One Holiday In The Bag For 2013

[AlanHo]

We are planning to take a Cumbria holiday in July next year with a couple of friends. The plan is to hire a holiday home or cottage near to Ambleside.

Libby is more than my wife, she is my estate agent, my financial advisor, my housekeeper, my medical consultant, my best mate and my travel agent all rolled into one. She has spent the last couple of weeks doing internet research and found a number of cottages that ticked all the boxes – but the addition of a wi-fi tick box and the need for O2 and Orange mobile phone connectivity cut the list down to 4 properties. (my friend is a free lance journalist and needs to keep in touch with the real world - hence the need for good communications). The girls got their heads together last week and were almost decided on their favourite for me to book.

I ummed and arrrrred about the choices and then announced that I was not happy about booking a cottage unless we first visited the location and checked whether there was a pig farm next door – or some other snag not obvious on the web site or Google Earth. So I announced that we would drive up to Cumbria on Sunday, carry out a reconnaissance of the candidates, stay overnight up there and return home on Monday afternoon. It turned out to be a trip of 408 miles. Libby thought I was stark staring bonkers but decided she would like to accompany me so we set off at 8.00 am on Sunday.

174 miles and 3 hours later we arrived and toured the 4 candidate cottages.

The third property we visited was a lovely house up a long private drive to the top of a hill in beautiful countryside with an outlook to die for. However – I got chatting to the owner of a neighbouring cottage further along the drive who explained that he rented it out. Libby was fairly sure she had seen the property on a website but for some reason has dismissed it – probably because wi-fi was not listed. He invited us in to have a look around and it was perfect – ticking every box on the list including wi-fi. The four properties we had listed as candidates were less attractive for various reasons so we finished up deciding on a cottage that was not on the original list and I have just booked it.

http://tinyurl.com/c8um8zb[/url]

I mention all this as background to a little adventure I indulged in whilst there. A few miles from the cottage which we will be renting are the two famous Lake District mountain passes – Wrynose Pass which is about 5 miles long and the Hardnott Pass which is about 8 miles. The Hardnott Pass is generally considered to be the most challenging mountain road in the UK having many dog leg bends with inclines as steep as 1 in 3. So I decided to drive across both Passes.

I have a tiny car video camera mounted on the windscreen of the car which records permanently. I have rather hastily cut and pasted a number of short clips of the adventure and posted it onto You Tube. The video is rather crude but will give you a flavour of the terrain and scenery. It was late afternoon and the sun was setting behind the mountains, so the quality is not brilliant.

We had a stroke of good fortune – a farmer driving a Land Rover appeared from a side track pulling a large sheep trailer and we following him across the Hardnott Pass. As you will see there are very few passing places and the track is very narrow – often with a sheer drop on the one side. Traffic coming the other way gave way to the Land Rover because there was no way he could or would reverse into a passing place – so I tucked in behind and was able to make good progress. I was quite impressed at how he manoeuvred his vehicle and trailer – clearly a regular user of the road. On the descent from the top (about 1300 feet up) you may hear me comment at the smoke or steam (the road was wet) pouring from his brakes. I mention this in case you thought I was referring to my car.

Best to watch this full screen in 1080p HD if you can.

http://youtu.be/JaUe49QZIR8

[Alan2273]

Alan there are a few bits of stone wall missing on the bends of that downward descent.

[artist]

Blimey! That's narrow for a caravan. Plenty of passing places though.