The Lake District: Keswick

I knew when I applied for my UK working visa last year the timing could have been better. With the global economy the way it was, a smarter choice would have been to stay in my job in Australia - not try to look for one in Britain. But here I am anyway. After a few, admittedly half-hearted, weeks of job hunting, one position really caught my eye. The youth hostel in Keswick, a town in England's Lake District, needed an assistant.

The position was advertised as a contract until the end of September, but some shuffling with existing staff meant they only needed someone for two weeks. Two weeks of living in a gorgeous little town in a beautiful area filled with big blue lakes and rolling green hills? Pick me, pick me!!!.

So that's how I find myself here in Keswick. A head's up: it's pronounced Kessick. It has a population of about 5000 and it's a mostly older demographic. The houses are beautiful and it's a B&B paradise. It's also chock-full of tourists. The Lake District is very popular with walkers, as there's a lot of mountains here, including England's highest, Scafell Pike. I'm living in a house next to the hostel right on the River Greta. And when the clouds clear, I look up to see big, fat mountains. It's beautiful.

After just one day of work I was rewarded with three off. The forecast for the weekend was a bit iffy so I didn't make plans and instead headed out when the skies cleared.



Keswick sits at one end of Derwentwater, a lovely big lake. On Saturday I walked through town to the riverbank with the intention of having an ice cream and relaxing by the water. One of my favourite things about this countryside is the colour. The paddocks are so green. In some my photos it looks a bit fake, but that's how it is. There is a small hilly paddock that separates the town centre from the river bank with sheep in it, but also a gate where the public can walk in. Quite a few people had taken in picnic chairs and or blankets, just sitting overlooking the water. Dogs were running around but none bothered the sheep.

I bought some food for the ducks and sat on one of the small jetties throwing it into the water. Then I followed one of the walking tracks around the river's edge. The skies had cleared up and the threat of rain had been replaced with sun. The lake edges are rather jagged so quite often I would come to a little tip that looked out over the water. Then I would decide perhaps I would walk on just a bit further. This continued for a while. About 4km. Most of the track was flat, although a bit sloppy from the morning's rain. I'd be walking along the water for a few hundred metres, then through the bush, appear at a gate and head across a field, then back to the water. I eventfully settled on Lodore Falls as my destination, which is nearly at the other end of the lake.



The recent rain meant the falls were quite full. Apparently they dry up a lot when the weather is fine. I doubt that's a common occurrence though. I considered walking right round the lake, but I was without a map and it looked  a bit more hilly on the other side. I didn't want to risk biting of more than I could walk before it got dark. Most of the walkers I had met on the trail were quite well equipped. I had a camera, a water bottle and half a bag of duck food.

I retraced my steps: along the little stone fences, past the canoeists taking a break on the shore, overtook the seasoned hikers with their backpacks and walking poles and finally reached the ducks, with whom I shared the last of the duck food.

Hello my name is Megan and I'm a bibliophile

BIB • LI • O • PHILE (noun): A person who collects or has a great love of books.

The above is a relatively new term for me, but it has become apparent that a predisposition to sunburn and  a quick wit are not the only things I have inherited from my father.

My friend David, who along with his wife Amy have become my family in Scotland, recently took me to visit some of the sights in Carlisle, one of the major towns on the northern border of England. We visited the cathedral and walked around the grounds of the castle before he took me to a second-hand book shop. Talk about saving the best till last. To sum up how I feel in second-hand book stores, I'll use the image below from bookfessions.tumblr.com:



This mainly applies to second-hand book stores - new stores just don't have the same appeal, largely because you know what you'll find. And if you can't find it, they'll order it. But old book stores, well, you could find anything. I didn't realise I felt this strongly about such stores until David took me to Bookcase. My expression at the thought of exploring its 30 rooms of books left David fearing I was going to have a heart attack. It was just too much to take in.

Second-hand books stores are magical places. I still remember the crammed store in New Zealand where I found two gorgeous copies of Winnie the Pooh books for $15 and the Most Beautiful Bookshop in the World in Venice. Scotland has been particularly fun - Edinburgh has so many. After about six weeks in the country my book collection is at 16. I think. I lose track, especially with the Agatha Christie's because they are little and I forget to count the copies I'm carrying in my handbag for emergencies.

My reaction to Bookcase left David and Amy wondering why they hadn't told me about Wigtown - a town filled with second-hand bookshops a short drive away. They weren't the only ones wondering why they hadn't told me this.



