Monday April 22nd 2019 Part 1 - A short walk at Bassenthwaite Lake

The previous night's finger crossing for continuing good weather had obviously worked as the last full day of the holiday was another sunny one getting warmer all the time. Again I planned to visit three different places and I'd been advised by Jayne that for one of them it would be best to take some water for myself and the dogs; two small bottles would just fit into my camera bag, along with the clean tops off a couple of aerosol cans for the dogs to drink out of (campers can be very resourceful and practical when necessary) and with everything sorted off we went.

My first stop was a relatively short drive round the country lanes from the camp site and was at the northern end of Bassenthwaite Lake. Jayne had given me directions to a spot where I could park and get down to the lake side but just before I got there I found a view which was worth a couple of photos. On a bend in the road was the entrance to a small caravan site, and with a wide grass verge on the corner I was able to leave the van while I nipped to the nearby stone bridge to catch the view over the river Derwent at the point where it flowed out of the lake.

A left turn across the bridge took me to where Jayne said I would be able to park and steps from the roadside took me down to a path through a pleasant wooded area running along the lakeside. Even though the road was just above it was only a 'B' road and there wasn't a lot of passing traffic so most of what I heard was birdsong coming from various feathered creatures up in the trees.

At various points along the path short offshoots led down to small shingle beaches by the waterside and I checked out a few of these as I walked back to the van. Most of them were unoccupied but on one beach a lone lady sat on a rock with a sketch pad on her lap, busily sketching away, and on another some kids were playing in the water while their parents prepared a picnic lunch.

It would have been nice to linger for a while at one of the unoccupied beaches and I was very tempted, but not knowing how long the next section of my day would be I didn't want to spend too much time by the lake. It was certainly a lovely little spot though and one to revisit in the future - and next time I may even take my own picnic.