A Challenge Bigger Than the Mountains

In this episode, from the beautiful English Lake District, we visit two campsites. One new one we haven't been before and one fantastic one in the middle of Keswick. This isn't an ordinary episode. In this episode, we stand up to cancer. So, come with us. Let's go and check it out. Leisure bit is the way to go. With David, Stephen, Al, Scott and Nigel. Let's hit the hills and explore. This is my stop for Sunday night on the way to Keswick. At Setmabanning Caravan Park in the beautiful English Lake District. Setmabanning has fantastic views of Blencathra, one of the Lake District's most recognisable fells. And there it is, Blencathra or Saddleback as it's sometimes known. At 868 metres or 2,848 foot, it's famous for its dramatic ridge known as Sharp Edge. Considered one of England's best mountain scrambles. When I arrived, there was a helicopter. Looks like it was rescuing somebody off the top of Blencathra. Hope they're alright. I've paid £25 for one night. It's the alpacas. If you fancy a walk with alpacas, it's £30 and you get a family ticket with a bit of discount. Here's the farm shop and those fantastic boards and crisps. Chocolate and tins. Homemade produce. Looking at some cakes and some fruit pies. Toffee loaf. All sorts of things. Flapjack. Oaty biscuits. Some coffee. Setmabanning Farm is believed to have got its name from the Norse language, meaning home of Banning. The Banning family being the first settlers here. Today, it's farmed by the Hutton family who have been here since 1947. Lovely little shop. Even dog toys though. So I got myself some cake and a brambley apple pie. £3.50. What a cracking little farm shop. And some of the other pictures around the site. Take a look up here. Old path that runs under the bridge there. So that brings us out here. A lovely outlook up the fells, eh? M's at Setmabanning Farm Shop. Back over the bridge. Beautiful view up Blenkaffer. It's so nice that the sun's come out as well. Weather's been pretty variable so it's nice to see. And there's the pitch. There are toilets on the site. I believe there's showers too. But we'll check those out a little bit later. After I'd had a wander around, I went back to the van and settled in. And it was great to see the farm activity going on around. I then made myself some tea. Just a microwave sweet and sour. And had a pie with some cream. With the beautiful views over Blenkaffer. Good morning. Had a lovely night's sleep. Nice and peaceful. And the sun's come out this morning which is brilliant. I'll wander down to where the llamas and the horses are kept. The alpacas, sorry. The stable here. There you go. The alpacas. And down here we've got the gents. The washroom. Here's the laundry. There's also some books for sale. Raising money for Threlkeld School. Washing machine and commercial dryer. And the ladies. The rubbish and recycling. Little garden there. Alpacas. And the horse. See on the pitches there you've got electric. You've also got water and waste. Nice little pitch dividers. The site's not too far from the mining museum as well at Threlkeld. Which is just down the road. Well worth checking out apparently. Unfortunately, I arrived a little late. What a cracking little site. The only comment I'd make. The toilets and showers are a little dated. But they were clean and they were tidy. So I can't really complain about that. And the reality of the situation is. I think this site's £10 to £15 cheaper. With the facilities it has. Than anything else in the area I could find. Certainly any of the main sites. So for me I feel like I've got a great bargain. I've enjoyed the site. And I most definitely will come back. Anyway. Now. Shortly be time to head over to Keswick. Where we'll be home for the next few nights. And I'll tell you more about that when we get there. Here I am now at Keswick camping and caravanning club site. Took about 25 minutes to get from pulling in to get on the pitch. A little bit of a view. Of the lake. The pitch comes with electrical hookup. And the usual facilities you get on a camping and caravanning club site. Good morning. But hopefully this will set me up for the day. Today and tomorrow I'm swapping the campsite. And putting on the hiking boots. For a two-day walking challenge. In the beautiful English Lake District. Along with the team. We're tackling some of the area's most iconic wainwrights. Including. Cat Bells. Maiden Moor. High Spy. Dale Head. And Walla Crag. That's five wainwrights over two days. And the weather's not been overly kind today. So we're going to swap the route round. Originally we're going to set off and do Cat Bells first. So we're going to reverse it around. We're going to do Walla Crag today. And then we're going to do the others tomorrow. So we've got some fantastic viewpoints. And fingers crossed. The weather is kind when we're at the viewpoints. It is a bit windy today. There's been quite a bit of rain overnight. So we'll see how we get on. And also we'll be raising some money. For Stand Up To Cancer. Supporting that life-changing research. Let's get started. After a peaceful night's sleep. It's now time to head out for the walk. It's just gone half past eight. I'm going to make my way now into the centre of Keswick. Where we'll grab the bus to Sea Toller. And commence the walk. Hopefully we'll have cracked Walla Crag. Before I'm back here tonight. When I was out for a practice walk for this. I injured my knee. I don't know how I did it. Going over a stile. Didn't land on it funny or anything. But I've been having a bit of bother with it since. So I've got my fingers crossed today. That it doesn't play up too much. Because I really want to complete this challenge. Wish me luck. You can see the newly built rugby club there. That's how it's raised up now. To protect it from flooding. The Times of Food Service there. It's brighter than it was forecast. And that is brilliant. It's 8.42. So just about half an hour to wait now. For the bus to Sea Toller. Just outside of Booths. The supermarket. And let's pop in there and grab a coffee. £3.85 Great way to start the day though. So here we are. On our way to Sea Toller. The bus journey cost £3.00. And it takes about 25 minutes to get from Keswick to Sea Toller. Thought I'd come and sit in the open top part. If it starts raining. Be straight down there. Get a little bit of a view of the route tomorrow there. We're in the rain. Here we are at Sea Toller. At the start of the walk. And how far have we got to go Steve? 