The Lakes District was spectacular! We decided to do a drive that was recommended in our travel book that we got from Chris and Lissa (thanks guys!) that proved to be fantastic, even in the overcast weather.
We drove through some tiny towns on our way to a town called Keswich. We drove up Kirkstone Pass which was just a single lane road with pull-ins should you encounter oncoming traffic (or sheep on the road!). It was quite overcast when we drove up and we never got above 3rd gear, but when we got to the top there was a tiny pub where we had cream tea and soup to warm us up - it was freezing! You couldn't see much from the top, but the views as we were driving were so different to what we've seen so far. Think Braveheart meets Wuthering Heights - overcast, cold, dreary, foggy, yet magnificent moors and dramatic valleys and grassy hills covered in long-haired sheep, well we think they're sheep, could have been goats...
We drove through some tiny towns on our way to a town called Keswich. We drove up Kirkstone Pass which was just a single lane road with pull-ins should you encounter oncoming traffic (or sheep on the road!). It was quite overcast when we drove up and we never got above 3rd gear, but when we got to the top there was a tiny pub where we had cream tea and soup to warm us up - it was freezing! You couldn't see much from the top, but the views as we were driving were so different to what we've seen so far. Think Braveheart meets Wuthering Heights - overcast, cold, dreary, foggy, yet magnificent moors and dramatic valleys and grassy hills covered in long-haired sheep, well we think they're sheep, could have been goats...
We also saw some lovely lakes, as you would expect, and when the clouds parted and the sun came through they looked almost inviting. But we knew better! And at one point we wondered if we were doing our tour of the lakes district all wrong because there were a lot of hikers about. But then we looked at our dashboard to see that it was a chilly 7 degrees out, and realised that *we* were the ones doing it right!
We also did a drive on our second day that was described as 'trying' in our travel book - and that put it quite mild. Driving on the side of a steep mountain on a single lane road with an oncoming four wheel drive and no pull-in pretty much freaked me out. But we pushed through, mostly in first gear, to finally reach the top and again the views were spectacular and we could see them clearly with no fog!
We experienced village life when we decided to try and watch a football match - walked into the pub and it turned out it was the only pub that showed the game. The locals obviously knew this and had arrived quite early to claim seats...absolutely no space for visitors! We laughed about it later over our cheap curry and red wine.
From Keswich and the Lakes District we drove south-east to York.
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