Lake District – Keswick

The final day of our holiday to the Lake District was already upon us. Anna had planned a day out in Keswick.

Strava Segment Searching

Before all of that though I headed out for a run. Prior to coming to the cottage at Greengill Holidays, I had looked on Strava for some suitable running routes. The was one which consisted of a 3.3 mile loop around country lanes, and what’s more, that loop was also a Strava Segment that started from right outside our cottage. With a course record on the segment of 28:07 I was fairly certain I could beat it too.

The second day we were here I took a steady run around the loop. It was a little more undulating than I expected but I did it in 25:38, knocking just over 2 minutes off the course record. Mission complete, the segment was mine.

I could beat that though as it had been a fairly steady run, so a couple of days later I gave it another go and picked up the pace. This time I knocked a further 2 minutes off, taking the course record down to 23:40.

I had one final attempt before our day in Keswick. Accompanied for a small part of the way by a deer. This time I put in a proper effort, the hardest I’d ran for a while – race effort if not race pace! I did manage to knock close to another 2 minutes off my time though so the course record now stands at 21:53. I was happy with that.

Keswick

After a shower and breakfast we all headed off to Keswick. It was a nice easy drive through lovely scenery. The hills had a fresh covering of snow on the tops, the clouds looked dramatic and there was the odd glimpse of sunshine.

Once in Keswick we wandered around the myriad of outdoor shops and even bought a dry bag for use in our new canoe and some new climbing shoes for Morgan. We stopped for a coffee and cake and visited the ‘Puzzling Place’.

Puzzling Place

This is a small ‘museum’ full of optical illusions the highlights of which are it ‘anti-gravity’ room and Ames room.

There were plenty of other illusions to amuse, entertain and puzzle us.

Derwent Water Geocaches

We the headed over to the shores of Derwent Water where we had a few geocaches on our hit list.

Derwent Water

Derwent Water

The first was a puzzle cache. We found the coordinates easily and saved them for later. The next was a nice easy Traditional Geocache. The third was a slightly different virtual cache that had me taking my shoes an socks off and wading knee deep in the lake. Still unable to see what I needed from here and without a mask and snorkel we were pleased that I had a waterproof camera as it allowed me to reach out and take an underwater shot of the info we needed. After the Virtual Geocache we strolled along the lakeside beach and then headed off to find another easy Traditional Geocache and finally the actual location of the Puzzle Geocache.

It was then time to head back for the day.

We were eating in the Strickland Arms again tonight so after a little bit of sorting things out in the cottage I decided to walk in with Anna and Morgan following later in the car. It had turned into a pleasant day with sunny spells and temperatures up to around 12°C. However, huge black  storm clouds were approaching so my walk to Great Strickland was going to be a rush to stay dry. It did rain on the way in but I didn’t get soaked and I was treated to a number of rainbows behind me as the rain approached. Anna and Morgan arrived at the pub at the same time as me. Dinner was nice here again, even if a little haphazard as the bar-woman running the place tonight obviously wasn’t accustomed to being in that role!

And that was that, other than one more slee, packing, collecting our canoe and driving home our holiday was done.

1 Response

  1. Avatar forComment Author Mum says:

    Glad you all enjoyed it. Certainly a different sort of holiday than most 11 year old get. He’s very lucky
    I see that you’ve not last the competitive streak in you Alan x

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Avatar forComment Author

Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.