My parents are avid readers. The impressive collection we had at the farm was packed into boxes when we moved to Hobart. Those books remain in boxes under the house yet the bookcase is full again. Lets blame Dad for that. My own collection revolves around three authors: Agatha Christie, Jeffrey Archer and John Grisham - the latter caused a phone call home from my Grade 5 teacher who was concerned when I took a copy of The Client to school. Beyond those three you'll find anything from Harry Potter to a faded copy of Edmund Hillary's High Adventure, the story of his ascent of Everest that I found buried on a table of old books at a market. I've moved on from the little white bookcase filled with Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High I had as a teenager.

[caption id="attachment_2642" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Wigtown"][/caption]

On Saturday, a day before I was due to go to Edinburgh to meet one of my best friends, Amy and David were also contemplating a trip to the city to see the Fringe Festival. I had a shower and came back downstairs to be told I had to pack a bag and would be taken Edinburgh the following afternoon. I was then driven to Wigtown, although it took about half an hour to work that out. Since I don't know the area well, I had to wait for a sign of some sort to know what direction we were heading.



There are now about 10 second-hand bookshops in Wigtown, and most of those are in the main street. We started at The Bookshop, Scotland's largest second-hand store. Despite the claim to fame, it isn't actually that big, compared to others I've explored. But it was glorious all the same. It's always a good sign when you need ladders to reach the books at the top. Wary of not amassing too great of a collection while I'm overseas, my purchases are restricted to Agatha Christie (I'm on a mission to get all 66 novels and 15 short story collections) and the earliest editions of the Winnie the Pooh books I can find and afford. Of course there are exceptions, but I'm only human.

We fitted in one more store before closing time and then checked into our B&B, the gorgeous Hillcrest House, and drove out to the Isle of Whithorn for dinner. In the morning it was back into the bookshops, the last of which was At the Sign of the Dragon. This was on the outskirts of town in the garage of a house. The owner specialises in fantasy, sci fi and, lucky for me, crime! His Agatha Christie selection rivalled mine and I picked up some I don't think I have already.

[caption id="attachment_2641" align="aligncenter" width="584" caption="Isle of Whithorn"][/caption]

We left just after midday to make it to Edinburgh in time. But there's a book festival late next month so I don't think that will be my last visit to Wigtown.

My inner Jane and Go Ape

In Vancouver I lived on the 14th floor and got nervous going up in the elevator. I have vivid memories of standing on the 5-metre diving platform at the Burnie Pool for what seemed like an eternity before climbing back down the ladder. I did the same on the 3-metre board. I don't like peering over the edge of bridges. In short, I don't like heights. It's not a life-affecting problem. Sometimes I like the thrill and adrenaline rush - to an extent. But there is a fine line between a fun and get-me-the-hell-down-from-here.

As part of my adventure with Wandering Duck, we finished the weekend at Go Ape near Buxton, one of many Go Ape adventure rope courses. I didn't know much before we arrived. Something to do with trees and ropes was as detailed as my intel went. When the afternoon started with a harness and a safety briefing, well, I got a bit nervous.



Go Ape turned out to be a ropes course through the tree tops, so my intel was correct, just vague. The course at Buxton is split into five zones, the first being a very simple walk between two trees and a small zipline as an introduction. From there it gets harder and once you climb up that first tree, the only way down is to complete the rest of the course for that zone. The motto is "always stay attached" for the simple, yet terrifying, truth that if you don't, you fall out of the tree. And these are not shrubs.

The first few links were OK - except for a bit of a hold up at the first Tarzan swing while I found the nerve to jump off the platform and swing into the net. Zone 2 was also completed with little drama, but in the middle of Zone 3 I decided this would be it. My nerves were shot and I'd become extremely sarcastic - which happens when I need a distraction from my current situation.



The problem is each zone finishes with a zipline. I would be content with my decision that I needed to get on the ground for good and then finish the zipline with an adrenaline spike and a big grin, keen to go again. Zone 4 was particularly tricky: one of the more challenging links involved dangling ropes with stirrups at the end for your feet. I skipped that one in favour of a slightly easier link. My sarcastic nature taking over, my heart racing and my knees tired from trembling, at the end of Zone 4 I was done and happy to stay down. But peer pressure is a sneaky bugger. While watching everyone climb the tree to start Zone 5 I got talked into climbing up as well. Luckily there was an alternative to the bigger Tarzan swing, which given my issues at the baby swing, I felt I should take.



