What To Do In Keswick With Pets And Families

Keswick Mountain Festival takes place between 16th and 20th May and the weather is warming up nicely for a week of activities! The festival celebrates all things mountains and everything in between, focusing this year on asking what is YOUR mountain? Is it cycling over some of the highest, most scenic passes in the country? Is it the open water swim and triathlon? Or is it a 9 tick wainwright walk from Honister to Braithwaite? Whatever your mountain, there is an activity to satisfy you over the 5 days. Keswick is the start point for nearly all the activities with the hub of the festival located on Crow Park near the shore of Derwent Water. There plenty of self catering cottages Lake District available, many with last minute discounts. Choose from a selection of scintillating walks each day, taking you to familiar mountains by less familiar routes. Experienced guides lead the way passing on a wealth knowledge as they go. Perhaps you would like to try something different and try your hand at climbing. Everything from beginners starting from scratch or problem solving and learning to lead is on offer. Local experts will guide you at Lodore, the climbing wall or maybe on a ghyll scramble. The festival has a family element too with balance bike taster sessions, picnics and power kites and bushcraft courses. One of my recommendations is for the tour of Force Crag Mine – somewhere I walk past on a regular basis as I head into the hills. It is closed to the public but you can join a guided tour with the National Trust and enjoy a fascinating insight into the industrial past of our beautiful landscape. Another tour takes place using canoes and visits the caves which were home to Millican Dalton, a self styled professor of Adventure and figure of Borrowdale folklore. This year the Keswick Mountain Festival, which is an annual festival held in May in Keswick, Cumbria, England. The festival was first held in 2007.This year 2012, the festival ran from 16 to 20 May and included guided walks, triathlons, kayaking, the "Keswick Sportive" (for cyclists), as well as the Borrowdale Trail Run and the Latrigg Fell Race. Speakers at Keswick's Rawnsley Centre included Helen Skelton, Sir Chris Bonington, Monty Halls and Cameron McNeish. In addition, there was as an evening with the Alpine Club and its president Mick Fowler. The temporary Keswick Mountain Festival Village is sited on the shores of Derwentwater. According to The Observer, the festival is "one of the few places on the planet where Gore-Tex and gaiters might actually help you to pull". Today, the majority of Keswick's businesses are tourism related, providing accommodation and facilities for the tens of thousands of people visiting the area each year. The Keswick Tourism Association publishes an annual guide to the area, including details of annually inspected and approved visitor accommodation. Best of all the majority of the Lake District now has pet friendly Lake District Cottages which allow our beloved four legged friends to join us on our breaks away.