Three Little Kiwis Have a Special Treat

Tuesday July 20th

They tell me the bed is fantastic. Using the mattress from the top bunk, downstairs, was inspired. Apart from the problem with the fridge, everything is fine. When they arrived in London in the middle of a heat wave, Mary foolishly thought it was summer and nearly refused Mo’s offer of a duvet. In the end she took it. Is she pleased now? It was very cosy and comfortable last night.
After Breakfast they drove me out to the village car park in Ravenglass. Raqvenglass is the only coastal village in the National Park and was for a busy port for 400 years. They left me parked and took all three little kiwis for special treat. Ka Pai is going to tell the story today.

Today we all went on the Ravneglass Eskdale Railway. After buying return tickets for the cute little train, they took me right up to the engine and put me near the funnel and took my photo. A man jumped out of the train to photograph me as well; he said it was an opportunity not to miss. Whatever did he mean? He must have seen my rugby jersey and ball as he started going on about the All Blacks blowing the South Africans away in their last two games. I got back into the carriage with the big people and my other two little friends and soon we were off racing through the country side in little carriages pulled by a little steam engine called “River Irt” made in 1894.

This railway was originally built in the 1870s to carry iron ore from the workings above the village of Boot down to the coast at Ravenglass. It is now England’s oldest and most scenic 15 inch heritage railway. It ends up at the foot of England’s highest mountains; the Scafell Range. (They are hills really)

When we got to the station, (the trip took about 40 minutes) the big people bought a pamphlet with walks from the station. We all felt pretty good about this, knowing we would be carried the whole way in the backpack. After coffee they set out to walk to the Eskdale Corn Mill in Boot. This is one of the oldest water corn mills in England, dating back to before the earliest records in the area of 1294 and now the last remaining working mill in the Lake District. Besides being a fully working mill, (the miller was present) it is a museum. It is very quaint. All the signs are hand written, many on pieces of cardboard box, or off cuts of wood. One very amusing sign was resting on a piece of machinery. It said, “W hat does this do?” PTO. Mary turned the sign over and it said “Blessed are the Cheesemakers”, Please turn back. It was a cheese press.
Outside the mill was a sign, Beware of the Cat! (Stanley). We never got to see Stanley so we couldn’t beware.

Behind the mill were some mighty noisy crashing waterfalls called the Whillan Beck Falls. It has been raining heaps around here so they were a raging torrent. Mary took lots of video and Alan took photos. Alan then said he wanted to walk further up the road to see some even better falls. So off they set up a big hill. By this time the rain had finally stopped and the sun had come out and it got really hot. They seemed to be getting no closer to anything and it was all uphill when Alan pointed out some falls on a hill miles away and said may be that is them. Mary grabbed the map and pointed out that the falls by the mill were the only ones in this vicinity and that the other “magnificent waterfall“ was at least 7 miles in another direction. She was not impressed. We kept our little heads low in the bag and enjoyed the rest. The climb up the hill had provided them with a marvellous view, so they had their cut lunch up there before walking down.

They did do a further walk to a very small church in a very unlikely place; St Catherines’ Church Eskdale. It dates back to the early 12th Century with a very old font.

We all went back to the station to wait for the next train. We got our photo taken in a Thomas the Tank engine ride. (See Rosemary we did get to meet Thomas the Tank Engine) then it was back to Ravenglass . We sat in the very back carriage so that Mary could get snatches of video of the engine as it went around the bend in front. This time our train was pulled by Northern Rock made in 1976. We walked back to get into Hemi and thankfully he was safe and unharmed. We all set out towards Keswick.

When we got to the campsite at Keswick it was obviously flooded. The man from the campsite came out to speak to us and said he wasn’t taking anyone else in as he had 85 sites under water and there was rain forecast again for tonight and he may have to evacuate people during the night. He kindly gave Alan very good directions to another site about 4miles away. They found it easily. It is Scotgate holiday Park at Braithwaite. It is very modern and very flash. It has the best camp shop ever. No matter what you forgot to bring they have got it. Nice Cafe Restaurant as well.