Barrow in Furness

Oh what a miserable night! Heavy rain had beaten a continuous rhythm on the roof of our caravan and kept me awake. I had actually been pretty tired and thought I’d be out like a light. Unfortunately the rain really seemed to bother me.

In the morning we found the rain was still falling even if it was a little quieter. The weather forecast was the final nail in the coffin; whatever we planned to do, wherever we planned to go, it was going to be a wet, miserable day!

“Hey Dad, isn’t that a Giraffe?” Not something you normally see beside a duel carriageway.

My brother was heading off to Barrow-in-Furness followed by a tour of some of the other lakes. Mum, Dad and I had other plans. My brother’s birthday was coming up next week and we needed to go shopping for presents.

So we headed for Barrow-in-Furness too. Along the way we spotted some rather interesting wildlife. “Hey Dad, isn’t that a Giraffe?” Not something you normally see beside a duel carriageway. It turned out that we had found the nearby zoo.

I don’t know if there is an attractive way to arrive in Barrow, but if there is we somehow missed it. It was obviously a heavy industry town, a bit down at heal now and ripe for some serious regeneration.

There was an attractive and restored Victorian town hall, but the centre of town was a soulless, red brick monstrosity, full of all the usual shops. The only thing that made it stand out a bit was the view of a vast, yellow crane at the furthest end of a shopping street.

If the town looks shabby and unwelcoming, the same could not be said about the people, who couldn’t have been kinder. Just pause for a moment looking confused and someone will come to your aid.

I headed for the nearest bookshop, whilst my parents went to Debenhams. After a successful mission we met up and visited a nearby card shop. When we reached the till, Mum suddenly rediscovered the ham sandwich she had carefully wrapped up yesterday when she couldn’t manage the whole thing for lunch. Oh dear, it must be her age! If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, she then explained that the Bob the Builder card with matching wrapping paper was for my thirty+ year old brother! I suspect the shop assistant thought I was her carer and her medication was wearing off.

We didn’t hang around in Barrow, just in case we bumped into my brother. Besides, Dad wanted to visit a nearby castle. So we drove to a tiny spit of land where a ferry was supposed to take you over to Peel Island and its English Heritage castle. Unfortunately the ferry has obviously not run for some time. So we head back down the road a little, to a small windswept car park at Fouley Point. Here we ate our picnic (yes, in the car again!) whilst looking out across the desolate mudflats of Morecombe Bay.

I did go for a little wander along the spit of land with my telescope and binoculars, but it was still wet and incredibly windy. I was also very conscious that I had no idea whether the tide was going out or coming back in! In the end I stopped long enough to make out some bedraggled curlews hunkering down on the salt marsh, before I headed back to the car.