Lowther Castle.

So...we also visited the gardens at Lowther Castle. It's a while since we have been there and it was great to see the work that has gone on in the meantime. It is well worth a visit and we will definitely go back again.

Countess Summerhouse...

Roman Bath

The Rock Garden...

Japanese Garden...

Rose Garden Summerhouse...

In the Rose Garden...

Jubilee Summerhouse

The Lowther Valley...

Jack Croft's Summerhouse...

The sound of the bull frogs calling in the pond was amazing!

Magnificent Beech

Idiots! What were they thinking?!!!

The Queen's Head, Tirril...

Long Meg and Lacy's Caves.

So...we had a bit more time off over the weekend and made the most of it, firstly heading off for a walk around Little Salkeld to revisit Long Meg and her Daughters and Lacy's caves by the River Eden.

Alfred.

So...we are watching Alfred 'Down Under' as he heads inland finally. He will shortly cross the coast north of Brisbane below Caloundra as a category 1 storm and quickly weaken into a low. Most of the heavy rain is further south and causing flooding already. Stanthorpe does not appear to have had much rain yet but that might change as Alfred heads further inland. Here are some screenshots of his approach. Frogknot is where the black pin is.

Update! (11.03.25)

So... it looks like we escaped the worst of the weather with Frogknot only getting about 17mms of rain. There has been a lot of flooding nearer the coast and in Brisbane. The Clarence down at Maclean rose up but did not cross the road under Tracy's property but she had 300 mms of rain. Some areas further east had over 900 mms of rain!

The Fell.

So...after 'The Bay' and 'The Caravan' we were back in Penrith. We had time for a wander around town and the next day went for a walk on Moor Divock, near Pooley Bridge and Ullswater in the Lake District.

Ullswater

High Street, the old Roman Road

The Cockpit...prehistoric stone circle...

Fell ponies...

On Heughscar Hill

Penrith

The Caravan.

So...after Morecambe, the next night Will and I stayed in a Romany Caravan near Appleby. It was on a farm by Langton Beck and was 'off grid', in that there were no mains facilities. The lights were powered by a car battery, the toilet, described as 'composting', was basically a bottle and a bag in a bucket. The cooker was electric but you had to put on a generator to use that. Outside there was a wood fired hot tub.

The generator wouldn't stay on and kept switching off. Luckily there was also a camping gas stove outside so we were able to cook our tea.

Once again we were lucky with the weather and we spent a lovely two hours under a clear starry sky in the hot tub but it also meant that it got very cold in the night. There was a heater but we needed the generator to use that and of course that wasn't working.

To top it all off I ended up with a terrible stomach ache and spent much of the night venturing out into the freezing temperatures to visit the bag in a bucket. We woke in the morning to find the window iced up on the inside!

You could say it was an experience but one that we wouldn't want to do again, well, not at the beginning of March!

Frosty morning

Hot tub at dawn

Not a composting toilet.

Before...

After the frost!