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Published: August 30th 2011
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With the weekend came another top-notch fried breakfast, and although the ladies were gradually reducing their portion sizes, I didn’t want to offend Pauline so I ordered the full breakfast and cleared my plate once more. Today we were being joined by Chris and Vicky, and while I knew Vicky would be happy to join in a countryside trek, our experience of Snowdon meant that I would definitely avoid anything that involved steep hills. Pauline’s suggestion was a flat route around to the stone circle, which wasn’t any more than a few miles away from The Craglands, although a walk into Keswick and back first would add another few miles to the route.
The morning was spent in and around the town, milling around the market and into the pub for a couple while Chris and Vicky drove up and checked in to their hotel. Despite the size of breakfast, John could no longer resist the alluring smell of the chip shop and treated himself to fish and chips while the rest of us checked out the slate house numbers on offer at the opposing market stall. With everyone ready and fuelled up, I took them up the old railway
path ready for our trek to the stone circle. Almost immediately, the rain began to fall. As we passed the junction on the path that led to The Craglands, John gave a pleading look that told me he needed a good lie down after his breakfast and fish and chips combo, and Faith looked exhausted, so we parted ways for a while to give them a break.
The railway path carried on through woodland, under the bridge for the main dual carriageway at this end of the Lake District, and weaved in and out of the twisting river before we turned off across a soggy field. The walk carried on back under the dual carriageway, through a sopping muddy undercarriage which made a mockery of Vicky’s not-very-practical-for-hiking shoes. Luckily Chris came to the rescue and carried her through the mud and eventually we met up with some country roads which were by no means drier in the now pouring rain, but at least they weren’t so muddy. As the road took a turn uphill, Lyndsey started to find that what was becoming a good six mile hike in persistent bad weather, following the rock climbing and rowing of the
previous day, was starting to take its toll. By the time we reached the stone circle, nobody was really interested in it, possibly due to aching limbs and being soaked through, but also probably because it was no Stonehenge. That said, it is impressive that, whatever the reason, the ancients pulled some chunky, chest high lumps of rock to the top of a small hill, even if the size was nothing compared to Wiltshire’s world famous equivalent.
We found that The Craglands wasn’t far at all from the stone circle if we stuck to the roads, and in less than half an hour we were drying out and making hot chocolate, readying ourselves for another night in town. We were planning to show Chris the monster pie, but Saturday night gave way to a fully booked George Hotel, so rather than cram around a small table that would have struggled to hold two cow pies, let alone six meals, we headed out for a Mexican instead, complete with complementary tequila and long out of date local ales, which I drank anyway. The rest of the night featured more pubs of Keswick, including a return to The Oddfellows, where the
farmyard-phallicist was once more plying his trade, though he thankfully stuck to covers of recognised songs this time.
The next morning was once again spent lazing over a huge breakfast and chatting to Pauline, before heading into town for a final few hours with Chris and Vicky. After walking round the lake and discounting a game of golf on the grounds that everywhere still looked a bit soggy and the walking boots were safely packed away, we once more debated our next move over a drink in The King’s Arms. With not a great deal of time before we needed to be on the road, we could have probably fitted the pencil museum in, but nobody was really in the mood to see the world’s largest crayon, so we hit the souvenir shops and grabbed ourselves an ice cream instead.
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