9.7 miles. Back to Keswick. And to the pub. Beautiful scenery. Can't beat the noise of a mountain stream. That was a tricky little bit there. With the chains. A little bit of a scramble. We're through. And we press on. Well if you fancy staying somewhere just along here. Look at those pods. No, we're not going across there. We're over the bridge. Making our way up the hill. A little bit of a steeper scent there. And here is the tarp. Thank you very much. Welcome. Oh, latin cake. Cracking little cafe there. Brilliant. Here we are. A surprise view. Actually, what a lovely view it is. And what a surprise it was. We could actually see the view. And here we are at the Ash Ness Bridge. We've been here before. Typically lashing down. Over Ash Ness Bridge. That way looks shorter. A rare bit of sunshine. I made an old man. I said tell me your story. He took out an old pen. And wrote something for me. Then he kept walking on down the road. And I watched him disappear like smoke. Castle Rigg Hall. And I thought I'd just seen the girl. Castle Rigg Palm. Here we are. End of walk. Celebration drinks. Cheers everyone. Cheers. That's one Wainwright done. We're in the Wainwrights and four to go. Good morning it's Wednesday morning and it's time for the big part of the challenge walk and I struggled a bit at the back end of yesterday with my legs. So fingers crossed for today I'll do my best. Let's see how far we can get around. Come with us. Let's go and check it out. See over there where we're going to be walking. Let's hope the weather's nice today and stays that way. Anyway let's go and crack on. Swans and the duck and the geese on the site. If you need anything while you're on the site you can and then you've got your fully serviced pitches on the front here. These are great if you want to view down the lake. You get tickets for the launch and on Friday night there's a wood-fired pizza van from 5pm. How about that? The good news is there's no flood alerts. Believe it or not this site gets evacuated fairly often as it is subject to flooding. You wouldn't believe how high the water can go as well. Retro zone museum. Would you like to take a step back inside? So we're just on our way to Pontingscale which is a half a mile from here. Just turned left just after the Premier in there along the public footpath to Portingscale. It's along the Cumbria way. See where we're heading over there. Some absolutely outstanding scenery in the Lake District and here's the road where loads of people used to stay over in the camper van. Like most places though now it's been banned. No overnight parking. 10 till 6. It's another place that unfortunately people can't stay over. See the boats there. Nice. Here we are heading toward Catbells. It looks big from here. We're going to head up the hill now to Catbells. Thank you Nigel. You're welcome David. One hour. We'll be up in half an hour Steve. 20 minutes. Started the ascent up Catbells and it keeps going on and on. Cancer is something that touches so many lives. Statistics suggest that one in every two of us will face a cancer diagnosis at some point in our lifetime and every year more than 400,000 people across the UK hear those life-changing words. Behind every statistic is a person, a family, a story. By supporting Stand Up To Cancer we're helping fund the research that gives hope to millions now and in the future. Well that was a bit of a nightmare. I managed to get myself stuck going up there. There was an easier route as well of course but anyway we're up now. Onwards and upwards. Coming up now we've got the next bit of Catbells. It's the ascent up there to the top. Get a good view of the lake from here. Getting there. Tops just up there. Still not there. Better keep going. Dedication to the cause David. No. Well good. We'll get there. Look how far we've come. There's a cobra in the distance there. Bassenthwaite Lake. The only lake in the Lake District behind that. What about the other lakes? They aren't actually lakes. They're all either waters, mires or tarns. You made it David. On the summit of Catbells in the Lake District. Anyone know how high it is? 451. Another way and right. Cracked. Right we're going to make a left here and the rest of the group will go in straight on. So unfortunately I've failed the mission which means I owe a forfeit. So I'm going to put some additional money. £10 for each mile I didn't support cancer research. Everyone else has managed to go on but with my knee the way it was and with having an injury and getting stuck over there it just didn't make sense to move forward. So I'm heading down here which is quite steep. I'm not sure it comes out on the camera and hopefully with a bit of luck see if I can get the launch back along to Keswick. I need to make sure I'm fit and capable of being able to drive the van. Anyway let's crack on down the hill. It's just starting to rain a little bit. The rest of the group have gone up that way and I'm making my way down. I am a little bit disappointed in myself. Seems to have been a heck of a long way down but nearly there. Just heading along here. I think hopefully be able to come out near the launch. Lovely view up the lake there. See the road. See the launch heading across there. It's going along this path. Hopefully it'll drop down soon. Near the road we're still a bit high. Half of a mile down to the jetty. Here's the jetty I think. There we go. It looks like there's a 12.30. It's just gone 12.11. Just waiting for the launch to come in now to take us back to Keswick. Back in Keswick. Beautiful flowers in the path. It's always a real pleasure to walk through Hope Park. Did I go on those last time? Well you have to don't you. After I left them when we'd completed Catbells the team went on up Maidenmore along to High Spy and then up Dale Head. What a fantastic achievement from an amazing team. Do you know what? At some point I'm going to go back and finish the route. 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