Wednesday 24 July 2013 Whitley Bay. St Mary's Lighthouse.

We had some more light rain overnight which had stopped by the time we got up and the day was starting out quite warm.

As it appeared it was going to be a clear day, we went with Davina & Roy to visit St Mary's lighthouse on the tiny St Mary's Island just off the coast.

The lighthouse is on a small island at the north of Whitley Bay and  is linked to the coast by a short path, submerged during the high tide. Built in 1898, it remained operational up to 1984. Since then it has been operated as a visitor centre.

St Mary’s Lighthouse also has a small museum and café. The museum showcases the history of the site and also features information about the wildlife outside. The environment around the lighthouse provides a rich variety of marine life and resident or migrating birds. We saw a pair of Gannets flying by plus terns, kittiwakes, redshanks, cormorants, herons and starlings out on the rocks.

Roy and Mick couldn't get any volunteers to climb the 137 steps to the top of the lighthouse so they went up by themselves to admire a majestic panorama going from the North Yorkshire coast to the Cheviot Hills leaving the lazy ladies to chat below.  Unfortunately the view was spoiled somewhat by the sea mist which had worsened since we had arrived.

When Roy and Mick came down we had a coffee at a nearby restaurant and then walked along the sea front where Bristol TV was laying out lights and cables for a TV production of show called Vera starring Brenda Blethyn.

We then did a tour of the area before returning home.

Before dinner we spent some time searching for and booking a cottage for a week in Crieff, Perthshire, Scotland as our starting point for our Scottish adventure on August.3rd.

 View of the causeway from the top of St Mary's lighthouse. All of the rocks and causeway are covered with water at high tide.

 See the lighthouse?

 St Mary's lighthouse. At high tide these rocks are all covered

 Made us puff a bit

 Lyn and Davina

 Roy Mick and Davina. The children in the background were having fun searching for hermit crabs

See, Mick knows how to help with the washing up. And he didn't break anything.

Tuesday 23 July 2013. Whitley Bay. North Shields, Tynemouth

Today after a night's sleep broken by very loud thunderstorms which Lyn didn't hear, we were given a guided tour of the area around Whitley Bay with very professional commentary by our hosts, Davina and Roy.

We first visited Fish Quay in North Shields north of the river Tyne, where there were a few fishing boats and many fish shops selling freshly caught fish. We bought some fresh cod for tea. Apparently the number of boats has declined significantly over the past few years due to the government here reducing quotas thereby making fishing uneconomical.

We visited the Tynemouth Castle and the Priory which is located on a rocky headland, known as Pen Bal Crag, overlooking Tynemouth Pier. The moated castle-towers, gatehouse and keep are combined with the ruins of the Benedictine Priory where early kings of Northumbria  were buried. The coat of arms of the town of Tynemouth still includes three crowns commemorating the tradition that the Priory had been the burial place for three kings.

After a short walk we visited the imposing Collingwood monument which overlooks Tynemouth. Vice Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, 1st Baron Collingwood  was an admiral of the Royal Navy, notable as a partner with Lord Nelson in several of the British victories of the Napoleonic wars and frequently as Nelson's successor in commands. He was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne on 26 September 1748 and died on 7 March 1810.

The sea gulls certainly enjoy sitting on his head!

We then walked out on one of the piers so we were able to look back at the headland where many kittiwakes were nesting on the rock face.

Whilst we were there it started to rain so we to made our way back to the car.

As the expected rain did not eventuate, we then went to visit a statue of Arthur Stanley Jefferson in Dockway Square which was nearby. Stan Laurel, as he was more commonly known, was part of the comedy duo of Laurel and Hardy and was born in Ulverston, Cumbria. Apparently he spent a few years living and going to school in North Shields. Hence the statue.

We then went on to visit the Royal Quays Marina where, apart from the boats, there was a nesting colony of terns. They had decided a stoney area in the middle of the marina was a perfect place for them to set up home.

