a week sitting on my arse not doing any dishes.
I did however get to climb one mountain. Me at the top looking back towards Grasmere.
No comments:
Post a Comment