23rd April 2008 A coastal Day for a change

We woke to the sound of rain for the first time this holiday and spent the morning lazing around, and in my case on "Bridge chat" on the Bridge camera user group website. By Half past eleven it had cleared up, so we drove into Keswick and had a delicious lunch at Booths (the local supermarket) then went up to photograph the Castlerigg Stone circle.

It was obvious that the clouds were clearing from the west, meaning the coast, and hanging around on the hills, so off we went to the coast, passing though Whitehaven and stopping at Maryport.
Although I had visited before this was the first time we bothered to look around and i was surprised how much of interest was there.
Apparently the place got started when the Romans used it as a supply port and base for Hadrians Wall, but after they left it declined and was actually part of Scotland for hundreds of years, it came alive again with the industrial revolution when it grew on the coal and metal items trade to Ireland
After trade declined things went downhill, though now the new Marina and Steamboat Museum show that it is making a comeback!
There are actually two parallel harbours in Maryport, the inner one is busy with fishing boats and some historic vessels, including this Dundee steam tug being renovated by volunteers

And the altogether grander outer harbour which is taken up by a large Marina.
We really enjoyed the walk, at times there was shelter and the sun was pretty warm, it was a much bigger place the we expected, and we were pretty pleased when the car came into sight.