Monday 14 March 2016

Long Weekend: Cumbria Visit #2



During our secondment, Kristine's parents have made a spring break tradition of crossing the pond to see their grandchildren.  As we made plans for this visit, Kristine suggested going out of town for a long weekend.  We decided to make one more trip to the Lake District.  The idea was to pick up her parents from the airport in Manchester and keep driving north.  Going in March was supposed to mean that the crowds of visitors would be smaller and we would not have crowded roads to navigate. It almost worked out that way, but not quite.

Our first adventure was handling the car.  We rented a 7 passenger Citroen minivan.  When I made the reservation, I asked about fitting 7 people plus luggage for a weekend trip.  The kind customer service rep suggested making sure that the 3rd row had children in it.  He said he thought we would be okay.  I guess it depends on the definition of okay.  As it turns out, the minivan is a people-carrier.  It is not a people-and-luggage carrier.  It took 5 Collins plus luggage from Derby to Manchester with no troubles.  Then we collected 2 Overleys with carry-on backpacks (not a problem) and a suitcase (a problem).  My blood pressure rose a little bit when I realised that the suitcase wouldn't fit between the back seat and the back door.  Enter creative packing (somehow I've got to tie this into long road trips in Kenya when there was always room for more people and luggage).  We stuffed the suitcase between the second and third rows of seats.  We put Charis and Clare in the back with legs sticking out on either side of the suitcase.  Fortunately both are small enough that this didn't make them uncomfortable.  Fortunately both are also old enough now that they can ride for a couple hours without anyone else to entertain them (such would not have been the case if we did this trip in 2014).  We put one Collins bag plus backpacks in the skimpy volume called "remaining luggage space if you've used all your passenger capacity."  We put the second Collins bag on the lap of Kristine's father (I think on the ride up he was too jet lagged to care, and on the ride back to Derby he was good-natured enough to find it funny).  In the end we made it work.  I asked the customer service fellow when I returned the car if I had any other options for a future holiday.  "You can rent a car that carries people, or you can rent a car that carries luggage.  You can't do both."

I'm sure Elise is gazing out the window in admiration of the van (it's too foggy to see anything else)





Our second adventure was getting from the M6 to our destination outside Broughton-in-Furness.  We pulled off the M6 and encountered a long line of cars in the left lane.  I thought our exit was farther ahead, so pulled into the right lane and went around them.  All of the sudden Kristine said "Shawn, I think that's our exit that you just drove past."  The exit that I just drove past had a good half-mile of parked cars lined up to get to it.  And looking over the bridge at the cars who actually made it to the exit, it looked to have another half-mile of parked cars on the other side.  We pulled over, consulted our atlas, and decided to drive into Windermere and then turn south.  The satnav was very unhappy with us, but after about a half hour of extra driving we were back on track.  We probably would have lost more than a half hour if we'd stayed in the line of parked cars.  Unfortunately, we'd used up our slack of daylight and now it was dark.  This was a problem because our host had said not to trust the SatNav to get us to the house.  Our printed directions beyond Broughton had keywords like "turn on an unmarked road after a couple hundred yards" and "go straight when you reach the crossroads with a sign for Stephenson Ground."  We found the unmarked road successfully.  It was a single-lane road, we were in a large car, and it was after dark.  The driver might have been more than a little apprehensive.  We reached a crossroad and didn't see a sign. We decided to keep driving (not that we had much choice - there was no way to turn around).  Fortunately the next crossroad had the sign we were looking for.  Sure enough, we found the two bridges we were supposed to cross, and from there made our way up the hill to the house (our considerate host made sure the light was turned on since I'd said I wasn't sure we could make it before dark).

