Sandwiched in between two weeks away with work at Sellafield in October was a little gem of a camping weekend in Pooley Bridge.  Our campsite was one that we’ve stayed at before – Hillcroft Park which is just on the out skirts of the village.  The pitches are huge and the facilities are superb.  This time we also made very good use of the laundry facilities – particularly the drying room!

Paul and Stella travelled up on Wednesday night to meet me and we started our little mini break properly on Thursday with a trip to Keswick.  We walked by Derwent Water and wandered around the market and the shops.  Stella enjoyed a little dip in the lake and Paul secured some of his favourite breakfast pies from Thomasons Butchers and Deli.  We also found the statue of Max in Hope Park and Stella obliged with a picture. It was busier than we’d expected I guess on account of not as many people leaving Great Britain for their holidays because of the pandemic.

On Friday the weather was perfect for the walk we had planned.  We started out in Hartsop and the circular route included High Street, the Beacon, the Knott and a stop on the banks of Angle Tarn for our lunch.  When we got back to the campsite we were really pleased to discover that a pizza wagon called the Saucy Sausage visited the campsite on the weekend and I was first in the queue on Friday night to order and collect our tasty stone baked pizza and garlic bread.

On Saturday unfortunately the weather changed when we walked up the Dodds resulting in us getting very wet… we also didn’t see very much on account of the low clouds.  Although we did get a glimpse of Ullswater on the way out.

On Sunday we decided on a little trip to Penrith for some shopping and a look around the market town then we had a lovely pub lunch at the Queens Head Inn on the way back to the campsite.

Our last walk of the break was in the valley of Martingale – that is quite a place to get to. The valley is remote with a population of about 50 people. The upper part of Martindale is a deer reserve.  We had a few showers (and associated rainbows) but mostly we had some really nice views and saw (and heard) red deer around and about in the valley.  We walked up Beda Fell and Patterdale Common and came upon Angle Tarn for the second time that weekend.

Although we got rather wet I have never seen so many rainbows in one weekend – and it is always good to be out and about in Frank!