Day 13: Osmotherly and York

I noticed that Osmotherly was right in between Hartlepool and York, and I remember it being part of the coast to coast walk, so we drove there, bought a pamphlet from the village store, and started a hike. The hike started out nicely, with Xiaoqin and Bowen picking raspberries from alongside the trail and eating as we went along.

Then on top of a ridge the instructions started making no sense. We asked someone and they pointed out the rest of the route to us, but by the time we finished, I knew that the situation and paths must have changed between when the pamphlet was printed and when we did the walk. This is not unusual in England, and the fact that footpaths are usually unsigned by destination or trail names made situations worse.

Nevertheless, it was a fun, easy walk, and we had lunch in town, after which we visited the local playground before driving on to York. In York, we settled in and then walked over to the Pakistani restaurant Scarlet had picked out, which featured a family sized Naan that was indeed huge.

After dinner, we walked along the York City wall for a while, itself an enjoyable diversion.

Day 12: Scarborough and Robin Hood's Bay

The night before, we'd booked an AirBnB via Instant Book. But this morning I had a message from the owner cancelling us! She obviously couldn't figure out how AirBnB worked. So it was back to booking.com, and we found a place at the Melbourne House Hotel in Hartlepool. It wasn't a super long drive, but it was annoying. What was worse was that we'd counted on the AirBnB's laundry service, so now the morning was spent scrambling for a laundry machine. The nearest one turned out to be in Scarborough, so off we went.

Scarborough was very touristy, we got some cotton candy and walked to the lighthouse, and tried a few rides in the arcade before picking up the laundry and going to Robin Hood's Bay to meet Scarlet. My last visit to Robin Hood's Bay was on foot. Driving there, I realized how much harder it was to go there by car: there was no parking in town, and when I tried, the road was so narrow I quickly realized it was my mistake. Yet there was no way to turn, so I tried to back the car up, whereupon it complained that the transmission was over-heating. (The 30% grade meant that all the transmission oil pooled up at the wrong end of the car which was leading to the over heating) I ended up doing a 3-point turn in a very tight spot and then driving to the out of town parking lot with my face drenched with sweat.

Once on foot, Robin Hood's Bay was gorgeous and very pretty. We walked through town but missed Scarlet, having been an hour late. But as we ate lunch Boen started screaming like he was two years old, and Scarlet had heard it from the other side of town and came over, surmising that was us. She was not wrong.

We got a selfie since we met in Scotland in 1995, about 22 years ago, and were in the same area purely by coincidence! We both had gray hair now, and were toting along sons. We exchanged notes and realized we were going to be in York at the same day, so we agreed to do dinner together then.

We then did a walk along the coast to Boggle Hole, and then back to the car for the drive to Hartlepool.

Hartlepool was not all that exciting, though the hotel we stayed at, the Melbourne House Hotel, was impressively new and well appointed, with everything obviously renovated.

Day 11: Grainary Farm Stay

We had bought breakfast at a supermarket the night before, so in the morning we had breakfast in the room, I moved the luggage to the car, and then we checked out, but spent some time in Leeds city center before we left for our farm stay.

The traffic was fast, but we actually had to fill up the car, our first time on this trip before returning the car to Manchester. The car's dashboard had bragged 700+ miles between refuellings, and after all that driving, I was willing to believe it!

All the way to the farm, Bowen had complained that he didn't like farm animals, just bunnies. And of course, when we arrived, what did we see but bunny cages! Bowen loved it.

There was a misty rain, which made us not feel like going anywhere, but also lended the place an other-worldly feel, which you would expect from us being in the Yorkshire Moors.

I had somehow neglected to make reservations for the next evening, which was a Saturday. So a mad scramble ensued. We found a place on AirBnB through Instant Book, so at least we thought we were set.

Day 10: Leeds

The road to Leeds was surprisingly long and full of traffic jams for no apparent reason. Once in Leeds, we parked in a parking lot near downtown that had so many stories but so few empty spaces that we ended up on the top floor. Since check in wasn't until later, we first headed over to the Royal Armoury Museum.

This was a huge, free museum full of exhibits and even live demos, including one covering the history of the English assault rifle from the musket days to the latest stuff. They even let your 2-year old handle the (deactivated) rifles.

There were also other exhibits, including the famous Battle of Agincourt.

We went back and checked into the hotel, and I had to move the luggage by hand from the parking lot to the hotel, which was an ordeal, but also gave me the opportunity to move the car to a more convenient location for the next day. I then went across the street to the downtown car free area to explore.

The old-style Victorian arcades were pretty, but what drew Bowen's attention was the sushi shop, Wasabi! So we bought sushi, and Bowen even got his first Japanese convenient store-style handroll, which came wrap in plastic and you'd unwrap it and turn it into a handroll yourself. He loved that and would have it for lunch again the next day.

