Lake District to Hadrian's Wall

18.5.11

It’s 4 in the afternoon, sitting in the truck at the top of Kirkstone Pass, way above Ambleside and Windermere, headed from the Lake District to Hadrian’s Wall area, probably Haltwhistle. We have just driven up an incredibly steep and long hill to meet the A592 to Penrith. The van was gasping for breath, and she was febrile, so she is now having a rest in the freezing wind and almost sleet as we boil water for a cup of tea, and wait patiently.

This morning we went for a walk around the campsite, or from the campsite more correctly, down a “green road”, very picturesque, and the sun even made fleeting appearances. In fact at times I was positively warm through my two layers of merino base layers, one of brushed wool, and my gore-tex jacket!!! There were many pretty sheep, green oaks, robins and other finches, and green fields with yellow and brown gorse completing the picture. Oh no, I forgot the moss and lichen covered stone walls.

We stopped on our way to the gardens at a 50% off sale of winter woollies, and out doors clothes. Hilary and Diana got new boots, and a few warm garments, I got a new fleece and some warm fluffy trousers for slouching in, in the evenings. It was 12 o’clock already so we missed one of the gardens we were going to visit, and instead headed to Copt Howe up near Greater Langdale. I think I may have mentioned they are part of the National Garden Scheme, where the owners open up their gardens to the public for a fee which is given to charity.

We noticed a pretty and noisy waterfall on our drive so stopped when we could and walked back to view it. It was thunderous after all the rain.

The bridge over the river, up river from the waterfall by 100 metres

Showing off their new boots at the waterfall's edge.

This garden was mostly interesting plantings of trees, especially acers of different colours, but also bright blue Himalayan Poppies, multi-coloured azaleas and rhododendrons, and other bright colours. There were also sculptures and rock carvings peeping out of grottos.

View from a seat at the bottom of the garden

We had soup in a car-park beside some fancy sheep, before moving on.

Though we have mobile broadband which we paid £15 for a month for, the coverage isn’t great. We could only  get cover in a couple of small areas in Yorkshire, and same again here, very few places have coverage even though wireless is available? How is that? Different servers??  I don’t know. I thought we’d get it here, because we are so high up, but maybe the remoteness is the problem? Anyway, hopefully as we head towards more populated areas more towards the middle of northern England, we may have more success.

We drove across to Haltwhistle which is East of Carlisle. We made good time, took main roads a lot of the way, and arrived at just after 5, thinking we'd be settled early at our campsite, and have an early dinner and bed. Just after 7 we found a campsite. Not the one we had intended, just one we settled for in desperation. A lot of the sites have GPS co-ordinates and not very good other instructions/maps for finding them. Often you can check their web-page but as i explained earlier coverage around some more rural parts is very iffy. Di's cell phone wouldn't work either, so we drove around in circles through some very narrow lanes, tired and hungry. When we finally arrived at the campsite their wasn't a soul around, a cross between the Marie Celeste and an invasion from another planet where all the locals were beamed up. We parked the camper amongst half a dozen abandonned caravans, and settled in for the night. A note on the reception door said the office wasn't open on Wednesdays and that if arrivals just set up camp, someone would be around the next day to check them in. We could have scarpered before 9.30 but honesty got the better of us, and we paid the required price before heading out for the day.