Wednesday 27th September 2022
The first day here was Wednesday and we wandered up to Keswick which was the local market town in the northern part of the Lake District. We wandered around the quaint little town full of touristy shops and suchlike. The car park was a bloody nightmare. Unless you had cash, and who does these days in the UK, it was difficult. It kept rejecting our times and selections. In the end we found two pound coins bunged those in and got an hour’s parking. That was enough as nobody came round to book us for a two hour stay. We found a nice fish and chip restaurant that was quite pleasant and stopped there for a very nice lunch.
We went back to the car all fed and watered and headed for the lake that Keswick was built on: Derwentwater. No lake anything, just Derwentwater. It was all set up and touristy for us visiting guys. That damned car park system again hailed us, but this time we saw a traffic attendant who showed us how to work the damn thing. You needed a degree in engineering to figure this darned thing out. But we got our ticket and put it in the car.
At the lake, they had boat hire, paddleboat hire and other stuff including boat trips around the lake itself – which was quite large anyway. We went into the ticket office and got tickets for right the way around and back again. Cost £25 which was not bad for a trip that was about an hour and a quarter. We sat at the front which was a mistake as the wind got up, whipped up some waves which splashed everyone at the front of the boat. It was good fun though and was enjoyable. Apparently, there were half a dozen or so little hop-on hop-off places around the lake and our boat did the full tour around dropping people off and picking up as required. We got some good photos as it was a nice sunny afternoon with blue skies and fluffy clouds.
We got back to the car no worse for wear and headed back to the hotel. There were plenty of Ramblers and walkers around all over the place. We left Keswick and found a couple of other places to wander around and eventually returned to the hotel and the Coffee Shop.
To get to the Lodge in the Vale hotel, you had to take a sharp little left turn off the main road, but you could see the place from the road so you couldn’t really miss it. As we turned off, the hotel was about a 100 yards on the right hand side and as we came along the road, there was a kinda sorta mobile traffic queue moving slowly and coming towards us. We just couldn’t believe what we saw: in front was a transit type van followed by a similar one, then in the middle of the road behind the vans was a sheep trotting along in front of a row of traffic. It was so funny to see it and we were rolling with laughter. God knows where this sheep had come from and God knows where he was going. Anyway, when he got to the hotel car park entrance he swung left into there leaving the road free again. We actually followed the sheep in and by the time we had driven in, we saw him butting his head against his reflection in the hotel’s glass doors. He hung around this location till the next morning and he was gone.
We sat in the Coffee Shop for a while dining on Cream Tea Scones and Jam – all very nice – then turned in about 9pm.
This has been part 9 of a series of posts highlighting the trip of a British ex-pat in the US when he returns to the UK for a vacation. He shares the experiences with us here on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the next few weeks. I hope you will enjoy reading them as much as I have, and seeing the areas he (and his lovely wife) visit, through my friend David’s eyes. ~ Sherry
David invites you to visit his eBay store while you’re in the neighborhood!
Need to catch up on David’s story? Day 1 ~ Day 2 ~ Day 3 ~ Day 4 ~ Day 5 ~ Day 6 ~ Day 7 – Day 8
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