Day 1 – On the road for a new adventure
We left home by lunch time hoping to avoid most of the BH
weekend traffic, the M25 was very very slow and it took a long time but we did
eventually arrive at our overnight campsite – https://www.caravanclub.co.uk/club-sites/england/west-midlands/west-midlands/chapel-lane-caravan-club-site/. Very nice site,
although a little road noise.
Day 2 – If you want to see the sunshine, you have to weather the storm - Frank Lane
Hot, hot, hot at the start of today and we were up early
after a peaceful night at Chapel Hill Caravan Club site. We were very quickly on the road and
although met with some traffic nowhere near as bad as yesterday. Trusty satnav got us to Kendal Caravan &
Camping Club site http://www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/campsites/uk/cumbria/kendal/kendal and we pitched up and admired the lovely views of the hills
surrounding us.
What we failed to
notice was the huge black sky that was looming from the opposite direction...
Now for the more avid readers of our blog you will remember
‘Awning Gate’ from our first trips in our moho Deedee and of course our
successful erection of Bill’s awning on our last trip out. We were SO confident of doing a quick and
successful erection that we continued to get the awning out and put it up –
despite the even closer black sky....
In the beginning there was Watergate....
Well, and I have to repeat that... Well... torrential rain
and thunder descended and just didn’t stop for about 3 hours but of course
because we’d started the job we just had to finish it. It was just awful and tempers were a little
‘frayed’ shall we say – but with the rain still hammering down so loud, we had
to shout to have even a normal conversation!
Del’s waterproof jacket didn’t seem quite so waterproof and of course
the waterproof trousers we’d both bought remained packed ‘somewhere’. Finally, finally the awning was up and even
the little string of solar lights I’d bought were up, when all of a sudden
there was a huge gust that sent us running to hold on to our awning before it left
us for the hills of Kendal! Poles were
down – fortunately not bent, doors were flapping and Del ran for the bag of
tent pegs shouting “I knew I was going to do something!”
But it just didn’t stop there, I decided to go and have a
shower. Nice clean sanfacs here but the
shower cubicles are a wee bit small.
Being a seasoned camper now, I know to keep my clothes well off the
floor of the shower cubicles as there does tend to be quite a splash back. Nice hot showers, annoying shower curtains –
did the person who designed shower
curtains ever actually use one??????
Turn off the water, aarrgghh... wrong way boiling hot water, got to
escape, jump out of cubicle trying to dodge the hot pellets of water showering
down, straight into stool carrying dry clothes, stool wobbles and away go the clothes
straight into large puddle of water....
And it didn’t stop there, upon return to Bill the torrential
rain started again, the awning decided to create its own rooftop pool and we
were constantly running in and out and clearing the awning roof of gallons of
water.
And to finish off the day of all days – Chelsea lost in the
FA Cup! Oh well, bed and have a laugh
about today, because tomorrow brings fresh new adventures one of them being to
buy some storm straps!
Day 3 – ho hum...
First port of call was Asda to just buy a few essentials
(food) and breakfast. However, Del
wasn’t well at all so we quickly bought our bits and returned to the campsite
where Del spent the rest of the day sleeping.
However, Watergate still hadn’t had its last word – Del opened the car
door to find the front passenger foot well literally that – a well. The water was inches deep and Del had to use
a mug to bail it out.
Day 4 – Watergate and SEVERE travel warning!
It’s hard to find the words to
begin today’s story. So in the true
tradition of those hard-to-believe adventures that we avidly read as children,
I shall start at the beginning.
Del was feeling a lot better this
morning so because the weather forecast was more rain we decided that we’d do
something that Del would really enjoy - we’d go for a trip on the Ravenglass
& Eskdale Steam Railway https://ravenglass-railway.co.uk/.
Watergate
continued and the car was full of water again, so armed with a rather large
yellow sponge and a packet of tissues to bung up the holes we set off. Now this is where I give the SEVERE TRAVEL
WARNING, the lovely leaflet that is readily available wherever you go
advertising the trip on the Ratty gives two postcodes – one for each end of the
railway. The first postcode to
Ravenglass when entered into the trusty satnav tells you it’s 55 miles, the
second to Dalegarth tells you 22 miles.
It’s a no-brainer isn’t it? You
go for the nearest, take the train, come back by train, come home.... What it FAILS and I repeat FAILS to tell
you is that the 22 miles takes you 2.5 hours because it’s over the top of Cumbrian
Mountains, Scafell Pike, Bow Fell...
