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Ambleside 2023 - Monkey-ing around in the Lakes

 

We started off our morning with breakfast in the B&B. After a small awkward encounter due to someone else sitting on our allocated table, we sat down to enjoy a combination of the continental options available (cereal, toast and fresh croissants with jam) and a cooked breakfast. The staff were very accommodating and provided an excellent vegan option for Nicole. The full breakfast (minus the mushrooms that ended up making their way to Nicole’s plate and very quickly off of mine) was delicious and set me up for the day ahead!

Today we decided to start off with a trip to Wray Castle. The road to get there was an interesting drive and, in hind sight, we would have joined the National Trust much earlier than we did as we could have avoided paying a fortune for parking at this location (£5 for 2 hours!). We had a wander round the site and took in the views of the castle, gardens and church. The castle unfortunately wasn’t open when we were there, so it would be worth returning to when it is (with our National Trust cards in hand!).  We then enjoyed a smoothie and a light lunch in Joey's café which is on the site. I opted for some soup which unfortunately came with some olive bread, great if you like olives, but for me this was far from ideal (if you fit into the group of olive haters too, just make sure you check before you walk away!). Nicole had a vegan pasty which she said was delicious.   






After lunch, we drove to Grizedale forest as we had booked the Go Ape Tree Top Challenge. This seemed like a good idea at the time of booking, but neither of us were in a particularly brave mood that day so admittedly skipped out the second Tarzan swing. We still enjoyed it nonetheless and had a great experience thanks to some helpful staff and an interesting course. After ape-ing around, we treated ourselves to a cake to share, before going back to the B&B for some relaxation time and games before dinner.

For our evening meal, we booked to go to the Ambleside Tap Yard. When we booked, we didn’t realise that the two pubs we had chosen were from the same company and so close together, but they offer very different menus and was far from boring. I chose the Juicy Lucifer burger, which was filled with a beef burger, cheese, pickles, N’duja and bacon, and Nicole had a vegan pizza. Both were delicious options and worth going back for again. For dessert, the Tap Yard offers an array of waffles and ice cream sundaes. We both went for a sundae, which was pretty large but not big enough to share.

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