14/09/21 - 21 Hours in Carlisle

Distance - 5 Miles

Pubs - 5 (Good Beer Guide Ticks #588 to #591)

Walk Inspiration - County Walking Magazine Jan 20 - Walk 17

A whistle stop tour of Carlisle - arriving at 13:00 and leaving at 10:07 the following day.

How I've missed long distance train travel - two episodes each of Nine Perfect Strangers and Anthony Bourdains Parts Unknown.  25% of Dom Wimslow's The Cartel tome.  Being upsold meal deals following the Preston staff change over.

I thought having a walk/Adventure Lab Cache, four good beer guide entries to tick off and the Baggies being on Red Button would have been entertainment enough but note to future self - do your research.  Reading Retired Martins blog whilst having coffee waiting for  the return train was entertaining but ultimately futile.  Leaving a town with regret is no way to travel.

The Walk

 

A simple town trail and along the river Eden to take in the sights.  More or less followed the route of the only Adventure Lab Cache available.

The Castle

The River Eden

The Start (or End) of Hadrian's Wall concludes the walk.  Either a train had just come in, or this trail is exceedingly popular.  A constant stream of overburden ramblers - including a lady with 70l rucksacks both front and rear - making me wonder just how many people have seen Reese Witherspoon in "Wild".

No time to ask, I have other Wetherspoons on my mind.

The Pubs

Not sure how to complete this blog without coming across as overly negative.

The Kings Head and Beehive are Good Beer Guide Pubs that are simply functional.  Traditional pubs that are missing any sort of factor, wow or otherwise.  I could just see through the bar hangers (thought to have been made extinct from the great plague) to see a decent Cumbrian Ales Esthwaite Bitter at the Kings Head.  No such problem at the Beehive - an estate sports pub - where Kirkby Lonsdale Tiffin Gold was in better supply than food menu items.

Would you like to read the Sign?

Of course you do

Horse Racing in the day, Champions League by night

Don't mention Brexit if you are Hangry 

I then break a solemn promise to Mrs M and venture in a JDW.  I felt as dirty as the tables, spending no more than 10 minutes in the most JDW of all JDWs. I could have got a full house on JDW bingo.

• Huge Shop Conversion
• Toilets requiring more steps than I completed on the town trail
• High Tables and Stools.  Both sticky.
• A row of populated puggies being spoon fed pounds by Las Vegas style zombies (without the buckets)
• Every table packed but strangely, with no-one at the bar
• I suspect the App.  Or Smuggling.
• £1.99 bargain Corby Ale correcting all perceived wrongs

In a spot of on the fly research, I was reminded of the State Management System introduced in the Carlise in WWI to control the town's drinking.  Excellent information at the link and the Cumberland Inn next door is a prime example and one of the few CAMRA Heritage pubs in Cumbria.

The karaoke should have warned me that this wasn't going to be a sedate, count down your life to the chimes of a grandfather clock's minute hand experience you usually get in CAMRA Heritage Pubs.  I sulked through "Show me the Road to Amarillo" but belted out Johnny Cash "Cat's in the Cradle", more or less solo.

State Management - Discos on Thursdays

Portaits above dart boards?  Asking for it

No real ales and there was an Internet based promise of Thai food from the "very interesting" rooms upstairs that no longer holds true.  The Royal Outpost Thai restaurant over the road satisfactorily plugging that particular hole.

With Baggies Kick off fast approaching, I decided to seek Internet and the Red Button on the App - with the Griffin providing the network.  

Stella in a Greene King.  And a goalless home draw.

This left the intriguingly named Fat Gadgie as the final Good Beer Guide Tick in town.  Google Maps had warned me, but (and this may surprise you), I am ever the optimist.

Closed since the first lock down

I should have taken Martin's advice and and made for the Howard Arms.  

It looked like a proper pub.  With beautiful green tiling.

I can visit when I complete the Hadrian's Wall Path.