The route for our drive north


The route we were supposed to take from the M6 to the cottage


The route we actually took from the M6 to the cottage
See those three people across the road?  That's the road I drove up in the dark.
Our cottage at Stephenson Ground was a find from AirBnb.  We've been fortunate that most of our holiday stays have had accommodation somewhere between adequate and really cool.  Stephenson Ground on the really cool side of the spectrum.  The records for the land go back as far as the 1500s.  The land was a farm for most of its existence.  In the 1970s the owner sold it in three pieces.  Two pieces became separate farms, and the third piece became Stephenson Ground (still owned by the family of the folks who bought it then).  The cottage had capacity to sleep 15, so it had plenty of space for the 7 of us.  It also had lots of character - books about the Lake District and by local authors, bedrooms outfitted with vintage frames, furniture and decorations that reflected the age of the cottage and its former life on a farm.  After a couple days exploring, Clare summed it up by saying "Daddy, this is an awesome cottage, because it has bunk beds, hiding places, and a secret passage (referring to a very small back stairway from our bedroom to the ground floor)!"  Everyone except the driver was in remarkably good spirits when we arrived Friday night.  Their enthusiasm about the cottage once they got in and started looking around did much to soothe the driver's nerves.

Viewing the front of the cottage from the road


These two stone buildings aren't actively used anymore


When two people staying at the cottage are Kristine and her Dad, this is not a good sight


Part of the cottage's character came from all the farm tools in display



Everybody else thought this was funny


Shawn and Kristine's room


With secret passage (back staircase)


Elise's room


Charis and Clare's room under normal

and abnormal (e.g., daughters have been creative) conditions


Holiday tradition continued - English breakfast enjoyed


Grandparents are for playing card games with - and climbing on






The girls got their first introduction to ping-pong



And foozball

The Lake District has lots of activities for visitors to take advantage of.  We took advantage of none of them.  The cottage and the area around it were too much fun, and kept us happily occupied for our 2 1/2 days.  Both days involved combinations of time in the cottage and hikes on local trails.  On Saturday the hikes had excellent views of the best of the Lake District's low-lying fog.  At one point I think the visibility from the cottage wasn't more than a couple hundred yards.  On Sunday and Monday the fog lifted and we enjoyed beauty of the surrounding fell.

Saturday - Hiking with the Fog



Interesting feature in stone wall - the arch


Interesting feature in stone wall - large stones that made me wonder how they got moved




We never saw the ram we were supposed to beware of


We thought a foggy day meant staying close to home.  The cyclists who came by the cottage evidently didn't agree.


Afternoon hike up the trail the cyclists took earlier


I mentioned fog?


Hero shot of Kristine's Dad

Sunday - Hiking when it was clear





Making friends with sheep (who really only wanted food)



Elise hero shot



Daughterly affection


Daughterly embarrassment


Shared humo(u)r




Kristine and Elise hero shot


It took some work to find a way up the side of the mountain
Shawn hero shot


Looking back over the fell toward our cottage
Monday - One final hike
The girls might have thought this bonfire was one of the best things about the cottage

We spent most of this hike at a couple ruins of stone houses


Unique to this ruin is its two levels of windows


The most ruined of the ruined houses that we could explore

We had to cross a stream to reach the house


Not everyone stayed dry on the crossing


Charis's stance indicates desire to walk in the stream.  My stance indicates disapproval.



Our drive back to Melbourne Monday afternoon was uneventful.  Except for getting all the way from the cottage to the end of the unmarked road.  The particular adventure involved our large minivan, a single lane road, us driving up the hill, and another car driving down the hill toward us.  There was a small area to the left that I thought maybe I could pull over into.  Front left tire went into it and spun in mud.  I decided that was a bad idea, so pulled the car back onto the road and sat.  I was hoping the other car would do something clever like back up or pull into an area that would let me pass.  They didn't.  They just sat there in my way.  Finally I gave up, took a couple of deep breaths, and put the gearshift into reverse.  Rock wall on the left.  Cliff dropping off on the right (well, maybe not a cliff, but a decently steep slope).  A road that was only partially paved, with a narrow bridge at the bottom.  We made it the couple hundred yards backwards down the hill, across the bridge, and into the small parking lot at the trail head.  The oncoming car pulled into the trailhead (evidently they wanted to go on the hike that we'd just finished) with a polite wave to us as they went past.  My silent prayer for no more oncoming cars was answered.  We made it back to the main road without hassle.  I wish we'd captured the experience on film.  

Charis and I found a Marmite puzzle in the Derby market.  The girls eagerly waited for their grandfather's arrival so they could work on it.


The completed puzzle if you do it on the easy side


Kristine's love of puzzles proved stronger than her hatred of Marmite


The completed puzzle if you do it on the complicated side