Monday April 21st 2008 Whitehaven and Ennerdale

We decided to combine shopping and scenery, so drove up on back roads round the western side of Derwentwater, then west towards the coast through Newlands pass.
This is one of the gentlest of the lakeland passes, and it also has the least traffic, and some great parking spots where the view is worth photographing. I had been hoping for sunshine to pick out the wonderful forms of the landscape, however thhe weather was a bit dull, nevertheless I took several images anyway:
This is one of my favourite views of the valley, and one of the flatter sections of the pass too, once past this there is a fairly steep rise before the immense hill that sweeps down the mountainside to the village of Buttermere, then on through Buttermere and across via Lowes Water and Frizington to Whitehaven, where we parked at Tesco's on the front, had a fish and chip lunch in a local cafe, then walked through the town centre to find a craft shop as Pat wanted some decouppage print sheets to cut out to make birthday cards suitable for men.
At the end of the main street is a square, and in the centre a small metal pagoda, with these bronze statues: very lifelike and impressive, presumably of two young fishermen from what appears to be the 1960's, one is seated and tying a knot

We enjoyed our walk back along the extensive Marina filled with pleasure craft and passed several strange bits of street architecture or follies, including this rather strange cycle rack made of Stainless steel in the shape of fish.
There are also tiled patterns in the roads and pavements related to fishing, and metal models of nautical knots mounted at intervals in the pavement on the quayide.
All in all the place has plenty of character, do visit sometime.
We spent quite some time looking around before shopping getting back to the car park to do our shopping at Tesco.

Once this was done it was inland to Ennerdale as the sun had come out, though it was still rather misty. We had a cuppa and a banana on a seat taking in the view before Pat went back to the car to do her "decouppage" cutting out, and I went for a walk down by the lakeside.
To my delight there were Peacock butterflies flitting about, and with difficulty I managed to get a decent shot of one, which I have posted on Ephotozine as my entry for today, and it gained 11 votes.

Despte the fact that the sky was a little devoid of detail and there was a mist, I did take several shot of the scenery of course, who wouldn't?
Ennerdale is definitely a "must see" for anyone with an interest in good landscape views, and of course for the more vigorous there is a circular walk right round the lake.

When we got back to the van we ate the sandwiches we had packed up intending to have for lunch before we spotted the fish and chip cafe: then as the sun had come out I nipped out in the car to take my favourite view down onto the house on the promontory: for once the lighting was right!