Hiking and camping in The Lakes District!

I have been wanting to go to The Lakes District National Park for quite a while. It's in the north of England, near the boarder with Scotland. According to photos, it looks absolutely beautiful and a great outdoors destination so I knew that I would have to see it. Over the last long weekend holiday for Lee we did just that! Also, Lee told me that has never done "real" camping before, in a tent! Nor had he done long hikes (I've gone backpacking). I was super excited to introduce him to a few new things that I love. I found a great campsite that didn't allow any campers which is just what I wanted. It has clean bathrooms and great views. What else could you want in a campsite? So Friday morning we headed out.

The drive took longer than expected because of traffic. Neither of us are used to the amount of traffic they have here but it is an island and there are only so many different ways to get places. When we got close to the campsite, we headed off of the motorway and onto some interesting roads... It was at least a two lane for a while but there were some major inclines/declines like 12%! I was very glad that Lee was driving. Other than that, it was okay until we turned onto a one lane road. Oh gosh. Can you say hairpin turns on one hundred foot drop offs with no guard rails? And of course, I was on the side of the car with the drop offs so I was slightly terrified. Also, remember that it was a one lane? That was fun. But somehow we survived the harrowing journey and arrived at the camp.

We set up tent and started to set up camp and realized we forgot a lighter for the grill. Crap. We had to head back on my terrifying road to the local store. Luckily it was close so crisis adverted. After setting everything up we decided to head out for a bit of a hike. We found a bunch of trails just a short walk away from our campsite so it was great fun. On the trails, you had to be careful because there were sheep everywhere! And they poop. A lot. But other than that, it was a great time just exploring around. Since there was no light pollution, the stars were amazing! We didn't get any pictures because we were too huddled up inside the tent but oh well, next time!

Going over the fence!

Eventually we headed back to camp. It got freezing in the night so we had to put on a ton of layers to not become icicles in the middle of the night. Definitely not Florida weather. We woke up bright and early the next morning to head out on a long hike. We packed our day bags with all the essentials and headed out. It was beautiful out! We were lucky because there was a 50% chance of rain but the weather that weekend was just perfect (although warmer could be better!).

Basically to find a hiking spot, we headed toward the hills and tracks that said "not suitable for cars." We figured that was for us! We started out on a paved trail going up and didn't know what we were in for. Eventually the paved trail turned into a rocky trail. And big rocks too! You could not look up from your feet for risk of messing up an ankle. Also, this trail the whole time was going up. There were no flat parts, it was just up, up, up! My legs were burning! Every little bit felt like a mile! I sure was breathing like I was doing a marathon... but we kept it up!

Going up!

Those views!

Once we got the the top of the first hill, we realized that it was a baby hill, we had a lot higher to go. We continued on up and as we went, it got colder and windier! At the top of the next hill, we took a break and kept going. There was always a taller hill to climb and it was great fun (as long as I didn't have to get too close to the edge!)! And always good spots to set up the tripod for some couple shots! At some parts there were some hand over hand climbing on rocks so it was really exciting. And the views were fabulous! We could even see our campsite which looked tiny!

Super cold and windy!

On top of the world!

Something random that we both liked was how friendly the British hikers were. Normally British people don't smile and say "hi" on the street like Americans. They're not being rude, it's just not their culture. But all the hikers did! It was like a "hey, you're crazy like me so I will acknowledge you!" So it was fun talking with everybody. Anyways, for the record, we never stopped going up the whole time. Eventually we got as far was we wanted to go because we wanted some dinner and turned around. Also, it was super freezing and windy!

Our day in a nutshell.

Coming back, I had to climb to the top of a rock formation that I avoided doing the first time. My fear of heights was a slight issue there but luckily I had Lee to help me through it. For some reason, we thought that going back down would be easier than going up. Probably just a lie we told ourselves to make ourselves feel better. Doing sports my whole life, I've kind of killed my knees. I even tore my meniscus in pole vault. Going downhill was terribly painful on my knees since it was so steep and nonstop. Ugh.

On top of my dreaded rock formation.

Breathtaking!

During the whole hike, Lee was a tracker on his phone going to record our stats. We started at 493 feet elevation and climbed to 2,490 feet! And we were hiking for a total of 6.5 hours! it was about 7 miles total! The whole climb was either uphill or downhill! After returning to the campsite, we went to a local pub since neither of us felt like cooking and had a wonderful meal. We also had ice cream cones since we deserved it. We headed back to camp for good and relaxed for a while. At one point, a British couple offered us two burgers with all the trimmings (they had more than they could eat) so we took those and made them some s'mores as a thank you. S'mores aren't a thing here so they had never heard of them but really enjoyed the treat!

Some sunset from camp

All in all, it was a great weekend! We had a great time! I am super sore today and my knees are shot (I'm hobbling today) but it was so worth it! It was so pretty there!

Hubby Steals the Day at Colchester Zoo

Alright, anybody that knows Lee knows that he is animal obsessed. Doesn't matter if they are deadly or just deadly cute, he loves them and it is so much fun to watch him be so excited. Since he has been such a good sport with being dragged to historical locations, I decided he needed a treat so we headed to the zoo! Colchester Zoo is a great zoo, Trip-advisor ranked it as a top 20 zoo in the world and top 10 in the UK so we knew that it would be a great day! Anyways, since this day was Lee's kind of day, I thought he would be the best person to tell you all about our day. Sit back, relax and enjoy Lee's thoughts on our zoo trip!

