Blogs from Cumbria, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 42

Coast to Coast Hike (10th-21st April, 2006) Just to give you a bit of background, the coast to coast walk (or C2C - Irish Sea to the North Sea) begins in St. Bees on the west coast of England and finishes in Robin Hood's Bay on the east coast. Covering 192 miles (306km), the walk passes through the Lakes District, the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors. Alfred Wainwright completed the walk in 1972 and published his own route. Although there are maps of the trail there is no set path the entire way. There is scope for variations to be made to the walk and that is the way that Wainwright wanted it to be. He didn't want it to become a really well worn path like other walks in the area. There were ... read more

I got back from the Lake District of Northern England late on Sunday night after a dreadful 7 hour coach ride. We began our trip at 6:45am on Friday the 14th. We left Enfield (Katie, Stephanie, and still drunken me) at 6:45 am. Yes, I was up only because Katie called and got me up. When I left I couldn’t find my keys to my dorm but being still completely pissed I just left without them. We ventured by the overground rail to the underground to Nottinghill gate to get on a coach bus for 7 hours to head to Keswick (Cumbria) where we would be residing at GlaraMara Mountain. The drive to Glaramara was actually quite astounding. The country part of England is very beautiful. The rolling hills, green grass, grazing cattle and sheep, and ... read more

Land of Beatrix Potter and home to William Wordsworth is not usually somewhere that would appeal to us as a holiday destination, but England's Lake District is also known for its magnificent scenery and delicious food ... that sounds more like it! We arrived in Windermere at midday on the Saturday of a bank holiday weekend and set about trying to find somewhere to park our tent. A visit to the tourist office revealed that nearly every one of the at least twenty camping grounds in the area was either booked out or did not allow tents (what sort of campground is that?). Our only hope was a massive campground that apparently did not take bookings but 'never ran out of room as they just open up a new paddock when one gets full'. Sounded a ... read more

There's free internet! Expensive to go online. This is a quick one! Just a quick entry to let all know that I'm a-okay here in the UK. I've only been here for 5 days but have already seen and done lots in the last 5 days. Since todays accomodation has free by donation internet I thought I'd make a quick entry to let all of you "interested" blog readers know that I haven't abandoned you. It's just too darn expensive to go online...typically 5p a minute or that translates to about £3/hour or about $7.50 Cdn/hr! So goes without saying, even though I'll say it, that I won't be online all that much the next while. No worries though since my 30 cent notebook from Coles is coming in really handy and I've been writing out ... read more

Less than a week back and another wedding, this time the groom is Kim's Dad Steve, fresh off a pre-wedding honeymoon in Egypt, taken out of order so that his lovely daughter and her wonderful partner (that's me) could attend. The location was the equally wonderful Armathwaite Hall in the wonderful Lake District, at the north end of Bassenthwaite Lake for afficionados. Hawking (with birds, not wood-carvings) and archery replaced welly-tossing and egg-and-spoon, and as far as I could tell the small band of guests enjoyed themselves tremendously. One interesting fact to emerge in conversation is that Stu, of Travelblog favourite Stu's World Tour is actually Gareth's brother - Gareth being newly handfasted to Sue, a long time Buckley family friend. So we've sat looking in awe at Stu's travels to date thinking our little jaunt ... read more