A few trees along from the Tarzan swing there was a bit of a hold up. Only three people can be on each platform and I was waiting not-so-patiently at one particular tree that kept moving. It had the Tarzan-swing jumpers landing on the net pulling in one direction, and the link ahead in the other. I was not comfortable. I. Needed. To. Get. Down.

Unfortunately, there is only one way down and that was to finish the course. Ideally I would have raced through it like a monkey, but I couldn't until the people ahead of me went. So I was stuck. Stuck and imaging what use the harness would be if the thing I was attached to fell down. Eventually I made it to the final zipline, although even the zipline-buzz couldn't save my rather shaken mood. However, I took some comfort in the fact that I'd pushed through and finished the entire course.

The moral of the story? If heights make you nervous, don't climb trees.



Once again thanks to Claire for the pics.

 

Cruising the Peak District

There are more than 2000 miles of canals in the UK. This information can be found on Wikipedia, or from my friendly canal boat captains, Mark and Ruth - and I prefer the personal touch. Mark and Ruth own Wandering Duck, a 69-foot narrowboat from which they help people explore England's Peak District. The Peak District is east of Manchester and thought to be the second most visited National Park. Now that tidbit did come from Wikipedia. And in case you're wondering, the most visited is Mt Fuji National Park in Japan.



Journalism has its perks, such as those rare occasions when one is tasked with doing something cool just to write about it. In this particular case that lucky journalist was my friend Claire, one of several ex-Advocate journos in the UK. Claire was offered a weekend away on Wandering Duck to write an article for TNT Magazine. And she got to take a friend. Turns out there are also perks to being unemployed and therefore free for last-minute adventures. I held off on this post until Claire's article was published.

The weekend started with a pint of cider in a small pub in Romiley. A car tyre had got cosy with the propeller and the boat wasn't going anywhere until it was off. In the end we caught a taxi to where the boat was moored, arriving just a few minutes after Mark had stripped to his undies to get into the river to pull the tyre free. We saw the photo though.

So about Wandering Duck. Ruth and Mark have worked in hostels and wanted to buy one. But they don't come cheap so instead the couple bought the canal boat and turned it into a floating backpackers. Some nights they moor and open it simply as accommodation and other times escort people through the canals. We're doing the latter. Claire and I are joined by five others for the two-night trip. The boat is called Rakiraki, which is Maori for duck. It's a little nod to the time Mark and Ruth spent in New Zealand. Rakiraki has four sets of bunks, two bathrooms, a double bed up one end (Mark and Ruth live on the boat) and a kitchen/lounge. It's snug.

The tyre held things up a bit so we spent the night moored at Romiley. Ruth prepared an awesome meal so we tucked into lasagne and cheesecake. There's an Honesty Bar so we marked down what we drank to settle at the end of the trip. It's easy to get carried away when all you need to get a drink is a pen. The drinking also didn't help our efforts at Jenga.

In the morning we are up early. There are 16 locks waiting for us. And these aren't the automatic, push-a-button-and-wait style I am familiar with after France. These require a lot of, winding and pushing and pulling. It's a good way to work off the chocolate brownies Ruth made at the request of Tim, one of the other guests from Manchester.

After the locks and two bridges, we relax with a cuppa and a brownie at the front of the boat. Every now and then we hear some traffic, but the noise is usually limited to a few cows in the paddocks and dogs out for a walk with their owners along the canal. The countryside is just what English countryside is supposed to look like (according to BBC classics such as Heartbeat). Rolling green paddocks, sheep and cows, stone fences and cute cottages. It's what I expect of Britain and I don't understand how people can visit London and say they've seen the UK - you haven't seen anything and you're missing out.



We're lucky with the weather. A few little drops which caused me to pull my hood over my head for a few minutes, but that's all. Barely even jacket weather. Despite it being a weekend we didn't pass many other boats on the move. But there were plenty moored on the side looking quite at home.



On Saturday night we moored near New Mills, a nearby town that we walk out to. It's a nice walk and we pass an old mill of some sort. It's a gorgeous building and when I win the lottery I shall buy it and turn it into....something. When we get back Ruth has a casserole waiting. We all turn to the Honesty Bar again and this time it's a game of Bamboozled.