After we bought take out for mommy and Boen and brought it back to hotel, Bowen and I went for a swim in the hotel pool before coming back for bed.

Day 9: Haweswater

This turned out to be a bit of a bust of a day. It all started in the morning when we packed, and while packing I pulled my CPAP machine's hose at the wrong place and tore it! I signed up for Amazon Prime trial in the UK and ordered a replacement shipped to our farmstay in Scarborough, but in the mean time managed to visit the hotel's workshop to borrow duct tape to engineer a temporary fix, which held.

After checking out, we failed to go hiking, then we had lunch in Keswick and did laundry, and then we drove to Haweswater in the rain. We got to the hotel, and in the drizzle I went out for a walk but there weren't any footpaths that were open near by so it was just a lousy road walk.

I got a call from the Castle Inn telling us that Bowen had left his bunny behind! I arranged for it to be sent to the Etrop Grange Hotel by post so we could pick it up when we started our cycling trip.

The food at the Haweswater Hotel was good, but it was windy and rainy. We had a free day tomorrow, and it was forecast for more rain, so we decided to go to Leeds the next day(on the way to the East Coast of England). Rainy days are good for cities and terrible for country side.

Day 8: Keswick

It was raining in the morning, so we decided to have a museum day. First was a visit to the pencil museum, which would have been a waste of money (it's basically the size of a tiny house), but the kids loved spending a lot of time drawing there, and they introduced us to the water color pencils, which are kinda neat: you use the color pencil and then smear a bit of water in it to get a watercolor effect without the mess.

It was still raining when we left the pencil museum, so we decided to go to the The Puzzling Place, which turned out to be great fun, full of optical illusions. The kids enjoyed the various illusions especially the tilted room, and if nothing else we got a number of cool photos out of it.

We ended up buying take out pizza for dinner and then Bowen and I swam in the hotel swimming pool.

Day 7: Muncaster Castle

Muncaster Castle featured a big collection of Owls and other birds of prey. We tried to attend a show but had to go mid way because Boen started making a fuss. The castle also had a playground, a maze (which Bowen loved so much that we had to go through it three times), and of course, the castle itself, which had an infamous court jester named Tom Skelton.

After that, we had a long drive to the Castle Inn in Keswick, where we arrived too late to do much but settle in and go out to dinner, just as rain started coming down.

Day 6: St Bees Head and Ennerdale Bridge

The day was forecasted to have the best weather of the rest of our visit to the Lakes, so I was determined to make the most of it. After breakfast, we headed out to St. Bee's Head, the starting point of the coast to coast walk.

The weather was gorgeous, and the scenery great: we got to see the Isle of Man far off. It was also the rest of the family's introduction to the peculiarly English construction known as the kissing gate.

After the hike, the kids got to play at the St. Bees Head playground, which featured ziplines and obstacle courses. In fact, the zipline was particularly kid friendly, as Bowen didn't need me to help him jump on it!

We had lunch at a local place, and then headed over to Ennerdale Bridge. I remembered it as being my entry into the Lakes District and being stunned by how pretty Ennerdale Water was. The entry had been redone and now had some ugly equipment near it, but once you got past it, it was just as pretty as before.

After that, we drove back and tried to buy dinner food on the way home but all the supermarkets were closed early on Sundays, so we ended up eating at the hotel restaurant. On the way to the restuarant, we noticed that the peacocks we had seen yesterday had spread their tails!

From the road, I'd seen signs for the footpath into Irton Hall, and I had to explore it. I tried a few times to find the path from near the hotel, but couldn't so in a fit of frustration, hiked out via the road and followed the footpath back, which included encounters with cows, goats, and an alpaca.

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Day 5: Conister Water and Eskdale Railway

It was a cloudy day when we left Ambleside, and we debated possible destinations before heading straight over to Conister water to see the lake and see if there was any good hiking. When we got there, we found a dock with a steam ferry, but the weather wasn't great so we opted to move on.

One of the reasons we'd booked Irton Hall for two nights was that it was close to the Eskdale Railway. What I didn't realize was that we were arriving on a very special day: the opening of the (free) railway museum!

We bought train tickets for Bowen, Boen and I (Boen was free, actually), and hopped onto the train, leaving mommy to sleep off her harrowing night before in the car. The ride itself wasn't that interesting but the trains were all polished and looked brand new and in excellent shape, probably on account of the museum opening.

After the train ride was over, the two kids visited the museum. We then tried to visit Muncaster Castle, but discovered that it was closed on Saturdays  because weddings take place then. We then went and checked into our hotel, Irton Hall.