After taking some pics we went to a brand depot shopping centre so the girls could get some retail therapy whilst Roy and Mick went to look at the Land Rover bike shop! Never heard of Land Rover bikes? Neither had Mick.

Next it was off home to a lovely meal of cod cooked by Davina and for Lyn to catch up on the royal birth.

Unused historic watch house.

 Roy, Lyn and Davina with the Priory and new watch house in the background.

 The Priory and graveyard

 Tynemouth pier

 Nesting Kittiwakes

 Tyne River ferry

Roy and Lyn on the pier

 Butterfly on a thistle

 Male Greenfinch in Davina and Roy's garden

 Eurasian Rock Pipit

View of Tynemouth

Stan Laurel (on the plinth!) and Mick.

Monday 22 July 2013. Windermere to Whitley Bay, near Newcastle-upon-Tyne

We spent a quiet day at home yesterday enjoying the tranquility of our Lake District cottage after a hectic week.
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Today Lyn woke early so we could clean up the cottage and pack for our trip to visit Mick’s cousin Davina and her husband, Roy in Whitley Bay just north of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

We hit the road about 8.50am and after dropping off the keys to the agents we were soon heading up the M6 towards Carlisle.

We left the M6 at junction 43 and then headed east on the A69 stopping for a coffee in a nice layby which unusually had a WC. WC is the term used on the signs here for toilets which commonly charge 20p to get in. This is pretty well unheard of in Australia. Imagine having to pay 32 cents for a pee. And what if you don’t have any change?

After coffee and free use of the “WC”, we continued down the A69 until we saw a sign for Hadrian’s Wall.

Hadrian’s Wall was a 115 kilometre long defensive fortification built in Roman times. It was begun in AD 122, during the rule of the Roman Emperor Hadrian. It was built to keep out the Barbarians.

The A69 and B6318 roads follow the course of the wall from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to Carlisle, then along the northern coast of Cumbria (south shore of the Solway Firth).

It is a common misconception that Hadrian's Wall marks the boundary between England and Scotland. This is not the case; Hadrian's Wall lies entirely within England, and south of the Scottish border.

We decided to stop and visit one of the many forts which were built along the wall. This one was Birdoswald Fort although there was very little of it left.

As is often the case with such tourist attractions, there were things for the kids to do and at this fort kids could dress up as Roman Soldiers and play act various scenes of events in battle. There was a very realistic Roman Officer drilling two kids and their father.

After a visit to the gift shop, we took some photos and continued our journey to Whitley Bay, stopping on the way to fill up with diesel using our 5p per litre Tesco discount voucher. The price of diesel fuel here has just risen 4p per litre to 140.9p ($2.27).

 

 Female Chaffinch

 Male Chaffinch

Saturday 20 July 2013. Lake District. Grasmere, Coniston Water, Ulverston, Cumbria Crystal.

A cooler cloudy day forecast for today with a max of 25c which was probably about right.

We counted 20 small sailing boats on the part of  Lake Windermere that we could see from our cottage and Mick said that if we extrapolated that figure with the usual 1 boat during the week and applied it to weekend road traffic that would equal 20 times more cars on the road.

Today,  we decided to attempt a circular drive around Coniston Water and Lake Windermere.

We headed north on the A591 and decided first to visit Grasmere, a small village which is reached by driving through Ambleside and Rydal.

Grasmere is a lovely village with a small river running through the town centre. The poet William Wordsworth lived in Grasmere for 14 years and described it as "the loveliest spot that man hath ever found". The main road passes over the river on an ancient stone bridge (don’t they all?) and we arrived to find lots of people sitting outside cafes and restaurants eating and drinking and others looking through the items in the tourist shops.

St Oswald's, the Grasmere local church, also had many stalls in the church yard selling lots of home made foods and craftwork.

Lyn bought herself a couple of items in a shop that offered free jelly babies to the customers as they walked around. The shop assistant had to have two attempts to get her old machine to accept our travel card which means we will now have 2 transactions on our card, one of which will spend 4 or 5 working days on our transaction list before it is marked as a refund. It has happened previously.

