Traditionally I dislike traveling away from London on bank holiday weekend – I think its something to do with the whole hassle of trying to get out of London along with tens of millions of other people. However, when Rita suggested a weekend getaway to the Lakes District I found myself saying yes straight away! I love the Lakes District even though technically I’ve only been there like once and the one other time I tried to get up there we were flooded before we could even get within a hundred miles … or something like that anyway! Initially we had a few people up for the trip but by the time the bank holiday weekend rolled around we were down to Rita, Laney and I. I could have been due to the fact the weather was not looking to promising as we were apparently leaving the sunny and good weather behind in London for once!

Friday Night

Rita and I decided to take an early-ish train up to the Lakes which left London sort of mid-afternoon and arrived in Windermere just about dinner time. If there is one hint for train users is that you must make sure you reserve your seats on the train for any long-distance travel such as this, especially on a bank holiday weekend if you can get away with it, otherwise you will end up fighting for a seat or even fighting for a spot on the ground!

After checking in to our B&B we took a short stroll to find somewhere for dinner. There were a few places that caught our eye but we ended up at Francine’s which on one of the main roads. Interestingly it was probably one of the most posh restaurants in Windermere with the food being unexpectedly sophisticated.

After dinner Rita and I decided to try and make our way down to the Lake though we had no idea which direction to walk. We’d actually hired a car for the weekend but as it was a manual neither of us could drive it! Ha ha! Well, we kind of got side-tracked trying to find the Lake and ended up at our hire car instead trying to start it and get it moving. Fair to say we were lucky to have moved the car even a couple of inches and that was probably more from momentum than anything. I don’t know how many times we started and stalled the car but it sure had us cracking up with laughter. Laney was due to arrive an hour or two after we’d finished dinner and do you know where she found us? Yes – still in the car park trying to get the car moving! Rita was well miffed that between the two of us we couldn’t get the car started without stalling! It really was a funny way to spend an evening!

Saturday

We’d picked up like a million brochures to find out what you can do in the Lakes District. We certainly new we wanted to do activities which were fairly active but the weather wasn’t exactly co-operating. Lots of grey sky and plenty of rain promised. A lot of people come to the Lakes District for walking but due to a combination of aforementioned weather and the other activities we ended up doing the most walking we did was the “climb” up Orrest Head which, at 784 feet above sea level, is not high at all but also not to be laughed at with sweeping views of the Lake District Fells, Lake Windermere, Morecambe Bay and the Pennies. It was a very easy 20 minutes walk to the top. Hardly comparable with Scafell Pike! Still, it was the best we could do with our limited time and the not so great weather.

Our big highlight for Saturday was the horse riding with Cumbrian Heavy Horses! The last time I went horse riding must have been in Iceland when Sandra and I took the Viking Horses for a ride. More pony than horse they were a lot different to the Clydesdales we were riding. For a start I had to climb up on this giant stool (for which I nearly needed a separate step itself to get up on to it!) just to even get my foot near the stirrup!

I was amazed to hear the history of the horses that were with Cumbrian Heavy Horses – most of them actually travelled over 400 miles from Scotland in what they call the Great Clydesdale Migration! On foot! It took like nearly a month I think. Amazing.

Although trained horses all our horses had quite distinct personalities – my horse Ben was a bit of a follower. He was happy to always be up near the lead but liked to follow the other horses, like our trip leader Robin’s horse. Though ironically for a follower Ben would often speed up whenever he sensed any other horse taking him over. Rita’s horse Gypsy seemed pretty independent and keen to take off . On the other hand Elaine had, if not trouble controlling her horse, had trouble getting Rocky to move! Apparently Rocky was a bit of a loner in the stable and would often be bullied, can you imagine, by the other horses!

Robin was a great trip leader. It was obvious he really loved the horses and he gave some really good advice to teach us to ride our horses. We rode for over two hours though mainly walking with trots now and then. Rita and I actually got Gypsy and Ben to get into a gallop when we found some wide open spaces. The most painful bit of the ride was actually when we were going through bushes of berries. It was a very narrow passage and whilst the blackberries I think they were, were delicious, the thorns were sharp and strong enough to get through our thick jeans!

The funniest moment was when we stopped to water the horses near a field of cows and we came across a few horny cows – they were mounting right in front of us! I thought all cows were female! Just goes to show my ignorance of animal anatomy I guess. It was well amusing to us city folk.

