Well, we had to be tourists for one day !! The weather forecast was the worst for the whole week today, so we did some National Trust tourist things. We had a very late start and lazy breakfast and as the weather was ok ish (ie not raining) we decided to go to Wray Castle first.

The castle is owned by the NT, but isn't really mentioned on their website or in the book as it's not actually open. The grounds are open all year round though, which we found out when we cycled past the entrance yesterday. We drove up the drive to it and rounded the bend and there it was - it's quite an amazing building, in a gothic style. When it was built, the wife of the owner refused to live in it because she didn't like it ! Beatrix Potter and her family holidayed there when she was 16 in 1882, renting the whole castle (maybe) for the summer. It was the first time they'd been to the Lakes, having previously spent their summers in Scotland.

It was also the place where the first discussions about saving Britian's countryside and old buildings were had by Canon Rawnsley and others, the founders of the National Trust. Anyway, it was very quiet up there, we were almost the only ones there ! The grounds are nice, although some work is needed. There are views to Windermere and a footpath down to the lakeside. There were some NT guys working up there (with a nice NT landrover ) A Mountain Goat minibus tour turned up a while after we did, so we took that as our cue to escape !

We then went up to Hill Top, Near Sawrey which was the first farm Beatrix Potter bought in the Lakes with the proceeds from the Tales of Peter Rabbit and other books. Again this was NT, but it was open. We parked and got our tickets then walked up the road to the house itself, behind the pub. It was raining a bit more by now. The house itself is fairly small and they operate a timed ticket admission. It was very interesting.

Around the house, they have some of the books open at particular pages, showing illustrations which are so obviously based on the house. The gardens were very pretty too - there was a really nice vegetable garden with birds playing in the water trough ! At this point, the Mountain Goat tour caught us up again, so time to move on.

We walked back to the car park and noticed signs for a tea room in the hotel next door, so we decided to investigate for some lunch. The tea room was nice - at the back of the hotel with loads of large windows looking out over the fells. It was raining even more by now so we had some soup and tea for lunch, which was ok.

We then decided to stop in Hawkshead on our way back, as we had to go through anyway. We wandered around and found a fantastic small shop full of homemade sauces and chutneys and local beer, homemade biscuits etc. Yum, yum !! Mike then had the good idea of having a pint in the Queens Head, whilst we were there ! The weather still wasn't great and was even a bit chilly. We had a nice day anyway !