The Lakes District
Trip Start
May 01, 2006
1
36
100
Trip End
Ongoing
Hawkshead, United Kingdom
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
After all my stops on the way I eventually got to Hawkshead around dinner time. The hostel was a little bit out of town so didn' get upto too much that night. They sold beers there so had a few of those for a nightcap.
The next day I went for a hike along one of the many lakes in the area, Thirlmere Lake. What a slog! There was a trail leading to a dam and I didn't know how long it was meant to take so I did it anyway. Turned out to be a four hour trek, but in the end it was worth it. I think I need the exercise after the contiki tour. As it was a hot day I wanted to go for a swim and ended up driving about an hour to the coast. The beach I went to was pebbled but the water was great. There was an aussie guy from Adelaide staying in the room tonight, so that night we went down to the local pub in Hawkshead for some beers.
The hostels have generally been pretty good so far, a few weirdo's here and there, and there was one of them in my room. He must of been about 80 years old and he treated the room like his own bathroom by not putting any clothes on. Its not the ideal sight to wake upto in the morning!
There was more exercise planned for today, this time a mountain bike ride in Grizedale Forest. I haven't spewed yet on my holiday but the bike ride nearly did me in. It was a stinking hot day, there was plenty of hills and the ride went for nearly 30 km. After one hill I had to have a break for a few minutes otherwise breakfast would've been coming back up. The 30 km ended up taking me just over two hours and I was absolutley stuffed by the end of it. It was alot harder than the ride in Hofgarten. There was a small section of single track which I tried and was no good at. Need alot more practice there.
I went back to the hostel for a bit of a rest and then went for another bush walk. This turned out to be another hard slog, ended up walking for nearly 4 hours. The good thing was that the walk ended in Hawkeshead so I went straight to the pub for a beer. I ended up chatting with some locals and didnt leave the pub until a few hours and pints later. It was a wobbly walk back to the hostel and the roads out here are really narrow so lucky there wasnt many cars coming. I had a good night sleep that night.