The only drawback to taking the horses out – stinking of them afterwards! And the promise of pain tomorrow … LOL.

After the horse riding we were pretty worn out if I’m to be honest but we headed over to Ulverston and from there searched for a beach or some sort of water. But we got lost (mainly because we couldn’t get a sat nav signal) and couldn’t find it and then Elaine was just driving around trying to get us back home when we stumbled upon it. Tell me if you think it was worth the search … heh heh.

We still had some daylight by the time we got back to Windermere and Elaine suggested that we get into the car park and practise driving a manual car. She was AMAZINGLY patient with us but I’m pleased to say that I actually managed to get the car into third! Though I could hardly I have mastered manual driving I am much closer now than I was from the Friday night attempt! We were all dying of laughter though because of firstly our captive audience (there was a worker in an office just off the car park who actually left her desk to come stand at her window to watch us drive in circles around the car park …) and secondly when we saw the car park gates shut on us! We thought we were trapped! Luckily there was an exit round back …

Sunday

Sunday proved a little on the wet and a little windy so we designated it museum day. We had planned on visiting quite a few of them actually but only ended up at one – the Pencil Museum! (And though the Car Museum promised to be a cool museum we didn’t go into it because we couldn’t take photos inside! Ha ha!) We were also supposed to be going to a Michelin starred restaurant for lunch but turns out smart jeans would just not get past the dress code plus it ended up being miles and miles drive away which would have interrupted our important museum time. 😉

The Pencil Museum was shall we say actually a brief visit to the museum itself (the main highlights for me were the biggest pencil in the world and the video showing how pencils are actually produced) however we spent a looooong time in the drawing room of the shop attached to the Museum. Heaps of fun. I haven’t drawn, or technically, coloured in since I left Australia over five years ago! I must bring my sketchbook back out again.

The rest of the day was basically spent driving around. We dropped in to Grasmere to pick up some of their legendary gingerbread and a quick visit to the Wordsworth family graves and then we drove all the way to the other side of the Lakes District to Kendal to get to the Chocolate Shop. To Rita’s disappointment it was shut. 🙁 All that was left really was to grab a late lunch … which turned into our dinner too as once got back to our room from Kendal we ended up settling in for the night with Rita and I playing a hilarious game of travel jenga!

Monday

Monday’s weather didn’t prove to be much better than any other day but the activity we lined up for our last day in the Lakes was gorging. Since we’d be in the water anyway it didn’t matter if it rained! The company we were doing the gorging with was High Points and the guy taking us up the gorge was Alyn Griffiths, the founder of the company (I sense its still growing.)

Alyn was fantastic! Patient and really good at taking care of us to make sure we didn’t get swept down the gorge. Gorging or gorge walking, for those that don’t know, basically involves walking up a gorge or a small canyon. It involved some diving, lots of slipping and sliding and also tackling a lot of white water. We even got to sit under a mini waterfall! Because of the rains the gorge was heavy with rapids and it was very fast-moving. It was good we had our wetsuits, fleeces and waterproofs on as it would have been freezing otherwise.

We walked for a couple of hours and managed to do about two miles of I think it was called Tilberthwaite Gill which doesn’t sound like much but the journey was very hard work. A heck of a lot of fun though! Then, ridiculously I thought, we actually climbed up out of the gorge and up to the top of one of the surrounding peaks to finish it off. It was kind of scary because were were up in the grass which came up to our chest and the trails were unmarked and most definitely not fenced. All said it was a good all body work out – someone’s going to be well sore and bruised tomorrow … I’ve already got a shiner developing on my knee from slipping over so many times.

The only task left for the Monday was making our way back to London. Unfortunately delays on the trains for all sorts of reasons (including cows on the lines, trains hitting other trains, trees on the line not to mention the giant storm and lightning going on a the same time!) meant we were stupidly delayed getting back. It almost felt like I was in an episode of the Amazing Race with everyone running around trying to be on any train getting back to London. Train after train after train was delayed. In another example of the world being small I ran into Catherine at the station! Finally, we got on to a train direct to London and so many people had been disrupted and displaced that though we ended up in first class we ended up camping on the floor! At least we had the whole space to ourselves … and luggage and Junior – this cute toy poodle.

This weekend proved that you don’t need good weather to have fun – just a good attitude and good company. I have to give a shout out to Elaine though for driving us around the whole weekend.