Hi everybody, Lee here. What an amazing day, let me tell you! First off, let me explain why we went to the zoo. We had just gotten a new camera lens so we wanted to test it out, which led to us going to zoo. So the first place we went we saw a stingray and a couple baby komodo dragons. Apparently they had to remove the babies from the parents because they are very susceptible to being attacked by the adults. Then we walked outside the little building and there were some Red titi monkeys.

Next up were some penguins that you could probably hire as bouncers at a club. The reason why I say that is because these penguins kicked the sea-lions out of the enclosure! What had happened was the sea-lions had been moved to a larger area.

The penguins even had some toys underwater with them. What the toy was was a rope that was tied to the ground and threaded through some balls before getting knotted on the end. The penguins seemed to really like the knotted end of the rope where it had started to fray and fan out, similar to how Madison's hair would if she was underwater.

After we left the penguins we had some impeccable timing and ran into the "bears of the rising sun" just after they were let out. As we were standing there looking at the 2 bears the zoo keeper was telling about how their real names are the sun bears, but they are sometimes called dog bears because of their small size (it is the smallest of the 8 bear species) and the honey bear (apparently it LOVES honey).

Since bears are so smart and strong the zoo keeper said the workers/zoo have to do things to challenge them mentally and also to make them use their muscles.So what the keepers do is they will hide their food or put it in a hard to reach place.

Get ready.....

Push!!!!!

From there we went and saw what was, I believe, the spider monkeys. There was one monkey that reminded me very much of me, all he was doing was eating and nothing could get him to quit.

No matter what the visitors were doing around him.

After we saw the spider monkeys Madison said that she wanted to see the orangutans now, so we started looking for signs telling us which way to go. Lo and behold when we found the signs they said that we had to turn around to get there. Since we turned around we walked by the bears again so I had to take another look, because you never know, there may be a photo-op waiting around the corner.

Here is that photo-op

After we walked for a little bit I was starting to think that maybe we missed the turn that we needed, so we turned around, yet again, headed back in our original direction. The next animal we happened upon was a sign reading "mangabey monkey". I wanted to take a look real quick to before we moved on for the orangutans because, once again, you never know what you'll find. The scene that unfolded before us was that of a mother and baby, the mother grooming the baby while the baby suckled.

At that point Madison was beginning to worry that I wouldn't find the orangutans so it became my personal mission to find them next. So we turned around, again! We vowed that we weren't going to stop again until we found them. As we walked (following signs the entire way) into a tunnel that was underwater, I was quite surprised to see something coming at me that seemed almost like a missile! After looking a little closer at the "missiles" we realized that this was where the sea-lions had been moved to. After we walked through the sea-lion tunnel we found the orangutans, but was too crowded to get a very good view, so we promised them that we would be back later to take their photographs.

When we left the orangutans we decided to explore using a modified track phrase, we were saying "run fast, turn right." As we were walking and turning right we stumbled upon an awe inspiring sight, the mother and mangabey monkeys from earlier in what seemed to be a hug.

Can't you see the love?

Not even 5 minutes away we saw one of my favorite Disney characters, Timon, and the rest of his family. I was soooo entranced, the baby meerkats were the cutest things ever!!! There were 3 of them, and we both loved watching them play, especially I did.

All 3 of them were born on July 11th

After Madison drug me away from the meerkats and i finally turned around we were face to face with the rulers of the plains, the lions. We saw the work horse of the pair (the female) lounging around and the lazy one (the male) laying around as well.

As we walked around looking at some of the different animals we saw a closed door. I decided to try it, and since it wasn't locked, we went in and I know that at least i was surprised as I was almost run over by a wallaby! There was a path for us to use as we walked through the wallaby enclosure while the wallabies had free reign of the entire place, including our path.

After we walked through the wallaby enclosure I was quite happy to see the last member of the "Lion King" tri-fecta, Pumba, with his mother (he was only born on June 10th). We wandered a little farther we saw a true miniature deer. The "Dik Dik" is a deer that only grows to be approximately 14 inches tall!

Hakuna matata mom!

From there we meandered around a bit and we found another one of the cutest animals ever, a baby rhinoceros! He was such a cutie and he wouldn't leave his mother, at the most he circled around her.  I suppose I can't blame him though, since he was born on July 11th.

Looks like somebody still doesn't quite know how to use those legs!

The rhinos were in the same pen as the ostriches and the zebras, and across from them in a larger pen were like 3 full grown elephants, one of which im sure was a female trying to get a ride out of the zoo.

Look at her showing off her leg

As Madison was dragging me away from the rhinos (I really loved that little guy!) I looked back and we saw the ostriches running around.

Wonder who won the race?

Since we were leaving the African animals and I didn't have any animals to distract me, I realized I was starving, so I drug Madison off to find some food. After I had my chicken sandwich we were off yet again. Our first post lunch adventure led us into the primate area. We saw a number of different monkeys and even a chimpanzee that was very interested in what was on the floor.

After our primate party that we had we started backtracking, not mistakenly, until we found the 2 red pandas and the golden headed tamarin. We managed to get there just as the red pandas were being fed their lunch of bamboo leaves. The dang tamarin was a pain in the butt to get a picture of, he was so dang hyperactive! I don't think he stopped moving for more than 30 seconds at a time.

Lunchtime anyone?

Finally gotcha buster

By now I was starting to get tired, so we went to keep our promise, and headed back to the orangutans. Madison was so excited when we made it there and one of the orangutans was stuffing straw into a sack.

We stood there for a while letting Madison study her favorite orange primate while he studied her. Sadly at this point I had to pull her aside and tell her it was time to go home, I had had a very long  and exciting day and was getting tired.

Here are a couple more of the pictures that we took that I can't tell stories about, otherwise this post would never end!

That's me!

And my beautiful wife, the one normally doing these things, Madison