Sunday April 21st 2019 Part 1 - Wandering round Whitehaven

I woke very early that morning and looked out of the van window to see the deep colours of a lovely sunrise over the fells beyond the camp site - a photo worth taking, so I grabbed the camera, went out to stand in front of the van and snatched a couple of shots before the sky became light enough to lose all its colour.

With the continuing good weather, and having abandoned my original 'big day out' plan the day before, my mission was to visit the two places I didn't get to then so with breakfast over, the tent tidied and dogs walked I set off back to the coast, this time heading for Whitehaven. At some point during the day I needed to find a cash machine and the first thing I saw when I drove into Whitehaven was a Tesco store perfectly placed close to the marina - a cash machine and two hours free parking was just perfect.

Across the road from the Tesco car park was the start of Millennium Promenade and on the corner was a strange looking sculpture with what I thought at first were fancy bits of metal twisted together, but on closer inspection I saw they were actually fish. This was the Whiting Shoal, depicting the large group of fish which brought Whitehaven its first industry many years ago.

Millennium Promenade was pedestrianised for most of its length and what had once been an extremely busy port is now a marina with purpose-built pontoons and berths for 400 boats. On the corner of West Strand was a canopied bandstand structure with what looked like a shallow pool underneath it, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a colourful mosaic pattern and it was the light shining on it which had made it look like water.

Along West Strand was The Beacon museum and heritage centre, and overlooking the water were three original 18th century cannons and the bronze sculpture of a sailor. Further along was another sculpture, The End of an Era, unveiled in 2005 as a memorial to the town's past mining history. Past what I took to be a wheel from the disused Wellington Pit steps and a path took me uphill to what's known locally as The Candlestick; looking like a tall chimney it had actually been a ventilation shaft for the mine below. Two more large mosaic designs were set in the ground, along with a memorial to the two youngest workers to die in the 1831 mine explosion in which 23 lives were lost - these two were children just eight years old.

The views over Whitehaven and the harbour were excellent from up on the hill and I lingered for a while before making my way back down and round to the harbour side for a walk along to the west pier lighthouse. Across the harbour was the smaller north pier lighthouse but it was the west one which looked more interesting. Built into the breakwater, which has two levels joined by two sets of stone steps, the lighthouse is 16 metres tall but its full height can't be seen from the sea as the breakwater's wall is several metres higher than on the landward side.

I did actually go up onto the upper level of the breakwater with the intention of walking back along it but away from the lighthouse it was much narrower. That wouldn't normally bother me but several guys fishing had their rods leaning at angles against the wall and taking up most of the width of the breakwater; I would have had to step over them and with two dogs in tow that wasn't a good idea so I went back down the steps and walked back along the lower level.

Mindful of the time, and not wanting to overstay my two hours on the Tesco car park, I made my way round the marina and back to the van. I knew there would probably other things of interest in Whitehaven but I could always make a return visit in the future; my next mission was to check out the fourth coastal place I wanted to see.