Thursday 2/5/19

Rob writing. Maryann woke Thursday still feeling unwell so I decided to change our plans to allow her to rest and recover. We were both disappointed but with more bad weather coming we thought of hiring a car so we could continue to accommodation we had previously booked as possibly the best course of action.

We investigated other options “packhorse” who will carry your bags but Maryann was not up to walking far and will need a few days to recover. So missed out on our night at the blacksail yha and it was 4 bus changes and 6 hours to our next booked accommodation at Borrowdale.

So car hire we did but nothing available til Friday so that mean’t another day in Cleator.

To make the most of the time here we caught a bus into Whitehaven just before lunch.

Ennerdale Country House & Hotel

Lolly shop Whitehaven

Lonsdale Castle whitehaven

We walked the streets of Whitehaven and harbour and bought a few supplies from the local stores – Aldi; a lot more choices than ours including alcohol and Home Supplies for a corkscrew for a bottle of French Wine (from Aldi) I found that needed a corkscrew! Lots of Australian wine on offer including Hardy’s, Banrock (Kay!) and Penfolds. After shopping we sat in the town square and had some lunch, Maryann feed most of her roll to a big fat Seagull!

We then walked a bit more visiting the Yellow Earl Bar, named after the Earl of Lowther. Quite a chap apparently, who inherited the family mining fortune which he then squandered on gambling, drink, women and bad business decisions. He always wore yellow and was quite a character despite leaving his family in debt they have never recovered from. The owner of the Yellow Earl, Mr McLean, enjoyed recounting the Earls many business ventures including founding the AA because his Rolls Royce kept breaking down and of course his many misdemeanor’s also!

Across the road was Michael Moon’s bookstore.

Maryann stopped to chat to Mr Moon about the curious store sign and 40 mins later and many stories about his books, we realised we had missed our bus and had to wait another hour for the next one so another lap of the harbour and then back to the Yellow Earl to wait as the day began to cool off.

Back to Cleator and to the local pub – The Brooke, for dinner and then back to the hotel for a long soak in the tub for both of us.

Looking on the bright side, a good day considering we had to change our plans, enjoyable and an opportunity to see Whitehaven and have experiences we wouldn’t otherwise have had.