One of the things that we really enjoyed doing whilst we were up in the Lake District back in March was a drive north along the coast of the Solway from Maryport to Siloth.
We woke up on Wednesday to this as the view from the balcony of Sale View ...
... and the forecast wasn't the best so we decided we would go out for a bit of a drive, interspersed with short wanders.
As we'd loved Maryport the first time we couldn't resist a return visit and were hoping against hopes that this time the tide would be in. We weren't disappointed ...
It was just as lovely the second time, but very different with the tide in. We even managed to see some sunshine ...
We couldn't leave without a second visit to the cafe at the aquarium for lunch and, again, this was just as nice the second time around.
As we headed out from Maryport to pick up the coast road I managed to get a snap of this mosaic bench, which I'd wanted to capture on our last visit but hadn't been able to as there were people sitting on it ...
Maybe, just maybe ... this year will be the year that I complete a mosaic project of my own.
From Maryport we picked up the road that took us north to Siloth. It ran right alongside the coast and we were hoping for some good views across the Firth.
We had a bit of a caching route planned so our stop offs were determined by what we were hunting for and our first port of call was the Crosscanoby Carr Nature Reserve where, as well as finding what we were looking for, we came across some real signs of spring trying to make an appearance ...
Our next planned stop was literally just around the corner, where we were planing on exploring the excavated remains of Roman Milefortlet 21, built around 122-128 AD. This fortlet formed part of a chain of coastal defences extending westward from the end of Hadrian’s Wall, probably as far as Ravenglass. However, the weather was against us and the heavens absolutely opened so we hightailed it straight back to the car and carried on our journey northwards.
We followed the coast road, with a slight detour off through Hailsworth to pick up another cache, safely watched over by the Hailsworth Pixies ...
We were soon back on the coast road for our next stop at Mawbray Banks, an area of outstanding natural beauty, near to the village of Mawbray.
It wasn't raining, for now, and we had a short wander along the boardwalks and watched the weather rolling in pretty ominously ...
It was pretty impressive, we felt the temperature drop and the wind pick up and just knew that it was time to head back to the car.
A short way further along the road and we were out again. This time wandering along a sandy track alongside a golf course. The storm hadn't quite hit yet and the colour of the gorse against the grey sky was really vibrant ...
Our next stop was Siloth, the extent of our drive. Our first port of call was the lighthouse, which is really unusual and not like any other lighthouse we've come across. We managed to get a few pictures ...
... before the storm finally hit and this time we didn't manage to dodge it, so decided to just embrace it in all its glory ...
Back in the warmth of the car, we parked up outside the church in the main street to wait for the worst of the rain to pass.
Siloth is a lovely little place, vast wide cobbled streets, with lots of open space ...
The rain didn't last for long and we managed to explore a bit more ...
... before it was time for a final pit stop ...
We would love to have had more time to explore Siloth as it did look really lovely and there was a cosy little coffee shop on the main street that looked like it would be worth a visit. It's somewhere we would definitely come back to if we are back up in the area.
For now, it was time to head back to Sale Fell for an evening cosying up in front of the log burner.
I think that's pretty much it from our Lake District holiday. We had a really lovely week. Bassenthwaite was a brilliant location for exploring parts of the area we hadn't seen before. Sale Fell was the perfect holiday cottage. It's somewhere I can definitely see us returning to in the not so distant future π
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