8th June 2021

What started out as a silly idea in the pub, has morphed into a new challenge for runners in the lakes. Back in Elterwater after too long away from the fells, sitting in the Britannia Inn, with a mate and a pint of Bluebird, Paul Tierney’s record-breaking run around all the Wainwrights (which we’d helped […]

27th May 2021

This week is English Tourism Week. At the hostel we’re incredibly proud of being part of such an important industry that in a normal year generates £3 billion for Cumbria and also allows us to meet lots of amazing guests. This past year has of course meant that everyone has had to stay at home […]

10th April 2021

Winter 20/21… even weirder than summer 2020! Who’d have thought that was even possible?   Normally the run up to Christmas is fairly busy with Bottom Bunk Club bookings and multiple sole use bookings, often involving 3 to 5-course Christmas dinners for up 30 plus people, interspersed with painting and decorating and managing any hostel […]

28th February 2021

As my mum sat at her school desk in a little west coast town in New Zealand, the boys would dip the ends of her long plaits into the ink well on the desk behind…. if this ‘lockdown business’ goes on much longer, my hair will be long enough to reach the ink well too! […]

12th October 2020

  Standing at 469m Lingmoor Fell packs a lot into its socially distanced position between Great and Little Langdale. The fell is steep and craggy and covered in heather getting its name from the Old Norse word Lyng meaning heather. A serpent like wall  handily leads to the summit giving a view of Lingmoor Tarn […]

21st August 2020

  Manager Nick explains what we’ve done to bring visitors back to Elterwater and make you welcome, and reflects on a strange season in the Lakes    ‘Furlough’ and ‘lockdown’… the first, a word that if asked previously to define I would have suggested something agricultural. The second, a word I’d normally associate with a […]

7th July 2020

The world has changed, and how far and how permanently this will affect the future of hostelling we are yet to discover. What we do know is that Coronavirus, and the forced closure of our hostel, has been a body blow in our six-and-a-half-year journey to take Elterwater Hostel from a fairly run down old-school […]

4th June 2020

World Environment Day is celebrated worldwide on the 5th June each year. It was established in 1974 by the United Nations General Assembly, and has become a globally recognised initiative to engage businesses, governments, and citizens to focus their efforts on pressing environmental issues. Each year is host to a theme, which this year is […]

22nd May 2020

Personal reflections on owning a hostel in the time of coronavirus Like so many others who love the Lake District, we are in exile and unable to visit. This week we planned to be at the hostel, covering our manager Nick’s holidays. He had an event to attend in London and Pete, our go-to relief, […]

4th March 2020

We’re preparing for a very important birthday celebration in this part of the Lake District. April 7 will mark 250 years since the birth of William Wordsworth who is arguably Britain’s most famous poet – and who wrote what is undoubtedly the world’s most famous poem. Daffodils: we have thousands of them around here, adding […]