After Grasmere we drove back down the A591 and joined the A593 towards Coniston which turned out to be yet another pleasant town full of people enjoying the warm weather..

Mick wanted to take the non-descript road down the eastern side of Coniston Water which runs very close to the water but within a few hundred metres of taking it, we had to reverse back quite a way to a passing point to let other traffic pass on the single lane road.

Lyn said she did want to go that way as it was too stressful so her dutiful husband, Mick, capitulated and returned to the A593 which at least almost fitted 2 cars side by side. This road travelled on the western side of Coniston Water but at times had some quite good water views.

If you think Coniston Water sounds familiar it is probably because it is the body of water on which Donald Campbell was killed on 4 January 1967 when attempting to set a new world water speed record with his boat called The Bluebird.

Donald followed in his father, Malcolm’s, footsteps as a British speed record breaker and he broke eight world speed records on water and on land in the 1950s and 1960s. He remains the only person to set both world land and water speed records (1964).

After the crash, despite extensive efforts by a team of Royal Navy divers, although Bluebird's wreckage was located on the 5th of January, on the lake bed, Donald Campbell's body was not located until 34 years later in 2001. Sad really.

After passing the most southerly part of Coniston Water Lyn’s eyes lit up when she saw a sign for Ulverston where the Cumbrian glass works we visited the previous Monday is located.

She had been stewing over missing out on buying a lead crystal swan of the type which we saw being made on our previous visit because whilst she had been discussing buying the last one on display with Mick, another woman had grabbed it.

Mick said as it was only 8 miles down the road we could go and see if any of the ones we saw being made were ready for sale. Much to Lyn’s delight they were and she exited the Showroom with a big grin clutching her new purchase.

With Mick reflecting on the true saying “A happy wife is a happy life….” we went into the huge Booths garden centre for a snack of scones with clotted cheese and strawberry jam plus two Café Lattes.

We then joined the Sunday drivers on Saturday and headed back home.

The view of Lake Windermere from our cottage 

 St Oswald's, Grasmere 

 Coniston Water

Nice hotel in Coniston

Lyn's lead crystal swan, finally. Now to get it home in one piece! (We did!)

Tuesday 16 July to Friday 19 July 2013 The Lake District. 5 days in one post due to lack of Internet coverage.

Tuesday 16 July 2013. Calgarth Cottage, Windermere in the Lake District. Visit to Cumbria Crystal, Ulverston & Barrow-in-Furness.

After a great nights sleep we awoke to a sunny morning. Well Mick awoke to a lovely mist on the lake but Lyn didn’t quite catch it.

Lyn wanted to go to the Cumbria Crystal in Ulverstone where fine lead crystal items are made and we were able to watch them making it for free which makes a change.

We headed south on the very winding narrow road and after traveling for about 20 minutes Lyn noticed a car at the side of the road which appeared to be on fire. Mick did a quick u-turn to see if we could help.

It turned out that what appeared to be smoke coming from inside the car was in fact the powder that they put inside airbags both of which had deployed as the lady driver had decided to stop on the verge. In doing so she had run over a large steel drain with a concrete surround which was a little higher than the underside of the car and the car had stopped abruptly, triggering the airbags.

Some posh bloke came out of his country house and thinking that we had been driving said that it was illegal to park on the verge. Dickhead. The two women in the car had no idea what had occurred until we pushed the car back off the drain cover to reveal that the car had pushed the cover and the concrete surround about 15cm off centre.

Mick thought that since both airbags had deployed the damage to the cars underside would have been considerable. One of the ladies was complaining of a sore knee which had hit the dashboard.

We offered to take them to Windermere but the lady driver said that she would call her partner to come and help so we made our exit.

Anyway on with the trip. After no more events we arrived at Ulverston to find the small factory was being redeveloped and they were building a brand new showroom next door.

