Long Weekend in The Lakes

Aug 08, 2005

It’s normal for Chris and I to visit The Lakes once every few months, somehow this year we’ve not been at all (C visited when he was in the area with work but we don’t talk about that!). So this weekend rather than doing much needed work on the house we decided to go for a bit of a break. It was C’s birthday weekend as well so a perfect excuse. We got the added bonus of visiting a few of the towers on the Kingstown Ringers Lakes Tour, which is at the end of the month. We’ve never really spent much time in the southern lakes so it was very nice to see new places. It’s also much quieter than Ambleside and Keswick during the school holidays!

Chris found hotels for Thursday and Friday nights on the Internet on Thursday morning, all the places we know in Keswick were fully booked so we decided to find somewhere when we got there – there are hundreds of places to stay so Chris wasn’t too worried (I was). We set off to the Lakes when I’d finished work on Thursday night, I was able to work from home so we could get off early. We stayed at The Black Cock Inn in Broughton in Furness, somewhere I’ve only driven through before. It’s a very nice town and a wonderful hotel – I’d definitely go there again. The food was amazing and the accommodation wonderful. We didn’t get there till quite late so only really had time to have tea and a quick wander before bedtime. But when we went round in the morning it looked amazing. Chris got some new Teva’s from the outdoor shop and I bought a buff – which I wore in one way or another all weekend.

We spent Friday driving round the southern lakes to different towers we knew we’d be visiting on our tour and checking out access, distances and parking. I’ve got lots of notes now! We also went to the beach and had a nice walk along the sand. One of the best places we visited was Cartmel – it looks really nice and I’d like to spend more time there. Dalton and Ulverston also look nice though. Not like I’d imagined them at all. Friday was Bowness’s practise night and as we’d not had any response from the tower contact we decided to go along – plus get in an early grab for us both! We weren’t sure what time the ringing started so thought we’d better get there early. We booked into The Gables in Ambleside – our room had a whirlpool bath so I had to try that out! After a bath and a quick change we headed to Bowness for some tea and ringing. We had a very nice Tapas at a restaurant opposite the church. We went there at 7.00 but there was no sign of life so we got an ice-cream and watched the sun set over Windermere till 7.30. There weren’t many ringers there, four local one of whom was a learner. I quite like it when you’re making a difference to a practice, although it would have been wonderful to get some surprise major. You can see the details here. After ringing we went straight back to Ambleside and out round a few of our favourite pubs. There’s three we always go to: The Oak, The Unicorn and The Golden Rule. They were all very busy, but still nice.

On Saturday morning Chris opened his presents before breakfast and we decided to have a look round Ambleside and then try to find a hotel in Keswick. We found a lovely hotel in Keswick and were very lucky as there was a sea of “No Vacancies” signs. We got the last room in Linnet Hill hotel, with views of Skiddaw and lots of car parking. We spent most of the afternoon shopping, although we did find time to visit the lake. We had a very nice Italian for tea and had a beer at the Four in Hand before going to the Lake to try and get some night shots – lots of practicing with my camera! By the time we’d finished we only had time to get 1 more pint before last orders.

On Sunday we had breakfast at the hotel and decided to drive down to ringing as we weren’t entirely sure what time the service was – a good thing to as we got there with only 15 mins ringing time left! We go to Keswick fairly regularly so they know us there now, at one point they were trying to work out if we qualified to ring with them in the striking competition! After ringing we found a nice easy hill walk – Chris has a goal of doing all the Wainrights. I’ll link when his page is set up. I managed to find one with a very high car park – so it had a total accent of about 450 ft. After that we went to Grasmere for some lunch – and a look round the plant centre. Then a lovely drive to Langdale, another area I’ve not been to. It looks wonderful and I can’t wait to go back and spend more time walking and exploring there. We had a quick walk round Blea tarn and then headed home. Stopping at Grassington on the way home for some tea.

I’ve got lots of photos from the weekend (about 200 in all). I’ll try and get some sorted and uploaded soon. I should have one per day for the next fortnight or so!