30.9.08

30. five females, rain, and clouds







Earlier this summer we (me,barbs, belle, becca, and map reading Karen) tootled off in Topsy for a well earned rest and holiday ?!?



The journey started well, with a traffic jam of cows in Swaledale, it finally felt like we were away from Aycliffe!


We spent the night at Usher Gap campsite, a lovely basic place and very reasonably priced too, £11 for the 5 of us!! I should have taken more notice of the tent's instructions though, as there was a bit of a waterfall coming in through the roof of the tent, but luckily that was on the kids side!!! Then it was up the Buttertubs pass to Hawes, via Hardraw Force, and we saw the upside of all the rain as the waterfall was pretty spectacular.... Then it was back to Karen and the map, determined to get to the lakes, driving through driving rain, but at least the view was amazing as we saw rivers and waterfalls that only appear during torrential downpours!!! Eventually we found a nice campsite at Glenridding, still quite reasonably priced (£21 for 5 with the van and two tents!!), and we discovered how to keep ourselves amused cooped up in a van awaiting the rain to ease up before we pitched those darn tents!

The picture above is the van at the cafe on Hartside pass, very poor conditions, only 1 biker, and poor Topsy had blown a bit of a foot long hole in her exhaust... .... this was fixed up a few days later with help from the Durham Dubbers, thanks guys!! All in all a great time we had, and it didn't even put us off having another adventure!