Keswick


Our day in Keswick (pronounced KEZ ick) was a delight. This is the Lake District, in Cumbria, in the far northwest of England. Cumbria borders on Scotland, which is our next destination. Keswick is quaint and very friendly, with lots of shops catering to hikers. 

(We have little to say about yesterday, which was mostly a travel day: up at 4 in Galway to leave at 5 for the two-hour drive to Dublin, where we returned our rental car at the airport and caught a plane to Manchester. There, we boarded a train north to Penrith, where we caught a bus for the final leg to Keswick.)

The streets of Keswick are pedestrian friendly.




After breakfast and a long chat with our host, Heather, we strolled to nearby Lake Derwentwater to get tickets for a boat ride around the lake. These boats take people to seven docks around the lake where you can get off to hike and then get back on at another dock.



The main dock, where we purchased tickets, also had large row boats for the more adventurous.





The lake and its shoreline reminded Pat of the Adirondacks but not as rocky.



Derwentwater is surrounded by treeless peaks that are popular with hikers/climbers.




Here you can make out people along the ridge.  They look like ants.



As in the Cotswolds, the trails around Derwentwater have these contraptions called kissing gates, which allow only one person at a time to pass. Jo takes the name literally, so.


We enjoyed good weather, which seems to be following us, delightfully, our entire trip so far.









We saw plenty of dogs today, as we have every day. The British love their dogs. In fact, dogs are allowed in restaurants and pubs, so long as they behave.



We disembarked at stop 6 and walked about a mile and a half.





We got on another boat at stop 4--we were traveling anti-clockwise, as the British say, around the lake.






Later, at Jo's insistence, we went to Keswick's Pencil Museum. There you learn more than is healthy to know about graphite--discovered here centuries ago--and pencils.








Unsurprisingly, the museum is home to the world's largest pencil, as attested by the Guinness Book of World Records.


The museum issues each visitor a "pointless" quiz with questions about graphite and pencils, along with a pencil. The answers are available in the exhibits. Jo went to work while Pat grew bored. But Jo proved the able student, with a perfect score! For her brilliance, she received two colored pencils.



And that was our day in Keswick. Tomorrow we're off to Oban, Scotland, where we will visit the Hebrides.

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