Day 16 The Lakes District

We are now at the halfway point of our trip and I of course am way behind on the blog.  I have made time to at least pick out pictures for each day, and I hope on the plane home I might fill in the missing days.  Turns out it is hard to keep up with the blog with a jam packed schedule and a baby who hates sleeping at night!

So I am picking up on day 16 which we spent in the Lakes District exploring the area.  As usual the weather wasn't perfect, but it wasn't all terrible either.  We got some good hikes in, did some crazy driving and saw lots of local sights.

The morning started with Lincoln pinned into his jumper, charming our host as usual.  You would never guess how much he hated sleeping based on how happy he is in the morning

My breakfast.  I made the mistake of asking what black pudding was.  Turns out it is pig blood, other pig parts and barley.  Zach ate his, I could not.

First stop of the morning was to drop off our laundry at Keswick Laundry.  For over 2 weeks of laundry for all of us it was only 24 gbp for full service.  Not a bad deal!

Then we walked around town a little to find coffee and some sandwhiches for lunch.  Bryson's seemed like a cute little bakery.

And finally we were off for some hikes.  We followed Rick Steves suggested drive around the Newland Valley and Keswick area 

The drive is in the little insert above

As usual sheep were everywhere including the middle of the road

First stop was a waterfall.  We thought about hiking to get a closer look but then thought better because it started pouring rain.

Once it stopped raining we did go up Newland's Pass.  It was a 30 min up a hill hike with insane winds and on and off downpours.  Lincoln however seemed to love it

Us at the top with such crazy wind trying to get a picture before the camera got soaked

And Lincoln still loving it

Then we drove over the pass past the slate mine down the Buttermere

Still more cute sheep

In buttermere we decided we needed a rest and some hot food and drinks to warm up.  Since it was almost lunch time anyway we just ate at this cute little farm resturant. I had a Heidi pie and velvet hot chocolate, Zach had a sausage roll and tea

Outside of the restaurant

More really cute sheep basically in "town"

Next stop was the Buttermere hike around the lake.  It was 4 miles and mostly flat.  Lincoln enjoyed a longer nap while Zach and I enjoyed the scenery

The walks around here are often on private land with gates to keep sheep and cows in

Lincoln did wake up for the family picture

Those are swimmers in the lake.  While we were doing our hike there was a race going on.  Later we learned it was a swim run that included a short and long option.  The long option had like 15 different swim run transitions.  You can read more and see the course here http://www.brecaswimrun.com/breca-buttermere/

View leaving Buttermere.  There was a Tesla and large van that could not figure out how to pass on the narrow road which tied up traffic for a long time so we had a nice rode to ourselves

Lodomor hotel where we had some tea 

Fancy cream tea with clotted cream and biscuits at the fancy hotel

Lincoln looking good ready to hike to the waterfall behind the hotel

It was a pretty cool looking waterfall

Next stop was a crazy drive through this road that was about 1 foot wider than our car (and technically a 2 way road).  Thankfully Zach was a good driver but I am not sure why Rick Steves didn't put a disclaimer about only people who like feeling like they wanted a death ride should do it

Turnaround point of our drive

Valley seemed pretty but not pretty enough to make up for the insane drive

Valley in the su

Surprise View (that is actually it's name)

Dinky was along for the ride

And finally we stopped back in Keswick.  We tried to take the 630 boat ride but it was cancelled due to high wind.  Instead we took a short walk along the lake

Lots of good bird watching

Turn around stop

Lincoln was making faces during the walk

Of course more sheep

Final stop was the Castlerigg Stone Circle.  It is over 5000 years old and we had the place mostly to ourselves

Family picture with the stones

Pretty and empty stone circle at night

Then it was back to the Swinside Inn for dinner.  Lincoln was not interested in sitting nicely during dinner.  He was all over the place and had to be walked around so one of us could eat at at time.

Dinner was at least good though.  I had the lamb 

Zach had the ploughman's plate

Final look at the mountain before walking across the road to our b&b

Day 9 Oxford Stonehenge to Weymouth

Day 9 was action packed and had fickle weather.  We started the morning the Oxford, did a city tour and saw a few things around the city in some rain, then drove quite a ways to Stonehenge, and then even more driving to Weymouth were we arrived pretty late.  All in all another good day

View from our window at the Heather Inn in Oxford

Full English breakfast.  I am not much of a fan, but Zach seems to like it more (maybe it is the being able to eat eggs thing)

Lincoln wanted to participate in breakfast

After finding the only resonably priced car park in town we were off to see the Ashmolean museum then do our walking tour

"river" along the way to the museum

The Ashmolean which is supposed to be the oldest museum in the world (1600's it was founded)

This museum had something for everybody.  This was Laurence of Arabia's outfit that Zach was excited to find  

They had multiple Stradivarius including this one.  We also so some impressionist paintings and some other artwork.  Since we only had 30 min to see the museum and it was gigantic we missed a ton, but we saw was cool

Next stop was the Footprints walking tour.  Tom was our guide for 2 hours of walking mostly through some of the 30 some colleges of Oxford

This is the auditorium which sadly was closed because it was graduation weekend.

Bridge of Sighs

The statue in front of the Bodlein library.  This was also closed for graduation, but the courtyard was cool

While we were in the courtyard it started just pouring.  This is the passageway out where nobody wanted to put down the umbrella

The Camera an extension of the library

All Souls College which only admits a few people per year and lets you stay as long as you want

St. Mary's church.  There was something about protestants being beheaded here or something like that.  Also a pretty church

Clock tour

Family picture with Christ Church college in the background

Insane line to see Christchurch college because I guess they filmed some part of Harry Potter here.

Zach with more Lord of the Rings.  Tolkein wrote part of Lord of the Rings while attending Morton college

Punting and geese

After the tour we ducked out or the rain at the insanely crowded Starbucks to feed Lincoln and have .lunch.  There seemed to be mobs of extremely rude 10 year old Italian students for some reason

Covered market close to 300 years old we walked past as we went back to the library to figure out if we could get in.

The library was really closed, but the nice guy at the gate told us to check out the newer library which I am glad we did.  It had a display of all sorts of cool things including Handels Messiah

One of the original copies of the Magna Carta

Lincoln enjoying his tour of Oxford

Next up was a long drive to Stonehenge in the rain.  Nice countryside, but lots and lots of rain

We tried to stop at Highclere castle (Downton Abby) but it was closed and the drive was locked so we only got a picture of this sign

Next stop was Stonehenge.  This is the newish visitor center which is a few miles from the stones

Family portrait in front of Stonehenge!

Stonehenge! (bonus it didn't rain on us!)

Lincoln was more interested in eating the juice bottle than seeing the stones

View from the back of the stones where more had fallen over

Lincoln touching two of the different types of stones (I think he is plotting which one to eat)

Strong boys trying to pull a stone

Sheep which were all over the place

Quick dinner of pasties on the way out

Nice sunset as we drove toward Weymouth and Jurrasic Coast

And we made it to the Southville Guest House.  Lots of issues finding parking and then finding our way along the crazy streets.  Plus we got there and were on the the 3rd floor with only really steep steps.  At least the room and host were nice.  Next up was some sleep before exploring the coast.