The Start of Our Walks

Lake Windermere

From now on expect a lot of landscape and nature pictures from us in this blog because this week we did the first of many planned hikes around the area. We decided to start with something easy and close to home, ease into the exercise slowly you might say. But in true Braai’s fashion we managed to get on the wrong trail, wander aimlessly in circles and ended up doing a respectable 9+ miles over the day. But hey all was not lost, the sun was shining, the sky was blue and we saw some amazing scenery.

Check out these links to see where we walked!
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=205543108550811041677.00049fa56d5a89f9840a5

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=205543108550811041677.00049fa58c4e0ab09e1eb

Last week on the second of our days off we had planned a full day of tourist attractions, castles and gardens ect. Only to arrive at the first to discover it doesn’t open until Easter (a whole month away), undeterred we moved on to the second, to find yet again, not open until the 1^st of April (over a week away).
Note to all; read guide books in full before making plans.

So after a coffee, re-evaluation and a bit of quick geo-caching we headed down to Bowness, a small village on Lake Windermere. It’s a popular tourist town with lost of shops, bars and restaurants, it was nice to see it during the day and get our bearings after a particularly messy night out with our new work mates. A quick get to know you drink, yeah right.

But, I digress; this was not the reason for our visit this particular day. This day we were here to visit ‘The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction’, voted Cumbria’s Best Large Attraction. It was great, we saw Peter Rabbit, Benjamin Bunny and all their friends in larger than life displays. It talked about Beatrix’s life and what inspired her to write each story. It ended up a really nice day.

Waking up this morning, the weather was far from nice, so we fell back on one of our rainy day plans. We went to visit the Steamboat Museum in Windermere, it should have been a good day filling activity. We checked the guide book ‘Open all year round’, we checked the internet for directions ‘done’. We arrived at the car park a little after noon to find a sign “CLOSED for Refurbishment”. Yep, that right. We figure there are some things that even guide a book can’t tell you.

In this case ‘Get a pizza, go home and drink a large glass of wine!’

Welcome Back from the Dark Ages !

At last we find the internet and can continue with our long awaited third blog.
We now know what it must of been like to live at the turn of the century, with nothing but a pen and paper to comunicate with. Many a letter or card has been written by us in the last couple of weeks.
We moved into our new house to find no O2 network cover, no internet conection, no landline and the nearest pay phone a short hike down the road. So we've spent the past two weeks trying to sort out our mobiles and are now both contactable again, albeit on different phone numbers. Also found a great deal on a sim for international calls, so anyone with a landline send us your number by email and we can chat. Its amazing what can be found when necessity dictates.

 We spent this week exploring our local area. We ran off to the village of Cartmel, where they hold a food market on the third Friday of each month. We shopped and shopped well. We purchased kilos of cheese for midnight snacks, smoked, spiced and goats, any cheese you can imagine we found. We bought some venison, which will be a first for B1 and are waiting for a good BBQ day to cook it. Any hints or recipes will be appreciated.

 One thing we noticed recently about the UK is the variety and choice you have when you select a wine. In Oz it seems that Australian wine is the way to go, but here we can choose from many countries and varieties. We are still choosing Australian though.
Does that make us Snobby???

The archetechture here is amazing, especially considering how long ago a lot of them were built. Cartmel village dates back to the 1300's, and this is their Priory Church. The priory has gone but the church is still standing and used every sunday.

 Today we had to walk to Newby Bridge to use the internet. A 3+ mile walk, each way. This photo to the left is the view of the village we now live in on the way out of town. It is a little bit bigger than it looks in the picture, but not much. We have a pub and a post office! Its all about the post office!

Today was the first t-shirt day of the season (thats what they call it up here, the season, not summer or spring or anything).
B2 definately made the most of it and tomorrow should be just as good so we're going out and being tourist, gardens, lakes, the works. For now, we better go, its getting dark and we still have the 3 mile walk home, after a couple of pints.

We look forward to updating you in our next blog.

Tomorrows another day!

Happy Birthday

Hi, From the beautiful Lake District.

We moved up here yesterday to start our new job at the Masons Arms. Check it out here! Have a look, its a gorgeous rural pub, literally in the middle of nowhere. Just what we were hoping for.
We were supposed to move into our new house, but because of some plumbing problems we couldnt. So instead our new bosses put us up in a local hotel, including 3 course dinner and cooked breakfast.

This is the view we woke up to this morning!
Great Birthday present for B1.

Lets hope everyday of our summer is as good. Only time will tell...