The vehicle for this trip is our 2007 Golf GTI. A more comfortable car (in theory) than our 2009 Civic Type R that has made the 2 previous trips to the Lake District. The Type R has a larger boot and is a shade faster to 60 than the GTI. However the DSG gearbox in the GTI does mean you get a perfect gear change every time. In the real world there is nothing in it.
After an espresso and Pain au chocolat breakfast we packed the car.
The GTI swallowed all our luggage with ease and achieved 36.5mpg the motorway slog. On this trip we would be trying google maps for the first time on a holiday rather than our preferred Tom Tom. This is because it integrates very nicely on Android Auto into the car headunit. We downloaded the North of England on google maps before setting off as many areas of the Lake District have poor signal. We would recommend this approach as the advantage of Tom Tom was always its offline maps function.
The Cow Byre was as lovely as we remembered it. A warm welcome from our hosts (as always) with wine, local chocolates and biscuits. There was also eggs and milk in the fridge to get us started and plenty of tea and coffee.
After unpacking the car we made our way to the local shop in Kirkby Stephen. We picked up a few beers, pizza and some breakfast items which would be enough until we could go to Booths supermarket the next day.
Next: Day 2 – Derwentwater