The Derwent dash about.

---

Day 2..

I

After a busy wet and eventful first day in the Lake district and most of the itinerary already done we decided today to headed up to Bassenthwaite Lake, hoping that the flow of the river would be in our favour.

Once we had packed our tent and checked no rubbish was left behind we headed out onto the now calm waters and head north.

Stopping firstly at the Nichol End Marine for a nosey, we ended up being drawn in by the strong aroma of coffee wafting out, so fuelled up with coffee and Croissants plus the use of their facilities for the usual ablutions.

Once we had finished looking round we got back into the kayaks and carried on to the mouth of the northern end of Derwent water and headed up the Derwent river. This stretch of the river was a lovely tree lined slow moving river with overhanging branches keeping us shaded from the sun when it occasionally decided to pop out. The flow of the river was ideal, nice and gentle, and we thought we could paddle to the centre of Keswick quite easily and go for a pie and pint at a pub and paddle back. ‘We should have learnt by now that nothing goes to plan;

It wasn’t long before we heard the rush of fast flowing water and saw speedboat Joe, going up and down the white waters without a care in the world. “Come on”, he shouted you can get through this; Well that changed the plans again but in travelling down the river we noticed another campsite, this unfortunately was a camping and caravan club site, which considering this was supposed to be a wild camping weekend wasn’t really the thing I had planned.

But after an impromptu meeting about the next day’s logistics involving packing up and getting back to the car and setting off early, plus not wanting to camp on the island for a second night we put plan F, into action. We all headed to the shore of the campsite and Joe went to the reception and managed to get us a nice spot to pitch our tents.

All my reservations about the campsite were unfounded and perhaps I liked the fact that there were showers, a toilet block and somewhere to wash your cooking implements, had a little charm.

Once we had set up base Joe and myself headed off the long way round Derwent waters to collect the cars.

The west side off Derwent waters was very tranquil, and far more scenic and less busy than Keswick. Portinscale was a place lost in time, charming and appealing to walk through, unhindered by swarms of zombies with Nordic walking sticks barging past you with ever step you take. The west side was easier to walk along than the east side even though that was mainly in the rain but wasn’t always by the waters edge until later on.

Walking the route back to the car took us through Overside woods and Stub hill and Brandelhow park before dropping down to Brandelhow bay back to the shoreline. We saw the ferry coming in just as we arrived at the launch and thought we could catch the ferry back to the east side but didn’t have any luck as it was travelling further north up the lake. We past the boat house looking out to Otter island in Abbots bay looking out for Otters, then round Myrtle Bay. We headed away from the shore past a couple of cottages situated in the middle of nowhere and back into the woods. The path eventually brought us to the Cumbrian way trail that we had walked along the previous day and headed towards our beloved footbridge.

Once we had arrived at the bridge it looked completely different to the previous day, kids jumping off the bridge into the calm waters, dogs paddling in the slow flow off the river and families picnicking on the banks where only the other day we had been fighting for our lives, where I struggled to get up the river to our first rendezvous with our planned site for wild camping.

The rest of the route back to the car was a gentle stroll unhindered by rain and no need to shelter in the local hotel for a couple of hours waiting for it to pass.

II

Exploring the very touristy town of Keswick, we found to our amazement that the Hussle and bustle of the crowds of people made us feel dizzy after our quiet tranquil time out on the lake and island, so we had to have a few beers to settle our nerves.

This was when Joe came up with a fantastic plan for this story and I had to agree (A study off the local public houses). This I thought was a fantastic idea so once we had said goodbye to Rob who had other plans, we ventured off determined to do some proper full on detailed research. Unfortunately, after about 4 hours of trying different pubs, and finding one fantastic pub that I could remember even in my slightly tipsy state considered the best pub in Keswick, the Dog & Gun. With Live music and a great selection of beers we couldn’t try any other pubs, so we had to sample all the beers and cider the Dog & Gun had to offer, only stopping when the establishment shut and the crowd we had been socialising with asked if we wanted to head for the nightclub. I, being the sensible one, declined due to the fact we had an early start and forgetting about Joe, started to staggered home. Only after ten minutes I heard rushing footsteps heading towards me and Joe came running up to me at the same time as we were outside a pizza parlour. Which was a fine place to eat since breakfast that day.

---