After breakfast I drove into Keswick, and ended up paying for parking - it’s free for Blue Badge holders but only for three hours and I reckoned I’d be longer. First stop was Keswick Museum and Gallery, not the best town museum I’ve visited but not the worst. The major interesting item is the Musical Stones, a giant glockenspiel but the notes are actual stone. Apparently it was built by a stone mason who gave up his day job and toured the country giving performances - apart from anything it’s not exactly an easily portable instrument!
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| Musical Stones |
My next visit, after a coffee and biscuit, was the Derwent Pencil Museum where your entry ticket is a pencil! You also get given a clipboard and quiz to complete (whether you want it or not), actually it’s a good way of getting you to actually read and think about the displayed information.
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| I noticed this set of pencils and bottle of oil for colouring B&W photos as it reminded me of a picture of Mum that Dad had done in Hong Kong- the artist wouldn’t believe the colour of her eyes and wanted to make them blue. |
After some lunch I drove down the side of Derwentwater and parked up for a while in a National Trust car park. I’ve done some walking in the past around there and spotted the path we took up from the lake around 40 years ago!
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| Derwentwater |
Possibly slightly foolishly I carried on down past the lake and looped round back up to Keswick, which sounds simple but included Honister and Whinlatter passes! Not that the current car has any issues with 1 in 4 hills and hairpin bends but it’s not exactly relaxed driving.
The final visit was to Castlerigg Stone Circle. The 38 standing stones are late Neolithic, about 4,500 years old, and anything they lack in size is made up for by the stunning setting. I was regretting that I’d only taken the small camera today but I’ll see how all the pictures come out when I get back.
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