Friday, August 7

Oban and The Lakes.



Deer in Glen Etive.
20 th - 27th July.

We set off for almost three weeks on the road, Oban then down to the Lake District, across to Teesside seeing family and friends then down to the Peak district. We started off with a satnav adventure where the Garmin took us down Glen Etive only to find the forrest "track" she intended taking us down was closed, the upside being we saw a Golden eagle and the scene above.
Oban is a quaint little port, fairly busy with tourists even though it rained most of the time, so much so the windscreen wipers packed up, but were sorted by a very helpful garage even when they were snowed under at the time. A few geocaches in town and a visit to a waterfall, An Rhuadh Darach which was only discovered recently.

Off then to the Lake District and Keswick, We have both visited the "Lakes" a few times in the past and did try to go at Easter but left it to late, being all booked up. It is a very busy place and the poor weather (still raining) didn't seem to put the crowds off. Thats the problem with the lakes, too crowded and I think the landscape of Scotland has really spoilt me for this area, pretty as it is.

Castlerigg stone circle.

We visited Castlerigg stone circle, The Bowder stone in Borrowdale and Ambleside tried to find Kurt Schwitters grave in which I had found 8 years ago but couldn't re-find but that was very much a spur of the moment thing.
We did go out for a few ales in Keswick on the Friday night, it was very nice being in a town with none of the usual Friday night ruckus, however we made it an earlyish evening but it did all seem very civilized.

At the time I wasn't that enamored by our visit to the lakes, it could have been the weather or perhaps that whenever we have visited its always this particular area, next time I will go further south.


Talking about a few ales, as we left to take the short drive across to Teesside, we felt there was plenty of time to take in a walk somewhere along the way, so as it had been in the news recently we wondered if we could find Sleddale hall which had been, Withnail's uncle Monty's country cottage in the cult classic "Withnail & I". We found it and found it worthy of a cache placement.

One thing I learnt this trip, you don't get your money back if it rains whilst camping in the Lakes.


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