Visitors & the Lakes*

As you might have already guessed, my Aunt Pat and Uncle Chuck came over to England last week. They spent a day with us in York and the rest of their time in the Lake District where we joined them for a few days. They were also around for the camera dropping incident where, according to Patrick, I lost an appendage. My aunt very generously offered me the use of her camera since my uncle had brought one as well. So the next couple of posts are dedicated to my Aunt Pat. Without her camera, there would have been a series of black boxes instead of photos.

I have to say that Aunt Pat and Uncle Chuck experienced the gamut of English weather. In York, it was sunny and relatively warm (mid to low 50s) with high wind. When I say high wind, I'm talking about the lean-into-it-to-walk kind of wind where it takes effort to make forward progress. Considering we criss-crossed the "windiest spot in York" in front of the Minster several times, that was no small thing. On another windy day, with the added misery of rain, I witnessed around 10 umbrella carcasses turned inside out and shoved into all of the trash cans surrounding this spot. One had lodged itself into some nearby bushes after no one had bothered to chase it. It was an umbrella massacre like I'd never seen.

Aunt Pat and Uncle Chuck seemed to really enjoy their busy day of sight seeing in York and were very impressed by the Minster (click on this link for the archived post). We rounded out the day with a stop at The Last Drop, a pub run by the York Brewery with authentic hand-pulled beer (Uncle Chuck's favorite).


When we joined them at the Lakes, it was cloudy, but still hovering in the low 50s. The day we got there we went to see Furness Abbey and the Irish Sea which I'll talk about in another post. We knew that the weather was suppose to change for the worst on Saturday so figured Friday was the best possibility for hiking.

We attempted the popular Cat Bells ridge hike which starts near Keswick and has great views of the Derwent Water lake on one side of the ridge and the Newlands valley on the other. I found out later that the name Cat Bells is thought to have been derived from the Old English word "Catt" and the Middle English word "belde" which, together, mean "the den of the wild cat." Apparently wild cats were common here long ago until hunted into extinction. From the way they describe it, I'm not thinking scary mountain lion, but more of a wild house cat.


Rick Steves calls this hike "...a great (and fairly easy) 'king of the mountain' feeling, sweeping views, and a close-up view of weather blowing over the ridge..." He suggests wearing sturdy shoes, bringing a raincoat, and being careful about your footing. With "easy" being relative, he's right on all accounts. The rain started after we made it over the first couple of rises and increased in intensity blowing sideways. With the slate-like rock now wet and really slippery, we decided to stop short of the last ascent and headed down a quick exit nearby, skiing downhill without the snow, until we got to the flat bridlepath below that took us back to the car. Muddy and wet, it was a classic English hike, so we decided to top it off with a trip to a pub to relax and dry off.








One thing that really strikes you as you drive through the Lake District are the stone buildings. Sure, there are lots of stone buildings in England, but their character changes as the geology around them changes. The ones in the Lake District use what was at hand (mostly slate) and can be quite dramatic.




The temperature dropped the next day so we decided to go sight seeing instead of hiking and headed north to Carlisle Castle and Scotland which I'll talk about in another post. Up there we saw rain and hail in quickly passing showers with huge cumulus clouds and bright sun in between. On the way back, we decided to take the scenic route past Ullswater lake and over the Kirkstone Pass.




At the top of the pass, we braved the wind and cold to take in the view and visit the Kirkstone Inn Pub. One of the oldest buildings in the area, it's a great cozy old pub complete with two fireplaces and ghost stories.








While we were inside, it started to snow. We weren't worried about it, it wasn't sticking, and the ground isn't frozen so we decided to eat dinner. That changed after dinner and we went outside into a mini winter wonderland with driving snow quickly accumulating on the hills. Between the tight, twisty roads lined with jagged rock walls and the ghost story about a woman who froze to death up there after getting caught in an unexpected storm, we were glad to be going downhill. The roads were fine and it wasn't long before we were at a low enough elevation that the snow wasn't sticking.


On Sunday, Patrick and I drove home among frosted hilltops and spotty flurries. Despite the weather, the scenery was beautiful and we got to see some really interesting things.

* All photos courtesy of my Aunt Pat's camera.