We made our way inside and from behind a small barrier we got a very good view of the manufacturing process from creating the items to grinding the patterns on the glass. We didn’t realize that the whole process was done by hand.

It was quite hot inside the factory with the furnaces roaring away and we had a good chat with one of the glass blowers who was making whisky/sherry/port decanters. Another guy was making small swans. The lead crystal was very expensive. Lyn managed to come away empty handed as she really didn’t  have any need for such exquisite items. They tend to get broken in the van.

The showroom contained all manner of creations, completely designed and created there and there were many seconds for sale at very good prices as their quality control process is very strict.

After our visit we decided to go and have a look at the city of Barrow-in-Furness further south. Here we found a 3g O2 service so Mick got the laptop out and published the previous day’s blog.

Moored at the wharf at the harbour was a very large ship which had been turned into a restaurant.

We then returned to Windermere via the coast road from Barrow which gave us a great view of the coastal area. The tide was out and the there was plenty of sand for sunbathers (there were none) but swimming and paddling in the sea required a considerable walk (we spotted 2 people in the distance).

Across the sea we thought we could see Heysham. That is where our ferry leaves from when we go for our week in the Isle of Man.

A very nice day and the weather was perfect.

 Lyn at our cottage on Lake Windermere

 Michelle came to visit. On the lawn outside our cottage. Poor Canon 450D photo though

 Making a swan

 

 Ulverston's most visible landmark is Hoad Monument, a concrete structure built in 1850 to commemorate statesman and local resident Sir John Barrow. We thought it was a lighthouse.

 Restaurant ship

Plenty of sand but a long walk to the sea. A hot day and no people. Can you see the Mum and tot paddling?

Wednesday 17 July 2013. Windermere. The Queen, Honister Pass.

Today  was yet another beautiful day with some high cloud early.

A neighbour walking up the lane told us that the Queen would be on Lake Windermere today sailing past our jetty on a cruiser on the way to Kendal. Since we had no idea what time and we didn’t have the Internet to be able to find out, we decided to continue with our plans to go to Keswick to follow a circular route up and down the Honister Pass and then the Whinlatter Pass.

Just as we were leaving the Queen’s cruiser came past and Mick got a couple of pictures. Unfortunately her boat was on the other side of the lake so she was about a kilometre away so we couldn’t make her out in the pictures. But Mick “Did but see her passing by…….”

We then went on our way towards Keswick and once there we took the B5289 past Derwent Water down Borrowdale to the Honister Pass.

The pass has a 1 in 4 (25%) incline at times in the drive to the top. The drive was on narrow, winding bitumen roads as dirt roads are rare in this country.

The scenery was spectacular as we traveled along with huge mountains and deep valleys and there were many ramblers with all their kit tackling some very steep terrain. On one steep climb we saw a female cyclist who was just about done in after attempting to cycle up it. She stopped near the back of our car looking very distressed gasping for air in the 26c+ heat.

At the top of the pass there was a slate mine, a café and shop which sold all manner of slate items. We stopped for a cuppa and Lyn bought a couple of items. We had been thinking of buying our son a very nice slate number for his house but unfortunately he is moving so we didn’t know what number to get!

After a rest we continued around the loop back to Keswick finishing our ascent and then descent down Honister pass to the bottom of the valley.

 A few kilometers further on we reached the next pass called Whinlatter Pass which had about the same level of climb and descent but the road appeared much narrower. We had to pull into several small areas on the left to allow other vehicles coming the other way to pass.

On one hilly, narrow, tree shaded stretch we almost collided with a deer on the road as we rounded a bend but as we were traveling relatively slowly, we were able to slow to avoid it as it leapt over the fence and down a steep bank.

When we reached the bottom we were happy to get back onto some wide smooth roads again and headed home.

 An 'A' road

 See the Queen?

 A dieing cyclist

 

Thursday 18 July 2013. Windermere. Lake cruise to Ambleside.

