Our Maiden Voyage as 5 - Skelwith Fold, The Lake District

Well, we did it! And it was brilliant. We have made our first trip in the van as a family of 5 and survived - actually we more than survived, we really enjoyed it.

I won't lie, it did feel like we were packing for weeks before we went but to be fair every first trip of the season is a bit like that. We had to do things slghtly differently i.e. making sure Baby T had her own cupboard, making room for the steriliser, finding space for her carry cot etc but that was part of the challenge.

As far as travelling with a baby goes, I can highly recommend newborns. They stay in the same place and there seems to be something about the fresh air that knocked her out - she slept brilliantly and there was no sign of the dreaded colic. (It did come back once we were home!)


We even managed to 'adopt' some 4 year old twins so our van was even more hectic but its all part of the fun and it is much easier to keep the girls entertained when they find a friend. We really didn't expect that there would be anyone to play with as the site was quite quiet with it being a weekend in April before the school holidays but what a bonus!

So where were we? Skelwith Fold near Ambleside in the Lake District. A lovely site that we have visited plenty of times. The site review is here.


We stayed for 2 nights and were lucky to get sunny, hot weather - On the middle day we went for a 6 mile walk, taking in our favourite coffee shop, Chesters By The River and onto the Britannia Inn at Elterwater - This was a great family walk (with a bit of a steep hill at the end back at the site). Loads of people stopped to chat (that tends to happen when you have a 6 week old), we walked through a field of sheep and strolled at the side of the river - very pram friendly. We decided not to do our usual walk to The Drunken Duck as the past few times we have been it has not felt that child friendly and with it being Mother's Day, it would probably be even more packed than usual.


The picture at the top is me and M & V at the start of the walk - I know it looks like we have been super-imposed. I had to include a picture of Baby T just to show how small she was when we first started vanning with her!