On the eve of the great adventure...

We are gathered in St.Bees at The Queen's Hotel for dinner and a drink. It's now 9.45pm, and it's still quite light out - one of the delights of summer in the more northern latitudes. It's raining of course but we are not daunted! Well only a little bit.

Vidya - Arrived today in Whitehaven in the pouring rain. The station was closed and no taxis or phones in sight. Fortunately i had my rain gear in my rucksack so I tested it out. Whitehaven was the unfortunate site of a mass murder a few days ago when a psycho taxi driver shot 12 people.....so there was definitely a strange vibe in the air. Met a schoolkid with a suitcase at Tescos next to the train station and found out he had ordered a taxi to St Bees, so I hitched a ride. Our taxi driver knew the psycho-killer well and told me he was a really nice guy(must have been having a really bad day!). I made it to our guest-house a few minutes before David and Jo. We weighed our luggage prompted by our friendly landlord and found out we are all overweight(what's new?...I find it impossible to travel light and am bringing my goji berries, bee-pollen, hair-dryer and gazillion supplements and other essential items). Tomorrow we will find out how lenient sherpavan.com are about a few extra kilos:).

David - Jo and I drove up to St. Bees today with my brother and mother from Preston (my hometown in northwest England). It was a 2.5 hour drive, and the last 1.5 hours was in torrential rain! Hah! - the Lake District (not for nothing did it get that name!) is trying to intimidate us already! I could see Jo's face turning to dismay through the rear-view mirror. I had tried to tell her what the weather is like up here, but apparently it hadn't sunk in. "I see what you mean now" she said. Too late!
With the help of an iPhone we managed to locate our accommodations for the night and met the kindly proprietors - Craig and Linda. Linda immediately pointed out that the damp looking ceiling in our room (which we hadn't noticed!) was caused by "a sweating chimney". The mind filled with strange images in an attempt to grasp this architectural feature. Yes, see what I mean?!
The beer here is good (Jennings bitter). Plenty more beer reports to come in the days to follow!

Jo - what more to say? We are off to bed soon to get a good nights sleep before setting off tomorrow for Ennerdale Bridge -a mere 14 miles....but the carrot at the other end, apart from taking off our hiking boots, is a HOT TUB!!! It had better not be out of order!

So...onward until our next blog tomorrow - if they have wifi in Ennerdale!