I just love the architecture of these old buildings. Since we apparently were taking the scenic route I figured I'd take advantage of that and share the views.
We walked and walked and walked and walked. Several times we stopped others coming from the opposite direction to ask if we were on the right road. Some said they had no idea and some said we should be able to get there from here. That gave us warm fuzzies. But we kept walking. And walking. And walking. Eventually the pathway veered off into a field. Good, we thought. We're getting somewhere now. Then it took us through a tunnel that was filled with water and mud. Ugh, we thought - this is not good. There were pieces of wood strategically placed throughout the tunnel for a person to step on to keep from wading in water and mud. At that point we didn't have much of a choice so we kept trucking. I should've taken a picture of that but I was getting a little frustrated by then. Everyone we had talked to said the stone circle was only couple of miles away. We'd been walking for over an hour. We don't walk that slow!! Finally, the path came to a road. Would you believe the sign said "Castlerigg 3/4 mile" ... Really? OMG. See, you have to understand we can't go anyway without all our crap. Bob had a backpack with my tripod, his camera, however many water bottles and our packed lunches. I had my camera bag with two lenses, a couple of water bottles and miscellaneous stuff, plus my camera around my neck. We had baggage people. Heavy baggage. I have enough baggage on this body, but add another ten pounds or so ... Well after a while it starts really weighing you down.
Along the way, I did get a chance to snap some shot of my wonderful stone walls. That was a plus!! They are everywhere!!! And so are the sheep!!! I got pretty tickled at these guys all looking at me as if to say, "Whatchu lookin' at?" LOL
And yes, they were behind one of these awesome walls too ...
You can see how they are just sitting on top of each other, with nothing holding them together. Is that amazing or what? I know, I'm weird. I can't help it. It just fascinates me.
We did finally make in to the stone circle. When we arrived to the entrance what do you suppose we saw but a Mountain Goat tour bus. SMH (code for shake my head - thanks Heidi for teaching me that). So we asked the driver what the quickest way back to Keswick was. Double SMH. "Just keep straight down this road," he said. Really? Really. That was both the good news and the bad news.
The best guess is that these stones have been here for 4,500 years. No one knows for sure what they were used for. There are plenty of theories. But bottom line is that it's a very cool place to visit. There are reportedly over 1300 stone circles in Britain. Castlerigg is one of the oldest. Unfortunately, there were way too many people to take the kind of shot that we wanted. (That could've had something to do with the fact that it took us forfreakinever to get there so it was lunchtime by now.) There was a couple sitting right smack dab in the middle of the circle doing some kind of hoky poky meditation stuff. There was a group of old ladies sitting in the inner circle having some kind of bloody reunion it seemed. Bob overhead part of their conversation and it was about color and how it radiates back to you or some kind of metaphysical something. Who the hell knows. But they weren't going nowhere. Anytime soon. They were camping out. Hell, we were there for an hour waiting for the crowd to go away for even 30 seconds! I had my tripod set up and in position. The clicker was batteried up and ready to be pushed. But nooooooo. We made forever friends with several other people standing on the outskirts trying to wait it out just like us we were there so long. A bit dramatic I supposed but still. After we had walked so far for so long. Sigh. What a waste. After about an hour we gave up and packed up to head back. Would you believe it took us 40 minutes to walk back to our room? FORTY MINUTES!!!! We walked for 2 hours to get there! But it's all good, right? We took the scenic route, the pleasure walk.
Needless to say, we flopped on the bed and didn't move for a while. We were done. Our backs were done. Our feet were done. When we finally we able to move again guess what we did ... We walked to town to get ice cream!!! LOLOLOL Oh! And much to our surprise there was some kind of market going on with vendors selling their wares. So we walked all around those booths.
Then we rewarded all our woes yet again by going to George's for a pint! After all it was around 4:00 by then. That has become pint time.
This is the inside of George's.
And by now, after we've had a pint we've talked ourselves into taking a cab back up to Castlerigg for sunrise in the morning. Are you LOL yet? So we walk back to the house (more walking) and ask Ian about a taxi service for the morning. After determining that sunrise is around 6:40am he called the cab service to see if we could schedule a pick up for around 6:15 and then come back to the stone circle and bring us home at 7:15. Ahem, they don't even start until 7:15am. Well that won't work will it? So Ian says, "Let me drive you up there in the morning." There goes our out. Can't turn overand change our minds in the morning now can we? Remember, we leave at 10:00 to catch our train to South Hampton in the morning. Hahaha. We just thought we were going to have an easy morning. I'll tell you, Sue and Ian have bent over backwards to accommodate our every whim. If you're ever up in Keswick and need a B&B to stay in come stay at Seven Oaks with Sue and Ian. They are just fabulous!!
On top of that, we mentioned we were planning to go to the Wood Grill tonight and get pizza and they recommended Casa Bella. Said they are known for their pizzas. Cool, we thought. They were spot on with their George's recommendation, so we'll just go there. Then Ian says, "Would you like for me to make a reservation for you? They get quite busy in the evenings." Nothing like personal service. And once again they were spot on. It was excellent!!!
Finally we walked back for the last time. And here I am journaling our last day in The Lake District. Ya know, I always think "I don't have much to talk about today, this one's gonna be short." LOL Yeah right.
While I was sitting here journaling, Bob was looking at the weather for Southampton. The site he brought it up on displayed it as a Celsius temperature. So he googled how to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit. Asked me to get my calculator our and when through this long drawn out equation to find out what the forecast was for tomorrow. FRO? That's just too much work. So I went to work to find a site that displayed the temp in Fahrenheit. No lie ... That site he was looking at? Where it had the temp in Celsius had a little "F" beside the "C". When I touched the "F" it was like magic!!! The temp was now in Fahrenheit!!! I showed him how to do it the easy way. :)
Gotta run. Need to get my crap together since I no longer have the morning to do that. But hey, I'm optimistic I'll get that money shot! LOLOL Sue thinks we're nuts and said we'll be the only fools up there. LOL I don't think so but if we are that's ok with me.
Cheers!
PS - Hope Southampton is ready for us!! Here we come!
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