Soaking in the Lakes

It has been a while since our last posting mainly due to the poor internet access we have been having. This post documents the journey from the Cotswolds to the Lake District and beyond.

From Hanley Swan we moved a short way further north to Shropshire and spent three nights at a small site called Crossways Farm near Shifnal so that we could visit a friend that lives in Telford. We also spent some time getting re-acquainted with Telford’s places of interest.

Preston seemed like a good place to break our journey to the Lakes and it gave us a chance to visit Blackpool, as neither of us had been there, and climb the tower. The site, Moss Farm, was near Much Hoole and once again it was quite small and very quiet. After the lovely weather at the previous locations we now had almost continual drizzle. This did not deter us from a trip to Blackpool but it did dampen our spirits a little. We paid to go into Blackpool Tower and wandered round looking at the different exhibits, ending up in the circus at around 16:00. We didn’t realise that the show went on for two hours and that we would miss the last trip up the tower. I rushed down to the reception at around 17:15 to discover that we had indeed missed it. I explained what had happened to one of the stewards and he had a word with the manager who endorsed our tickets so that we could return the next day. We went back to see rest of the circus performance which was excellent and well worth the entry fee on its own. Our opinion of Blackpool seafront on the other hand was that it was all rather shabby and in desperate need of a face lift.

The following day we returned to the tower, having a ride on a tram in the process, and took a ride to the top of the tower. We then returned to the camp site and started packing up for the run to the Lake District.

The run up to the Lakes was uneventful and we stopped to take on gas near Kirkby Lonsdale. We found the site near Ulverston, Priory View, without any problem but the road was very narrow and it took nerves of steel to get Harvey down to it. The site was huge but once again it only had pitches for a few vans so we had the place pretty much to ourselves. I was looking forward to re-visiting some of the places that I had been to as a youth, Coniston, Hawkshead, Windermere, etc. and showing them to Tricia. The weather, however, had other ideas as it rained torrentially almost constantly. One night we didn’t get any sleep at all because of the wind and rain lashing the van, we even had to bring in the slide out at 04:30 as its awning was flapping furiously and seemed like it was going to tear itself to pieces. We did manage to get out for about a five mile walk around the vicinity of the site, checking out Canal Foot and Morecambe Bay, picking wild raspberries from the hedgerows en route. The canal is the shortest, widest and deepest in Britain and was built to give ships access to the town of Ulverston.

On another day we took a ride round Lake Windermere and Coniston Water on the Guzzi’s, visiting Hawkshead on the way round. The roads were great, the scenery spectacular and the rain continual.

On a third day we had a trip on the Haversthwaite to Lakeside steam railway followed by a cruise on a Windermere steamer from Lakeside to Bowness. A couple of hours were spent walking around Bowness in the rain before getting the return boat and train to Haversthwaite. We got totally soaked on the short ride back to the camp site. So, in a week, we had managed three forays into the Lakes and now it was time to pack up and move on again.

We were unable to dump our holding tanks at Ulverston so took a detour to the Windermere Camping & Caravanning Club site to use their facilities. This done, we made for the M6 and headed north. We had a lovely sunny run up to Glasgow at which point it started raining again.

We just had an overnight stop in Strathclyde Country Park on the way up to Aberfeldy, which would be our next stop. We were motoring up the A9 when the engine started missing indicating that we had run out of LPG (the gas gauge is totally unreliable). Luckily I could switch to petrol and we continued on but, at 10mpg, didn’t want to be running on petrol for long. Checking the LPG finder we discovered there was gas at a service station a few miles ahead but it was on the other side of the dual carriageway and this entailed going farther until a suitable place to turn round could be found. Having done that at the A822 turn-off we then headed back to the garage and filled up with gas. We then had to travel south for a few miles until we could turn round again and head back to the A822 turn-off.

The decision had been made previously to take the scenic route up to Perthshire, leaving the A9 just before Auchterarder, at Greenloaning, turning onto the A822 and heading for Crieff. We stopped for lunch in the Sma’ Glen and arrived at Aberfeldy mid afternoon.