Lake District

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Pleasant drive from north Wales to Keswick, which is in the "Lakes" (and yes it rained). English make a big deal of the lakes and "mountains" (highest is 3200 feet), but gosh the green grass filled with sheep driving north was quite a treat. If you or I saw the intensity of green our comment is "photoshopped"; nope it's actually that color. Yes Doozer, sheep abound, even more abundant than the Cotswolds, but these poor folks have tasty meat, not reared for wool, but their muscles. Bit sad isn't it to kill these pleasant creatures for our palate.

Keswick is central to the lakes on the shore of the largest (Derwentwater). Much of the town is constructed of slate that has a greenish hue, quite pretty. However, no one would describe the weather pretty on 28 June; it rained and blew all day. We were to go to a Roman bath house but, upon discovering it to be a ten minute walk from the parking lot, we elected to forgo the pleasure of looking like the wet rats we saw returning. Rather we returned to our room and cursed the English weather. Next day was much better, yet it rained some essentially every hour but there were breaks, even blue. All in all a pleasant day riding around the lake and mountains. We even took a cruise on the lake. Off from the lakes tomorrow for Durham and its famous cathedral with a stop at Hadrian's Wall. Visited the place during time in Scotland a few years ago, but now a different location with a museum.

Bird concluded we should not allow rest and hammer you folks with another blog. Yet you have a bit of a reprieve as only seven pictures.

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Photos

House across from our B&B
Mentioned the slate. Here is an example.

English Breakfast
Thought you may be interested in viewing an English breakfast. Well, this is it. Consists of mushrooms, baked half of tomato, hash browns, beans (yes they are the spitting image of pork and beans without the pork), egg, sausage and two rashers of bacon. English bacon is markedly leaner than our variety. I have had this breakfast on two other occasions; this is the best, and I took it all three mornings here.

Little Waterfall
The road today was one lane with turnouts. Whenever a car approached from the opposite direction a game of chicken ensued until one found a spot to turnout.

Sheep
Sheep were plentiful, some quite attractive, such as this fella. They had free roam for many miles. We crossed a cattle grid drove quite a number of miles prior to crossing another.

Castlerigg Stone Circle
Another stone circle near Keswick. There remain 1,300 of these in the UK and Ireland. This one is 5,000 years old.

Lake Derwentwater
Taken during our trip about the lake.

Lake District
Also captured during our time playing chicken. While these mountains are not high, they certainly have steep and rocky terrain as well as an intense green.