2.5 hours to do 22 miles!!!!!!!
The road was so narrow barely one car could use it, it was so bendy that
you almost met yourself coming back, it was so steep in places you needed an
oxygen mask and what’s more it doesn’t even appear on the map! Of course, we weren’t the only ones using
this ‘road’ so there was an awful lot of inhaling (to make us smaller) so
we could pass – I’m not too embarrassed to say that I was so scared that I
cried. Del was actually quite calm – I
do think a considerable amount of his calmness was due to the promise of a ride
on a steam train at the end of it! I
know it’s been a long time since I was that scared!
What I also need to tell you that
during the ride of terror, it was still raining, not too hard thankfully, but
enough for the roof to pour water every time we went round one of the
bends. Just what do I do first? Plug the hole with tissue, catch the water in
the sponge, swear or cry? Never, never
again – I think my exact words were “I don’t care how far or how long it takes
I am not going that f***ing way EVER again!”
The ride on Ratty was great, it’s a
miniature steam train but it takes you on a lovely journey alongside the mountains
and you get to see the most beautiful purple mountains. From a distance we thought it was heather but
from a bit closer you could see it was the most amazing flowering rhododendrons
– beautiful.
The journey back took 1.5 hours (55
miles) and was on what us southerners call a ‘road’ and there were some traffic
lights and a roundabout – too much excitement for two very weary travellers.
Day 5 – Watergate Ceasefire Announced
So today there was no promise of rain until early evening,
the sky was still very heavy and there was quite a chill in the air. We decided that it would be another indoor
adventure today and we headed off to the Lakeland Motor Museum. Very nice there, not as big as Beaulieu but
they do have a replica of Donald Campbell's Bluebird and several other cars which
both Del and I reminisced on stories of when Dad had one of them or the day we
went to.... in one of them.
We stopped at the cafe for lunch and ordered gammon, egg
& chips – jeez they sure know how to serve large portions here! It was really very nice though.
At about 4.30 it began to rain but we were back in Bill –
Del was ecstatic that his repair job on the Jeep’s roof (clear Gorilla tape)
had worked and there was no longer any water leaking through!
Day 6 – Yay the sun is out!
And we’re off to Ullswater for the Steamboat trip - if you do the Ravensglass steam train
journey then hold onto your tickets because you can buy your steamboat tickets
for half-price. This time we drove over
Kirkwood Fells and it was simply stunning.
Ullswater is beautiful and the steamboat trip is just the best way to
see the lake. We stopped off in Kendal
on the return journey for some lunch and a walk through the town, it’s just
like any other town – lots of charity shops, but very few coffee shops!
Day 7 – Windermere
Mmm... well we both said (and agreed) that if we’d done Windermere first we wouldn’t have bothered with Ullswater. Windermere was nothing more than a disappointment really, yes it was huge, yes it was lovely seeing the sailing boats and stopping at all the piers – crickey the swans at Bowness are huge! but from the lake it’s just ‘green’.
Ullswater is just beautiful -
mountains, fields, trees, houses tucked away.
Now, the trips on the Lakes aren’t cheap – Ullswater we got
a reduction of 50% because we’d been on Ratty the steam train, but the trip on
Windermere cost £20 each. I’m not
complaining but we were amazed at the number of people that sat with their
heads in their phones for the entire trip!
There was a coach of Japanese tourists who just took photos of each
other ‘posing’ – no one looked at the views or even sat still for 5 minutes,
very strange and as for queuing to get off, it was hilarious seeing them
pushing and shoving to get to the front.
I will confess a slightly nasty side of me came out and I made myself as
wide as possibly to block them getting past me... tut tut...
Del had been watching the weather forecast and heavy rain
was scheduled to arrive at the campsite early evening. As we were making our way home the following
morning we decided to pack away the awning and load up the car as much as
possible. Thank goodness because it sure
did rain!
Day 8 – traffic!
The M6 was a bloomin nightmare, it was horrible. Thankfully we’d booked Chapel Lane again for an overnight stay. We even went to the same pitch (sad?). More overnight rain but we didn’t care as we were up and off by 8.30am – this time the M6 was okay and the M25 was a bit snarled up but hey ho... tell me something new?
So that’s the end of our tour of the Lakes, both very
pleased we went and despite the weather we had a good time.
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