After just 24 hours on the boat it felt like we'd been away for a week. The locks that we'd gone through in the morning felt days ago, not hours. I think this is what relaxation feels like.

[caption id="attachment_2614" align="aligncenter" width="960" caption="A gorgeous old mill we found on our walk"][/caption]

In the morning we were up early and docked about 11am at Bugsworth Basin, the boat's home. We'd covered 10 miles, but since the speed limit was about 4mph and we had all those locks, you can see why it took us so long.

A big thank you to Claire for the photos. I was still sans camera on this trip.

The fun and games of the Olympics

[caption id="attachment_2565" align="aligncenter" width="584" caption="Me and Claire at the Hyde Park Live Site"][/caption]

If you're not very interested in sport, then I apologise for the recent content of Pegs on the Line. And I suppose, in advance, for this post. But then the Olympics aren't really sport. Well of course there is sport, but there's a lot more to it.

A few years ago, when considering my ever-so-vague plans to move to the UK one day, I decided that to be there for the 2012 Olympics in London would be pretty cool. Those vague plans remained just that and while I thought perhaps I might end up in London at that time, it wasn't something I worked towards.

Then, after a quick decision just two days earlier, I found myself sitting in a pub in the London suburb of Shepards Bush watching the Queen jump out of a helicopter.

Watching the opening ceremony in London surrounded by Aussie's might seem a bit silly, but the Olympics is, ultimately, country against country. So to me it was fitting. While a few references to British culture were lost on the audience, most went down a treat - Mary Poppins, Mr Bean, Mike Oldfield and Paul McCartney. It helped that Aussies love British humour. Some countries must have been utterly baffled by the odd guy at the piano.

The next day Claire, a friend from Tassie, and I caught the train to Richmond to check out the men's cycling road race. The sight of the crowds staking their claim along course brought back memories of the Tour de France, which finished the week before. The competitor list was also familiar - most having competed in le Tour. We hadn't got moving early enough to see the riders pass in the morning, but instead saw them come back through about 3pm.

During the wait we got talking to some British cycling fans who were very keen to see Mark Cavendish do well. The infrequent reports we had while on the course suggested Aussie Stuart O'Grady was part of a breakaway but Cav, the rest of the British team and the remaining Australians were back in the peloton. That was still the case when they went by.



The riders had 15km to go once they passed us so we headed back to the main street to find a pub to watch the finish. We came across a gathering of people outside a house and peered in to find the owners had opened their front window giving the crowd a view of the TV in the living room. It was there we learnt Alexander Vinokourov had won. He rode for Team Astana in le Tour and was one of the riders to watch the Euro 2012 final in the hotel bar with us back in Liege.

I later heard about 1million people turned out to watch the road race. The large turn out would have been partly because it's one of only a handful of free events and also the huge boost cycling has received thanks to Bradley Wiggins' le Tour win.



Back in the city we walked to Hyde Park to visit the live site. Part of Hyde Park has been sectioned off and filled with five huge screens to show various sports. Entry is free although it involved one of the most thorough security checks I've experienced.





Rain was forecast for the weekend, but we didn't see any sign of that while we stretched out on the bark. On top of the live streaming of events, there will also be two performances each day. Tom Jones was originally due to perform on Saturday night, but he was sick so instead we got Will Young, a winner of Britian's Pop Idol series 10 years ago. I was pretty disappointed Tom wasn't singing, even if the first I'd heard of him performing at all was the sentence "Tom Jone's isn't singing anymore". But Will Young was entertaining, certainly enough to have me nearly doubled over in laughing fits. He started the gig in a horrible Hawaiian shirt with the promise of a second outfit later. I thought anything would be an improvement, but I was proved wrong when he stripped down to a white singlet and undies.

With my trip being so last minute I wasn't in a position to get tickets to any events. The only ones left aren't cheap and the release of more tickets after the "seating fiasco" occurred when I was back in Scotland. But being in London was good fun anyway. The Brits have adopted an extremely patriotic approach to the whole event - it's Team GB first, London 2012 second - but just as their enthusiasm in Paris for the last day of le Tour was great fun, it's hard not to get caught up in it here.

As for the city becoming a commuter's nightmare? Not so much. The Tube was perhaps as empty as I've ever seen it. The signage was been improved, although it was pretty good anyway, and you can't look puzzled for more than three seconds before a volunteer asks if they can help. Nicely done, London.