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On Friday my friends, Paul and Allan, and I decided to visit the Lake District for the weekend. We arrived at Shap Hotel, the cheapest accommodation I could book online last-minute, to find that it was situated in a field miles from anywhere. The drives to and from the hotel in the evenings were atmospheric, they had an 'American Werewolf in London' feel to them.
- Hotel Road from Nowhere
- Shap Abbey
On Saturday morning the weather wasn't looking too great, so we decided to jump in the car and go exploring instead. Paul suitably knocked the back of his car reversing into a rock on Hardknock Pass (looks a bit like Scotland in the photo don't you think).
- Hardknock Pass
'Do you fancy visiting Sellafield nuclear power station?' Allan suggested.
'Might as well,' we replied. We were having one of those days where we felt we as though we could cram in just about anything. We arrived at the visitor centre two hours later, 10 minutes after it had closed.
'Great, it's shut!' I exclaimed, looking around for signs of two headed lambs in the neighbouring fields. 'It just dawned on me as we were driving here in the car,' I went on, 'that you are aff your heid if you think visiting a nuclear power station is a good day out. And us two, well we're just as daft for going along with you in the first place.'
Allan was subsequently banned from making any further
where to go next decisions, so thankfully, we never made to the pencil museum in Keswick either.
I didn't take any photos at Sellafield due to security driving past us, the only three standing in the car park, at slow speed.
Next stop was the Cumbrian coast. Didn't bother with the usual sea and seagull photos (and was really annoyed I had forgotten my 'how to make hand shadows' book).
- D.I.S.C.O. Shadow
- Walk Aboot's Shadow
- Me aka Walk Aboot
We stopped off often to e.g. admire the newborn lambs and other such-like signs of Spring.
- The zoom on my camera is rubbish but there are lambs in this field...honest
I'm not sure what Paul was looking at exactly but, erm, you can take the man out of Glasgow but you can't take Glasgow out of...you know the rest.
- Where's the Birds?
Back at Ambleside, at the end of a perfect sunshine afternoon, we mused over the walks we would have enjoyed if we had had the sense to bring our walking boots with us in the car for the weather clearing. 'Shame we didn't manage that one we passed in Coniston.' Paul said, as he leaned over to grab another bit of nan bread to mop up the sauce on his plate in the Indian restaurant.
On Sunday morning we parked the car at Threlkeld and asked a landlady, who was outside her pub sweeping the night before cigarette ends from the pavement, where we might find a shop to buy our packed lunches. 'Keswick, five miles away' she said. We couldn't be bothered getting back into the car. Thus Paul and Allan's hill walking provisions consisted of glass bottles of water and dry roasted peanuts, and I settled for a bottle of
fruit shoot and a
mars bar muffin (well they didn't have any
scampi fries left) that probably had a sell-by date of 2050 or thereabouts. Thankfully Blencathra didn't take as long to hike as we had expected, so I never had to actually taste it.
There were no views at all on the top of Blencathra, and only a teeny wenny bit of snow left, but it was still a really good, enjoyable walk - would definitely recommend it, would go back a few times
- Blencathra Summit
- The Last of the Snow
- View Towards Keswick
- View from Blencathra