It turned out that I'd booked a place not in the main hotel itself, but in a block of self-catering cottages next to it. It was great: it had a kitchen, and a washer+dryer in one unit, the first I'd seen outside Japan. We went out to buy food from a supermarket, but ended up eating dinner in the restaurant for one of the two days we ate there. Nevertheless, we took full advantage of the washer and dryer and that made me wished we'd booked more self-catering cottages during our trip.

Day 4: The World of Beatrix Potter

Xiaoqin was still jet-lagged, not to mentioned exhausted by Boen's inability to sleep before midnight, so when the kids woke up, I took them to breakfast and brought them to Bowness-on-Windermere to visit The World of Beatrix Potter.

This was a museum where scenes from the books have been reproduced in great detail. For a rainy day, this was a great place to take them. We easily spent 3 hours here, as there was an outdoors garden as well.

After that, I brought them back to Ambleside, and we had lunch at the bakery. I never got tired of savory pies in England. I wish American bakeries did more savory pies. And this time, since the Bridge House was open, we got a chance to go in! (It's part of the National Trust, so admission was free)

Across the road was the Armitt Museum/Gallery/Library. We paid a visit since it had a good exhibit on Beatrix Potter herself, not just the books. It also had a surprising number of toys for children.

Then we went to Grasmere, where Xiaoqin and I took turns visiting the Dove cottage while Boen slept and Bowen drew.

Index Page: Lakes District and the Yorkshire Moors 2017

In June, we spent 15 days doing a combination car/hiking tour of the Northern England from the Lakes District to Robin Hood's Bay. We revisited some of my favorite spots from my 2006 Coast to Coast trip, and added Leeds to the itinerary as an impromptu destination.

This is my day to day trip report from the trip.

Pictures

Day by day trip report:

• San Francisco to Manchester
• June 20th: Cathedral Caverns
• June 21st: Ambleside Walk
• June 22nd: Patterdale
• June 23rd: The World of Beatrix Potter
• June 24th: Eskdale Trains
• June 25th: St. Bees Head and Ennerdale Water
• June 26th: Muncaster Castle
• June 27th: Keswick
• June 28th: Haweswater
• June 29th: Leeds
• June 30th: Scarborough Farmstay
• July 1st: Robin Hoods Bay
• July 2nd: Osmotherly and York
• June 3rd: Transfer to Manchester Airport Via the Peaks District
• June 4th: Manchester Airport

Day 3: Patterdale

It was nice and sunny, but was forecast to be the last sunny day for a while. Due to a snafu on my part, I'd failed to book 4 days at hour hotel, and so had to switch hotels within the same town that day. Since we had to pack everything into the car anyway, we might as well drive somewhere far. Patterdale wasn't on our itinerary otherwise, but I had good memories of sailing on Ullswater from my coast to coast walk.

I'd never driven to Patterdale before, and to my surprise, it was a substantial pass. In fact, there's an even steeper approach than the main road called "The Struggle", which features more than 20% grades in spots. If I ever come back with a single bike this would be a worthy challenge, though of course, with a tandem and a touring load I wouldn't even consider it.

Once at Ullswater, the weather got clouded over, but I found the boat rental place and asked for a sailboat. We got everybody dressed up, and watched the manager rig up an old-style sloop.  The sloop looked great but sailed horribly, never being able to tack to within 60 degrees of the wind. Downwind, it was fine, but never really fast either. No wonder they were so relaxed about sailing certifications!

When we were done, we ate at the local coffee shop and then did a short hike up and around the area. That soft light with beams of sunshine coming through the clouds was classic English landscape scenery and gorgeous. I wish we'd had more time to hike on this trip, which would be a continuing theme the whole time.

That evening, we checked into the Lancet House and spent more time at the playground before ordering take out Indian food. The next day was forecasted for rain, so I thought it'd be a good time to take the kids to the World of Beatrix Potter.

Day 2: An Ambleside Walk

I looked through the pamphlets and picked something easy for the day, since Xiaqin was still jet-lagged. To my surprise, the walk started off by visiting the Ambleside adventure playground. Well, there was no way we could walk past the playground and not let Bowen and Boen play in it, so play in it they did!

The playground featured swinging roundabouts, ziplines, trampolines, slides, and swinging seesaws, stuff you'd never see in an American playground. Bowen and Boen never got bored with the playground, and we visited it every day when it was dry. So we ended up buying pastries and then having a picnic lunch at the playground while the two played before starting on our walk.

When we finally got going, it was a nice walk, alongside a river, and then twisting and turning through some bridges and a forest before ending up at Rydal Hall, where a docent stopped us from rushing through the place and visiting the Grotto.

We explored the gardens and stopped for tea at the tea house before walking through Rydal Park back to Ambleside, where we were once more too late to see the Bridge House while it opened.

After dinner, the kids spent more time at the playground, where they were joined by Daniel, a local school kid.