Waking up to see snow-capped mountains

Sunday morning view

One of my favourite things is unzipping the side windows in the top bunk bed first thing in the morning and lying in bed with whatever view we can see from our overnight pitch. This morning's view was the best yet and will be hard to beat. We could have been in Switzerland but were, in fact, only in the Lake District.

Unzipping the window today revealed snow-capped mountains and piercing blue skies. It was stunning. I ventured downstairs to grab a mug of coffee before returning to bed to absorb such beautiful surroundings - all other thoughts becoming a distant memory. This is what campervan living is all about.

Patterdale's pub and Post Office

We were about five miles north of Lake Windermere on a Caravan Club certified site of just five pitches, a little way down the hill from the Brotherswater Inn. The nearest village, Patterdale was a pleasant two hour walk away. We walked along slate-walled fields and meandering streams to reach the White Lion pub there when we'd arrived at the campsite nearly two hours before earliest check-in. Patterdale's only other tourist attraction being its quaint Post Office and store from which we bought butter for last night's dinner.

Retracing our steps back to Cleopatra, shining yellow in the inn's car park, I checked us in and we pulled up on our hard-standing pitch just after 2pm. In less than 10 minutes we had electric connected, the bed made and folded up into the roof, the awning extended and the chairs out. I grabbed the beers from the cool box and we spent four hours sitting in the sun reading the weekend papers.

Blue skies and mountain view

Dinner was to be steak and mashed potatoes with onion gravy and before the sun started its disappearance behind the mountains we brought our electric hob outside to join us as we started cooking.

Once the sun had gone down it began to feel like the temperature it actually was and so we moved inside. By the time dinner was eaten we'd gone through seven cans of real ale and decided to continue in the Brotherswater Inn up the hill. We nabbed the last table, in the corner, and enjoyed trying two more ales each. We had returned to Cleopatra and were snuggly tucked up in bed by 9.30pm, tired from a day's walking, afternoon's drinking and lungs full of fresh mountain air.

Which brings us back to waking up to that view in the morning. Our camping trip might only have been one night this weekend but it is exactly what we'd always imagined having a campervan to be. Parking up somewhere quiet with a fantastic view, getting out the chairs and cracking open a beer. Awesome.