Muncaster Castle

Friday 11^th May 2012

The weather is improving, intermittent showers with some sunshine in the afternoon. The temperature increased during the day from a rather chilly 6° when we got in the car to about 10° by mid afternoon.

We decided to drive to Muncaster castle for our first stop this morning. Muncaster Castle is home to the Pennington family, who still live in the castle and whose ancestors have been at Muncaster for more than 800 years.

The World Owl Centre is located in the grounds of the castle and is home to over 50 different species of owls from all over the world. Spent some time touring the castle and admiring the owls.

My Kingdom for an egg

Next stop was Coniston Water, the lake on which Sir Donald Campbell was killed piloting Bluebird in a world water speed record attempt.

The sun had made an appearance so we decided to do a tour of the lake on the steam yacht Gondola. The Gondola is a rebuilt Victorian steam powered yacht that is over 100 year old. The trip took 45 minutes to travel half way down the lake and return. The cruise was excellent (steam power is very quiet) with beautiful views, along with intermittent showers and sunshine.

Arrived back in Keswick about 5:00PM and went for a short walk down to Derwent Water before enjoying a great meal at Keswick Inn.

On Coniston Water