We left Tarporley early and that gave us plenty of time in the Lakes District on the first day. Our base was a really cool B&B in Windermere, which served awesome breakfasts.
Booking in to our room we headed straight out to Tarn Hows which was reputed to offer a very pleasant easy walk around the Tarn. The description was spot on and we caught it in its full glory in the afternoon light. It's also supposed to be good red squirrel country so we took plenty of time to look up trees - without seeing even a red whisker.
The weather is always a player when it comes to travel and for the first two weeks it was playing on our side. The next day was the first day the weather wasn't friendly (they call it mucky up here). Actually, initially it was just misty and lowering which was really an impressive way to see Grasmere and Thirlmere, but then the rain just got pretty persistent.
It was at this point that perhaps a poor decision was made and perhaps it was made by me. We were heading up Whinlatter Pass, which was really impressive, when we stopped at a sort of lodge for lunch. Apparently there were red squirrels around here, so I dragged us into the woods, optimistically predicting a break in the rain. I was wrong, by a country mile, and the damn red squirrels were far more practical than I was. They'd taken a look at the mucky weather and said to themselves 'Bugga this for a game of soldiers'. Again not a sight of the Red Devils. At least we gave the rain jackets a good testing.
We headed home via Crummock Water and Buttermere. They were again quite beautiful, but the weather was not great. We had a really enjoyable dinner that night at an Italian restaurant. We'd mostly been eating pub food, which is often really interesting over here, but it was great to have a change. Curiously, food like Chinese is much less common and often quite expensive.
On our third day in the Lakes the weather dawned clear again so we headed out to Ullswater and the Aira Force, which is actually a very picturesque waterfall - apparently one of the UK's finest. Ullswater was impressive and the Falls lived up to their name and were well worth the walk. Stunning.
The weather was so good that we headed back the long way via Whinlatter Pass and Crummock Water and Buttermere, which were just magical.
I should mention the roads in this area. There are the A roads, which are meant to be quite wide - which translates to narrow and winding. Then there are the B roads - which are meant to be a bit narrower - which translates into buttock-clenching, white-knuckled joyrides. We spent a lot of time on B roads. You basically can't pass cars on B roads. You have to find a specially widened part of the road - sort of pullover spaces - that they've added every few hundred yards. Of course they're only useful if they're handy, and then you've got the challenge of coming around blind corners sharing the road with oncoming traffic. Still not enough of a thrill. Right then. Let's throw in the not infrequent and often rather sudden appearance of a truck, tractor, or even a tourist bus and see how tight your muscles end up being in certain orifices. Oh, and sheep too. They can appear just about anywhere.
The highlight though, came when we were driving a narrow B road and cane across a free range guinea fowl farm. The damn birds took the term free-range on face value and they were everywhere. Picture driving a narrow, one lane road, with on coming traffic, trying to dodge random birds appearing out of the roadside bushes. It's no wonder there appeared to be a few rather flat birdlike shapes on the roadside.
Oh, and I do have to divert back to a pet topic - how they come up with certain town names, without pondering whether or not it was such a wise choice. Well, I think we found the one to take the cake. How would you feel about living in Cockermouth? Honestly? Cockermouth? Did they not think about having a vote on this at some point? Imagine having to tell people you came from Cockermouth. To be honest, we didn't actually visit the place, which was a bit of relief. Really didn't know what I might have been getting myself into.
Later that day we picked Michael up from the train station and got ready to launch into Scotland, where we would pick up our other son, Tim.
Booking in to our room we headed straight out to Tarn Hows which was reputed to offer a very pleasant easy walk around the Tarn. The description was spot on and we caught it in its full glory in the afternoon light. It's also supposed to be good red squirrel country so we took plenty of time to look up trees - without seeing even a red whisker.
The weather is always a player when it comes to travel and for the first two weeks it was playing on our side. The next day was the first day the weather wasn't friendly (they call it mucky up here). Actually, initially it was just misty and lowering which was really an impressive way to see Grasmere and Thirlmere, but then the rain just got pretty persistent.
It was at this point that perhaps a poor decision was made and perhaps it was made by me. We were heading up Whinlatter Pass, which was really impressive, when we stopped at a sort of lodge for lunch. Apparently there were red squirrels around here, so I dragged us into the woods, optimistically predicting a break in the rain. I was wrong, by a country mile, and the damn red squirrels were far more practical than I was. They'd taken a look at the mucky weather and said to themselves 'Bugga this for a game of soldiers'. Again not a sight of the Red Devils. At least we gave the rain jackets a good testing.
We headed home via Crummock Water and Buttermere. They were again quite beautiful, but the weather was not great. We had a really enjoyable dinner that night at an Italian restaurant. We'd mostly been eating pub food, which is often really interesting over here, but it was great to have a change. Curiously, food like Chinese is much less common and often quite expensive.
On our third day in the Lakes the weather dawned clear again so we headed out to Ullswater and the Aira Force, which is actually a very picturesque waterfall - apparently one of the UK's finest. Ullswater was impressive and the Falls lived up to their name and were well worth the walk. Stunning.
The weather was so good that we headed back the long way via Whinlatter Pass and Crummock Water and Buttermere, which were just magical.
I should mention the roads in this area. There are the A roads, which are meant to be quite wide - which translates to narrow and winding. Then there are the B roads - which are meant to be a bit narrower - which translates into buttock-clenching, white-knuckled joyrides. We spent a lot of time on B roads. You basically can't pass cars on B roads. You have to find a specially widened part of the road - sort of pullover spaces - that they've added every few hundred yards. Of course they're only useful if they're handy, and then you've got the challenge of coming around blind corners sharing the road with oncoming traffic. Still not enough of a thrill. Right then. Let's throw in the not infrequent and often rather sudden appearance of a truck, tractor, or even a tourist bus and see how tight your muscles end up being in certain orifices. Oh, and sheep too. They can appear just about anywhere.
The highlight though, came when we were driving a narrow B road and cane across a free range guinea fowl farm. The damn birds took the term free-range on face value and they were everywhere. Picture driving a narrow, one lane road, with on coming traffic, trying to dodge random birds appearing out of the roadside bushes. It's no wonder there appeared to be a few rather flat birdlike shapes on the roadside.
Oh, and I do have to divert back to a pet topic - how they come up with certain town names, without pondering whether or not it was such a wise choice. Well, I think we found the one to take the cake. How would you feel about living in Cockermouth? Honestly? Cockermouth? Did they not think about having a vote on this at some point? Imagine having to tell people you came from Cockermouth. To be honest, we didn't actually visit the place, which was a bit of relief. Really didn't know what I might have been getting myself into.
Later that day we picked Michael up from the train station and got ready to launch into Scotland, where we would pick up our other son, Tim.
RSS Feed
