Day 7 - Whitehaven to Liverpool

What a washout. We'd managed to steer clear of the rain for the last couple of days, keeping in front of it from Inverness to Glasgow, and chasing it from Glasgow to the Lakes, but today we found it, and it paid us in full. Basically this meant that we were really struggling driving around the small roads in the lakes, knowing full well that there were some great vistas hidden out there somewhere but unable to actually see or appreciate them, and both of us were having to pay so much attention to the road that we couldn't really even appreciate the little we actually could see.

After a difficult trip from Whitehaven through Cleaton Moor, Lamplugh, Loweswater, Buttermere and Borrowdale, past Derwent Water and into Keswick, we dived out of the car and into a local pub for some lunch and to re-evaluate the rest of the day. We'd hoped to head to Hexham to try the A686 again but in these conditions it was completely out of the question, and as I'm sure you can imagine the cameras stayed firmly in the car most of the day.

Eventually we drove north out of Keswick, past Bassenthwaite and onto the A595 into Carlisle. From there it was a matter of negotiating miles and miles of rooster-tails along the M6 until the weather finally eased around Preston way. We dived off the M6 at Preston due to congestion and took the A59 into Liverpool, through Ormskirk and Aintree.

The hotel was handily situated just upstream along the Mersey from Albert Dock, and while the rooms were basic with a capital "B" and there was no WiFi access, we spent the evening in the Hotel bar and rued a missed opportunity of a day.