Waterside House – What a site!

Waterside House – What a site!

The weathermen were promising a heat wave in mid-September, so it seemed crazy not to take advantage, with an impromptu trip, but where to go?

We’d been talking about fitting a trip to the Lakes for quite a while, so why not kill two birds with one stone and do a recce of the site we’re planning to use for the Brazilian Vw Bay Northern Chapter Meet in June 2017?

We left home on Tuesday morning, once Boris had had his haircut, and stopped at Tebay Services on the M6 for lunch. If you’ve never stopped at Tebay, thinking it was just another set of motorway services, then think again. The food is brilliant, the facilities superb and the views are spectacular.

Tebay Services

We were at the site by 1.30pm and set about erecting the new Glawning for the second time. We’d bought a large groundsheet from Go Outdoors to put under it, in the hope that we could keep it cleaner than the old one. As it turned out we haven’t quite cracked it yet, mainly because a mixture of heavy overnight rain on Tuesday and a sloping site led to some water getting under the sewn-in groundsheet.

We walked into Pooley Bridge along the Ullswater shore – it’s about 1.3 miles of fantastic scenery and views – and had a couple of beers in the Pooley Bridge Inn.

Walking back later produced some lovely photos, two very chilled humans and one contented Schnauzer.

On Wednesday we walked back into Pooley Bridge to catch the Ullswater Steamer to Howtown. The early morning boats had been cancelled due to mist on the lake, but they were up and sailing again by 12.40.

We planned to walk the 6 miles from Howtown to Glenridding – one of the most scenic walks in the Lakes, but quite tough in places. The weather was great and there were stunning views around every bend.

We got to Glenridding in time to have a bottle of Lakes Ale at the Steamer Pier before boarding and sailing back to Pooley Bridge, where we had food and a beer in The Sun.

As always, the Glawning and stove attracted many admiring comments and allowed us to chill in the cool of the evening whilst watching the world go by.

The campsite is on a working farm and the Lowis family were busy with their sheep over the few days we were there.

Thursday was a day to chill in the morning, then  walk back to Pooley Bridge to catch the bus to Glenridding. The valley and area in general really suffered in December 2015 when Storm Desmond brought severe flooding and cut off the village for quite a while until a temporary bridge could be constructed.

We caught the bus back and once again the Lake gave us the opportunity to take more great photos.

We packed up the Glawning on Thursday evening, heeding the weather forecast promising rain overnight. We were glad we did because we could then take our time to leave on Friday.

We’d had a brilliant few days in one of my favourite places – the season’s crawling to an end and we need to take advantage when we can, before the dark days of winter arrive.

THINGS WE’VE LEARNED:

An Indian Summer deserves a trip away
The South Lakes brings visitors with Manchester and Liverpool accents but the North of the region is dominated Teessiders and Geordies (yerjokinaren’tya?)
If a walk says it’s 6 miles, it may turn out to be 11, by the time you’ve to and from the Ferry
The Glawning and stove have got to be one the top 3 purchases for Absinthe
A fellow camper has convinced me that I need a roof tent for the Defender…

There’s a full set of photos here: FLICKR