Day 5: Dales and Lakes

You know the day is going to be "alreet" when you start it with a full Yorkshire breakfast!

The 580 went from directly outside the farm shop and cafe adjacent to our hotel. In a slight change of plan we caught the earlier bus which terminated at Settle but connected with our original proposed option an hour later. So a little mooch around the compact centre of Settle and time for a coffee.

Beautiful dales scenery impossible to catch from a bus window

Onwards to Kirby Lonsdale. Now I'd like more time here, it is a pretty village

and the brewery was open

But this was the one transfer that worried me most all trip. If we were late in and missed our connections there was no plan B, we wouldn't make Carlisle today.

No worries, we were on with enough time for me to ask a local hotel if I could use their facilities, and despite the labyrinth which took me ages to find it and the next bus being on time I still had time to do the necessary.

One discussion I had with someone prior to this trip was about whether it was right to use/abuse the bus pass for trips of this nature. Well, the 567 from Kirby Lonsdale to Kendal had just 2 other passengers. I hope that Liz and I doubling the numbers help keep the local service alive, particularly during the winter months when tourists are thin in the ground.

Not enough time in Kendal to do much more than explore the shopping precinct adjacent to the bus station, the bright day was still very cold so getting inside out of the wind was helpful.

Now if we thought the ride through the dales was picturesque, the top deck through the lakes trumped it. Again photos were nigh impossible

The 554 service from Keswick to Carlisle only runs about every 4 hours so there was no way we could have got Keswick to connect with any service other than the last 17:30 one. So, 2 hours mooching around Keswick. Lots of outdoor clothing shops but other than some merino glove liners we weren't tempted.

Of course, the downside of such a late departure is the fact that pretty much all of the journey was in the dark. So we saw little of the top end of the lakes and it was very dark by the time we got to Wigton. Carlisle seems to deliberately have reduced street lighting so despite it being city centre we were navigating dark streets to our hotel.

Despite the cold, Friday night Wetherspoons was full of young women out for the evening without full winter wear!

103 very scenic miles today