days with Vicky, Jonny and Elliot.
My dad gave us a lift up there and back so we didn't have to pay alot of money for trains and busses.
It rained the whole way up there, but we listened to some decent music and played "I spy" to pass the time! We stopped at a service station called "Tebay Services" at Jonny's request, as Mr Bennett had often spoken lovingly of them and their apparently "space age" toilets. While my dad waited in the car, us four ran - under coats of course! - into the service station. We were most un-impressed with the toilets, they were certainly not space age, so we felt a bit let down! However, the shop sold Firefly drinks, so I was made up for the rest of the journey :)
Just before going to the youth hostel, we stopped in Keswick for a bit of food shopping. The Co-op had no free parking spaces, so we had to go to Booths, which was a bit expensive! We managed to spend thirty pounds on stuff just for three days! The people in Booths gave us strange looks which wasn't really surprising as Elliot and Jonny had taken to both holding the basket at once and skipping round! Me and Vicky felt determined to "out" them this holiday.. Alas, it didn't happen..
Our cashire was called Charles, but Jonny and I thought he looked slightly inbred, and not atall like a Charles.
Then off we went to the youth hostel :)
We stayed in a girls dorm and a boys dorm in Derwentwater youth hostel.
When me and Vicky first arrived in our dorm, there was only one other bed seemingly occupied , so we took a top bunk each, spent a while trying to figure out how to make up the beds, unpacked and went down to the kitchen to meet the other two for coffee and biscuits - we lived off coffee and biscuits that weekend.
We then went for a walk beside a waterfall behind the hostel, and went on a slight ramble off the path and down the side of a hill and through ferns and over a log and through some nettles and down another little hill and eventually found the field at the front of the youth hostel! We were rather proud with ourselves!
The weather had, by this time, got quite warm so we decided to go swimming in the lake (Derwentwater). Not a very wise decision I must say!
Jonny and Elliot were quick to jump in off the landing stage, and tried to convince me that the water wasn't freezing when I could see that it was, Vicky then jumped in and I was left clinging to a wooden post attemping to avoid being dragged into the lake! I did eventually jump in though, well kind of lower myself in accompanied by the other three! Just as I thought, the water was freezing, so I got out pretty quickly, as did Vicky. The guys, however, thought it would be a good idea to swim out to a bouy which "didn't look too far away"
It turned out that it was quite a bit further away than they first thought, Elliot turned back, but Jonny kept going, got there, started swimming back and Elliot swam out to him. They both got back and practically collapsed onto the shore of the lake, nearly hypothermic I thought! Very worrying! So we wrapped them in towels and went back to the youth hostel.
Afer getting changed and putting our wet clothes in the drying room, we met up in the kitchen again for more coffee and soon warmed up!
We thought it would be best to relax for the evening, so we took over the games room and played pool, table football and Twister, all of which were entertaining as they had pillow fights interspersed between them! Me and Jonny built a fort behind the seetee by the window, you should be jealous of it :)
We ended up going to bed at about one oclock, which isn't really that late, but we were quite tired!
Me and Vicky were rather surprised at finding our dorm completely full up - of old people, gutted - and had to creep stealthily across the floor, take our shoes off and crawl into bed fully clothed without waking them all up, I think we succeeded! However, I was most certainly not counting on not being able to sleep all night! The woman occupying the bed below me smelled awful and snored terribly! I felt physically sick because I can't stand snoring and so had about three hours sleep in total, Vicky was the same.
We woke up pretty early-ish as we were meeting the other two at half past eight that morning. Luckily, all the other people in the dorm had woken up and left, so we were spared the otherwise inevitable awkward conversation with them.
When Vicky and I got downstairs to the kitchen, we found that the other two had made a complete mess of just making toast!
After a breakfast of burnt toast and coffee, we set off on our walk.
We walked for what we thought at the time was really far and high up! And ended up in Keswick. By this time, we were very tired and so went in search of a tea rooms. It took quite a while, and it appears that most of the buildings in Keswick are guest houses - there really is no need for that many!
When we finally found somewhere, we had tea and cake which was most enjoyable.
Then we wandered around Keswick for a while, bought a couple of books, then got an open top (!!!) bus back to the youth hostel. Again, we collaped very tired into the lounge with some coffee and relaxed for a while. Then, when we went to get out clothes back from the drying room, I discovered that somebody had stolen my shorts!! I have no idea why anyone would want to take a pair of shorts, and it isn't like they would fit anybody else staying there, so I was most confused! Although I didn't really want them back, knowing that someone else had had them!
That night, we decided to not sleep in the dorms because of the snoring incident, and so pushed the setees together in the lounge and sat up for most of the night drinking ridiculously strong coffee and listening to music on my iPod speakers. We left the lounge only a couple of times, the first was to go outside into the grounds at about two oclock in the morning where we found a pretty threatening looking tree and played frisbee in the dark! And the second was slightly later on, to get some more coffee, when we ended up having an ice cube fight in the kitchen!
Eventually, we thought that we better had go to bed, so once again we crawled into bed as quietly as possible, only this time, it was at about half past five. I don't think that the other occupants of the dorm were best pleased, but I really didn't like any of them so I wasn't too fussed!
The next day, we had arranged to meet at nine oclock in the kitchen. However, the boys were not there when we came downstairs so we had to go to their dorm and yell at them to wake them up :)
What we had intended to be a relaxing day because of how tired we were, turned out to be the most tiring!
On an impuse, we thought to climb a mountain, which was really quite alot higher than we had been the previous day, but this wasn't even the start of it! At what we thought was the highest point around, we noticed that there was another peak, higher up and a bit further on. It turned out to be alot further than we thought, and we ended up wading across moorland and jumping across patches of mud, then lost the path completely! We wandered round for a while, and eventually went in what we thought was the right direction, right down the side of a waterfall! It was the right direction luckily as we found out when we finally arrived at the bottom. Then, more walking, to a place called Watendlath which was apparently only half a mile away according to an old man we passed. It was more like two miles, and took ages!
In this "village" - more like a couple of buildings..- there was what appeared to be a tea rooms! How relieved we were at the thought of a nice hot drink and a scone!
It was a very bizzare place though! The sign for it was behind a tree and facing the wrong way, and the inside of the shop had no lights on! The couple that worked there looked like they had stepped straight out of the League of Gentlemen, so we were a bit apprehensive or staying, we did though, and whilst waiting for our drinks, noticed that the shop had in it some faded posters and postcards, a couple of tatty books, and a bottle of baby lotion! Very strange indeed!
The tea was rather dissapointing, as was the scone because they had run out of jam, and then we had to face walking all the way back to the youth hostel!
We were absolutely shatted after getting back, and literally couldn't walk properly!
But all in all, we had had a fantastic time, really enjoyed ourselves and intend to visit more youth hostels in the near future :)
Congratulations if you have just read all of this rambling, and now here are some photographs from our holiday -
1. The waterfall behind the youth hostel
2. Me and Jonny, most pleased with discovering the field after our first walk!
3. Be jealous of our fort :)
4. A nice view of a mountain from the garden
5. Ashness Bridge
6. Elliot looking slightly concerned about the sheep
7. The highest point of our second walk, which turned out to be nothing compared to the next one!
8. We were perplexed for some time about this. As you can see, the lemon/melon was as well
9. A lovely sunset :)
10. Hello awkward photo on top of a mountain ^_^
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