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Keswick, United Kingdom
54° 35' N 3° 7' W
Oct 15, 2003 17:46
Distance 365km

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Other entries in Keswick

A Jolly Good Jaunt

Text written in: English

Yonder north to England’s largest national park –the lakes district, we headed next. But not before visiting the relatives near Manchester. While I had not seen them for about 20 years, there was a pleasant familiarity when meeting them again. I joined back up with Rob and we hitched our way to his old house, where he had grown up. I think it was a bit of a nostalgic journey for him, seeing his old house, school and even his neighbours, who kindly fed us free food and beer! Further into the park we delved to a small village of Coniston. Standing on the lakeside surrounded by ridgelines of fells (that is what they call mountains over here…see not just a face of handsomely chiselled features am I?), I couldn’t help feeling quite small and insignificant – I felt humbled by it all. The “Old Man” of Coniston (801m) while engulfed in cloud and scores of people, was actually quite an enjoyable walk. The tarns (small mountain lakes/ponds) had these beautiful yet eerie reflections, but it was the old slate quarrying that intrigued me. All around Britain on farms and properties, instead of using the hardy kiwi “number 8 wire” fence, there are these dry-stone walls (“dry” meaning they don’t use any mortar to hold it together). Apart from roofs, slate is frequently used to make all or part of the walls. Now normally excessive human impact on the environment can be a terrible eyesore, but being surrounded by slate perhaps added a sort of jagged character to it.

Hungry for more of the outdoors, we changed our walking to base to Keswick (don’t pronounce the ‘w’) and probably our cheekiest campsite. Right on the edge of Derwent Water, a regular dog walkers haunt and surrounded by “no camping signs” we pitched our tents. It was actually a really nice sociable spot and we were only told of once (so naturally we moved to the left…a little). Our time in Keswick marked an important point in our journey – the end – well I mean in the sense that it was just Rob and I. Rob’s girlfriend Justine joined our team and made the spacious two person tent, a very cosy three. So for three days we sampled the sites: climbing Skiddaw and subjecting ourselves to hurricane-like winds; walked to the scenic Castlerigg Stone Circle; drooled over equipment at the absurd number of outdoor stores; and laughed at the many English shoppers wearing their top-of-the-range gear just to go shopping in.

Leaving the experience behind, the couple and I caught the train south to Bristol, for - you guessed it (well hopefully you did) that great wonder - a long hot shower.