Hello to people who read my neglected blog! In this post, I will be sharing my recent trip to Lake District. Some facts about Lake District (just copied from the website) is that it is the largest National Park in England and located in Cumbria in northwest of England.
I went there with Adam and Syahmi, yep went camping with them again, camping buddies I guess. Started the journey by driving from Stoke-on-Trent. It took almost 3 hours before we get to our campsite. Syahmi was our driver throughout the whole trip and Adam is the useless co-driver (Just kidding). I am that guy that sit at the back and sleep throughout the entire journey. Before we started our ‘expedition’, we buy some essentials such as food for 3 days, charcoal to make some BBQ and snacks + sweets for the hike. The road to our campsite is very curvy (please suggest me a better word to describe a wavy road in the comment) and I felt sick most of the time (a good reason to be sleeping at the backseat and an excellent excuse to not volunteer to drive haha).
We arrived at our campsite at around half past two in the evening. We choose Dalegarth Campsite because all other campsites are full. When it’s a boys trip, “last minute” is the favourite word that I like to use. We booked our pitch like 3 days before our trip, hence all the campsite with electric pitch has been fully booked and all the hostel are fully occupied as well. So, since “Adventure” is Adam favourite word, we choose non-electric pitch and I was prepared to face the coldness of England’s weather. Luckily Syahmi bought a gas heater, we even brought a gas tank in the car! Hence, we were kept warm each night. But we turn off the heater just before we sleep because I just read about carbon monoxide poisoning in one of my novel and I am not taking the risk! The campsite was actually not bad. We pick a spot that’s near to the shower and drinking water point, next to the river and close to the toilet (but not too close).
We set up our tent as usual but this time we have an awning (the blue colour part of the tent). Go see my IG reels if you want to see a time lapse of us setting up the tent. I find that the awning is very great in preventing the rain from entering our tent every time we unzip the tent door (if that’s the right word?). You can’t see it but there’s a river just behind the trees. After finished setting up the tent, we went for a quick swim in the river. It was freezing cold but they say cold water helps to boost immune system. Well, whoever “they” are, thanks for almost killing me with hypothermia haha. Syahmi on the left appropriately dress and Adam’s the fat shirtless dude trying his best to flex a tiny biceps the size of a Walnut (Me body shaming people when I’m the least fit person in the group HAHA). Please go to the gym more frequently bro. I hope he doesn’t read this blog HAHAHAH. If you did read, love you bro. Don’t kill me after reading this blog. After the swim, we barbecue-ed in front of the tent. Yep, we didn’t brought any tongs, but luckily we brought some spoons to flip the sausages, prawns and chickens. Sunset view from the campsite. Sadly, that was the last time we saw the sun in Lake District. The next day, the sun decided to hide from us and it was cloudy and raining as heavy as it can the entire day. We went to sleep early in our cozy sleeping back and warmth tent. But I did woke up at around three in the morning. Decided to “stargazing” and it was indeed magical. I can see the star moving (or it look like it’s moving because the earth is spinning, right?) and the moon was so bright. Unfortunately my camera are not great at taking nighttime picture, hence no star picture for you guys.
The next day, we went for a hike at Helvellyn. It’s around one hour and thirty minute from our campsite. I make some sandwiches before we went for the hike and pack some for our lunch as well. I wore a poncho, water resistant wind breaker, water proof jacket and water proof pants, but I still came out of the hike wet as fork. There was no picture of us at the peak because the weather was so bad with the crazy strong wind accompanied by the heavy rain. The hike was around 12KM to and fro, and it took us around 5 hours in total. The view would be so nice if it was sunny, hence a good reason to repeat the hike next summer maybe.
The starting point to Helvellyn. The peak is at the right side of the picture but being obscured by the cloud. I would have gone for a swim if the weather was not this bad! Somewhere down there is our starting hiking point. At this point, we no longer hike for the view, but hiking to just tick the list HAHA! I look like a butcher when wearing the poncho. Before the hike, we stop by somewhere random to take some pictures because we know after the hike there will be no more decent pictures since we will be wet. I recently saw an IG reel sharing photography tips. They advised me to try to use the surrounding objects to make a frame for my picture. In this picture, I attempted to use the tree branch as a frame but it did not turn out as good as I thought it would be. I guess I will need to practice more! I don’t know why these two make that weird hand sign with a serious face. This is probably the effect of watching too much Naruto Anime. It’s probably some type of summoning jutsu, but the only thing they summoned was the freaking rain and wind LOL. Thanks a lot guys. No wonder it rained so bad.
We went to Windermere after the hike. It was a small town next to a lake that has lots of activities such as cruise and kayaking. Initially we plan to kayak but since it was still raining with strong wind, hence we decided not to do kayaking this time. They even have a mini arcade nearby!
The ferry that visitors use to go for cruising around the lake. While walking around Windermere, one of the birds poop on Syahmi’s arm HAHAHA. Sorry I just had to mention that. If you guys come here, wear a water proof jacket so that when the bird poop on you, you can easily wash it away. After the short walk at Windermere, we went back to our campsite. Obviously, I slept at the back of the car because it was “nauseating” due to the curvy road (I told you it’s a good excuse not to drive). Then we ate hot marshmallow heated by our heater! Technically not ours, it’s Syahmi’s. We played a few rounds of Big 2 and obviously I won the game (fingers crossed). Then we went to sleep like a cow.
The next day, we put down our tent, say goodbye to the campsite and went to Hodbarrow Nature Reserve. Basically it’s a beach.
The view before reaching the beach. Some visitors cycle to the beach with their family. See, the sun hates us whenever we went for a hike but loves us when we’re doing anything but hiking. A lighthouse I guess? Look at that beautiful sky. If only you were like this the day before, I could have post so many nice pictures for you guys to see! Taadaa, the beach! Please wear shoes when you guys went to the beach because these barnacles will tear your feet apart. Before we went back, we stopped by at Manchester and have our lunch/dinner at Salt & Pepper. It was mouth-watering! Me and Adam decided to treat our good friend, Syahmi, for driving us the entire journey, he even send us back to our home! (thank god there were no train on Bank Holiday! HAHAHAH). Find a “Syahmi” if you want to go on a trip for a smooth holiday.
That’s the end of our short trip! Thanks for reading until the end. Stay tune for more travel blogs!
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