The Old Homestead

We stayed here over half term as we wanted somewhere away from the tourist parts of the lakes, but with easy access to road and mountain bike routes. It is located 5 minutes from Cockermouth should you need anything close by and is a 2 minute drive from the A66 to go further. The property itself is huge, 5 large downstairs bedrooms and another 5 upstairs which we didn’t use. The living room and dining room was more than big enough for us, with log burner and wonderful views of the Fells. The kitchen isn’t the biggest, fine for us, but if we were a larger party, might struggle. It had everything we needed in the kitchen, dining room, living room and Wi-Fi, which was great, but it didn’t reach all bedrooms due to the thick walls. That aside, the property has great mobile coverage. The garden is huge, although the weather prevented any real use of it, but I can imagine that it is amazing in the Summer months. The only minor issue we had was bike storage, as we had 2 road bikes and 2 mountain bikes. Unfortunately the property doesn’t have a space to store bikes which is a shame being 5 minutes from Whinlatter Forest. However, the owner, Zen (who was always on hand to share local knowledge or tips for walks and rides) allowed us to use the log shed, which although not ideal, kept the bikes out of the weather. Overall, it is a great property, seemingly well off the beaten track, but minutes away from the gems of the North West Lakes .