Cumbria

We woke up to another Saturday almost identical to John Owen’s description last Saturday - ‘a cracker of a day’.
The sun was shining, the skies were blue and the temperature a little warmer.

We left Ingelton enroute for the Lake District and as always we didn’t take the most direct route. We headed firstly to Windermere. The place was absolutely packed with people.
Nevertheless, we enjoyed some morning tea by the lake and marvelled at the sheer number of people and the sheer number of ice-cream outlets. We have noticed this all along our travels - clearly the Brits have a love affair with ice cream beyond anywhere else we have ever seen.

We called into the Tourist Information place as I’m a great believer in gleaning a little local knowledge from these people whenever I can. I asked the gentleman on duty what was the best / most scenic way to get to Keswick which was our final destination.

“Well, normally I’d suggest this route” pointing to some substantially thick lines on the map. “But I know you Aussies don’t mind a bit of a drive so I’d suggest the following . . .”
He then proceeded to highlight some very THIN lines on the map, including hand drawing in some roads that didn’t even feature.

Of course we took his advice and wound our way through the Lake District on these secondary and tertiary roads and enjoyed it very much. Lakes, mountains, streams and quaint villages were around every bend. We eventually made it to Keswick, where again there were hoards of people in the main town. We stopped for a little something to eat, found another Information Office and asked for some further advice on scenic drives around this part of the district.

I told the lady where we had been. She said that was quite nice, but ‘as you Aussies don’t mind a bit of a drive, I’d recommend this route . . . This is next level to what you’ve done so far’
Next level?
‘Yes, especially Honister pass - it’s very steep, narrow and winding - but very scenic’

We thanked her for her advice and newly hand drawn map, but before tackling her ‘next level’ drive we paid a visit to the Derwent Pencil museum in Keswick.

Sounds like a bit of a yawn? Not at all. Apart from reminiscing about the Derwent pencils that were part of our lives doing projects etc all those years ago ( the pictures on the pencil sets are of local scenes here in the Lake District) and being amazed by how much expertise goes into making them, the part that was especially interesting was the role Derwent Pencils played in WW2, inventing then providing Allied pilots with pencils that concealed escape route maps from Germany and a miniature compass all concealed within the hollowed out pencil shaft. The lives of downed pilots were saved by this and other methods, and the fellow who invented the pencil was code named ‘Q’, becoming the inspiration for ‘Q’ in the James Bond movies etc.

Following this, we headed off to drive the ‘next level’ route around the Lake District. She was right - it was very scenic - but it was also everything she had promised - steep, narrow and winding. Lots of pulling over and reversing to allow opposite direction traffic pass was all part of it, then finally we got back to the outskirts of Keswick to find ourselves in a bumper to bumper traffic jam - which could have been avoided except for an unnoticed error on GPS input.
Our accommodation for the night was ‘Derwentwater Hotel’. It had accidentally gone into Waze as ‘Derwentwater Hostel’ which also exists, but is on the opposite side of Keswick. On our way to the ‘Hostel’ we were congratulating ourselves for travelling against the very heavy traffic we could see snaking into town on this single lane, one way in, no escape route road.
When we got to the ‘Hostel’ and realised we had to backtrack to the ‘Hotel’ on the other side of town, the traffic we had been observing so smugly now became ours to be engulfed in.

Despite this tedious conclusion to our exploration, it was ‘a cracker of a day’.Read more