Since we have been here we have seen several RAF jets flying past at very low altitude over the lake. They have triangular delta wings but since our Internet is rubbish, Mick has been unable to check what type of plane they are. He thinks they might be Tornadoes which were designed and built in a joint project by the Brits, Germans and Italians?  Mick wants to take a photograph of them but by the time we hear them, it’s too late.

With an even hotter day forecast, we decided to go for a cruise on Lake Windermere which is 10 miles (16klms) long, up to 1 mile (1.6klms) wide and up to 220m deep.

The closest Quay is at Bowness-on-Windermere, just a couple of minutes down the road so we drove down there to find the usual busy area around the quays.

It didn’t take long to find a nice parking spot for £4 for a full day and Mick had picked a departure time to coincide with the sailing of one of the larger boats of which there are 3 namely the Swan, the Tern and the Teal which is the boat the Queen travelled on yesterday.

As luck would have it we got the Teal so we got a very regal feeling when we boarded.

The trip cost £10 each, which was for a return trip to Ambleside with a return on any of the boats which operate about every 30 minutes throughout the day until about 6.30pm.

When we disembarked we found a guy with a small electric bus waiting at the wharf offering a ride to town for £2 each for a trip of about 2klms. We thought we would ride in and walk back as it was a very warm day.

After we had spent some time looking around Ambleside, which was a very nice country town, we decided to amble back to the wharf. We estimated the temperature to be close to 30C.

We tried to grab as much shade as we could walking back as despite the fact that we hadn’t had any rain for a while, it did feel a bit on the humid side.

The trip back on the boat cooled us down a bit although there was no wind to speak of except that which the traveling boat generated.

A nice day out on a very warm day and cold showers were the order of the day when we got home. (Yes this is the UK believe it or not!).

The newspapers are full of warnings about the heat with people drowning and dying of dehydration.

 The Priory Windermere. Beautiful circular stone window

 On Lake Windermere

 Was a private dwelling, now a hotel on the shores of the lake. Death duties got them probably.

 This lake is 10 miles long. RAF jets love skimming the surface. There have been complaints in the newspaper

 Joyce and Mick used to stay in YHA hostels when traveling

Friday 19 July 2013. Windermere. Kirkstone Pass to Penrith, Kendal.

The newspaper headlines today screamed “95F and more to come…” in the paper Mick picked up on his walk this morning. (That’s Fahrenheit which they still use here). Whatever, it’s quite warm.

We are thankful that our cottage has a little fridge, up until now none of the places we have stayed have had a fridge.

Today we took the A592 up the Kirkstone Pass, passing Ullswater, one of the several Lake District bodies of water. The scenery across the valley to the mountains was spectacular. At the top of the pass the car’s GPS read 1500ft.

The road followed the edge of the lake for many kilometers. Just lovely.

On the way we stopped to visit the National Trusts Aira Force, which is a heritage listed waterfall which runs a twisting track down a hillside. It was a steep difficult climb and the temperature would have been about 30c. We both gave up before reaching the top but got some nice photos.

Mick, who went a little further, saw the ridiculous spectacle of a father carrying his daughter on his back because she was tired and couldn’t walk any further. The wife and son trudged ahead. The girl would have been about 13 years old.

On the way we stopped at Pooley Bridge, a cute little village where we had an ice cream and looked around the shops.

We ended up at Penrith and after a look around we headed off down the M6 to Kendal, the town the Queen visited during the week.

We then made our way home to finish our day out walking around Windermere. It didn’t take long as it is quite a small town.

 It got a bit warmer than that

 Lots of people dieing of heat stroke and drowning.

 There are probably hundreds of kilometres of these stone walls.You can see them going up the hill at the top of the picture

 Ullswater, Lake District

 29c. We are traveling beside Ullswater lake.

 Father lugging his perfectly able bodied daughter up to the waterfalls - this is no joke, Mick saw and heard it with his own eyes. She said she was too tired to go any further. Mick said he would have left her there.

This was very steep, very rocky and with protruding tree branches and roots. He is an idiot.