Hiya, it’s been a while and you might be wondering what the heck happened after London. Okay so here’s the deal. I stumbled upon the Tardis (yes that one) stashed in a field at the end of a double rainbow, took this photo as proof using someone else’s watermark (long story), and have been traveling through time and trying not to alter history which is quite frankly exhausting and I might have changed a few things accidentally but you’ll never know what they are (it’s all fine). I eventually figured out how to return to this current (dumb) time, and so I intend to write about the rest of our trip as if it just happened, or maybe hasn’t happened yet, or possibly happened a long time ago. This would all make sense if you understood time travel but sadly you do not and unfortunately I am not taking any questions.
And so, my patient friends, where were we? Ah yes – bidding farewell to beautiful London and heading off to our next adventure. We traveled northwest to England’s Lake District via the lovely British rail system which was, on our travel day, mercifully between strikes. We booked a five day self-guided hiking trip through InnTravel, a UK-based company I would highly recommend. Their communication throughout the booking and planning process was exemplary, very polite and unfailingly British – they used words like “whilst” in their emails which melted me into the floor.
The Lake District is beyond gorgeous. Native son William Wordsworth, who is buried in Grasmere, wrote, “You may leave the Lake District, but once you’ve been, it’ll never leave you,” which sounds pretty correct. Beatrix Potter described her beloved Lake District as “nearly as perfect a little place as I have ever lived in.” Her family visited the area when she was young and she fell in love, later purchasing a home she called Hill Top as well as tranches of farmland in order to save them from development. She left more than 4,000 acres to the National Trust when she died. The region was designated as a national park in 1951 and now is visited by millions of folks a year who yearn to amble amongst its fells (mountains/hills), tarns (small mountain lakes), meres (lakes that are shallow for their size) and only one official lake, Bassenthwaite Lake.
A fabulous and worthy undertaking, to set out every morning on a gorgeous walk through storied landscapes – over fells, around tarns, over rivers and through woods, with lots of picturesque villages, waterfalls and rainbows. Also so, so many adorable sheep and cows wandering around in the wild. Like many before us, including Beatrix Potter, we fell in love with the Lake District’s iconic Herdwick sheep, known as Herdies. Beatrix owned 1,000 of them and in fact was the first woman elected as President of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association.
Our weather was mixed throughout the week, with just one day of sustained rain so utterly drenching that it caused absolute waterproof failure (looking at you, Patagonia). Even so, the state of the weather didn’t impact our daily routine starting with a reasonable morning rise time, followed by full English breakfast, gorgeous 8-10 mile hike, mid-afternoon lager, dinner at the inn or a local pub – all punctuated by various wee drams and quite a bit of hilarity. Would seriously 10/10 recommend.
Our first hotel was the Merewood Country House in Windermere, and its big red leather chairs and gorgeous gardens welcomed us to the English countryside. After a few days in London I could feel the nearness of Scotland, and an unexpected but familiar encounter teased it beautifully. The hotel boasted a wee herd of black heilan coos, aka Highland Cattle. Yay!
Some lovely folks were staying at the Merewood, including one of our favorite couples of the trip. We first spotted the husband, a jolly-looking, well-dressed fellow, relaxing in the red leather chair room. He was likely in his late 70s with pale pink skin and thinning hair. Rather precariously overweight, he was a little tottery in his stride. He sat alone, happily enjoying his beer and reading the newspaper. His phone rang and he answered it with the charmingly delighted exclamation, “Darling!” As the conversation continued we realized it was his wife, who was just upstairs and had awoken from her nap. We could hear her equally delighted voice and gleaned that she had slept very well indeed and was quite refreshed. He retrieved her, making his way upstairs with a tottery stride. He escorted her back into the bar, and we saw that she was struggling with some ambulatory issues, walking very carefully with a cane. We saw this couple throughout our stay, and they were unfailingly sweet and solicitous with one another. The husband attended to his wife with such kindness it brought a tear to the eye. They were enjoying a lovely holiday and delighted in being together in a splendid hotel in a beautiful spot. I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they had been coming to the Lake District for decades.
Why we didn’t strike up a conversation I don’t know. We did not make that mistake again when encountering people along our journey. I will not soon forget them.
We awoke to gorgeous weather to mark our first day. To get our hiking legs under us, we walked through wall-lined hills to the lovely village of Ambleside where we stopped for a coffee, looked around a bit, and then headed toward our climb of Wansfell Pike. Beautiful sunlit views abounded.
Wansfell Pike was a bit of a climb and a rain squall dampened my waning enthusiasm on the way up but once we reached the summit, it was totally worth it. We were greeted with the first of many 360 degree views, and to celebrate we enjoyed the first of many wee summit drams. A friend who recently hiked the West Highland Way told us how vital it was to pack a flask of whisky to celebrate Hiking Milestones. How on earth had I never thought of this before? We adopted her technique with gusto, taking wee dram selfies across England and Scotland. Apologies in advance for what I expect will be a tedious stream of flask photography.
Our second day began with a lake cruise across Windermere – and for some added flair, just before boarding we were buzzed by a lake-skimming military aircraft. We learned that the Lake District is designated as a military low flying area, so it attracts planes from the RAF, Royal Navy, British Army and NATO to practice low altitude operational maneuvers. Paralyzed with the incongruity of it all, we forgot to grab our phones in time to snap the most amazing photo of our lives – even though mine was right there in my pocket for heavens sake.
Our walk eventually took us up Latterbarrow, which overlooked our destination of Hawkshead, another fairytale village and the home of the most famous relish in the world in their opinion. Hawkshead relish – aka “pickle” as in “cheese & pickle sandwiches” which sound terrible but are actually delicious. Along the way we came across the magical fly agaric mushroom, a harbinger of fall, and a herd of the iconic Herdswick sheep.
The fly agaric mushroom is famous, enchanting and toxic. While these red speckle-topped mushrooms are the home of faeries and magical creatures and provide nutrients to nearby trees, on the flip side they are highly hallucinogenic. As you’ll remember, Alice in Wonderland grew taller or shorter depending on what side of the mushroom she nibbled on, which makes one wonder about Lewis Carroll.
After our (completely innocent) sojourn with the mushrooms, we headed toward Latterbarrow, finding some signposts and vestiges of blooming heather along the way.
On our way down the hill we came across our first herd of Herdies! They are quite large, and have gray woolly bodies, sweet comical faces, white heads and feet. We fell completely in love with them just as Beatrix had. This particular kind of sheep is pretty much only found in the Lake District – 95% of the breed resides there, wandering amongst the magical bucolic landscape along with the hill walkers.
The end of our hike into Hawkshead was so fun – walking through fields, through kissing gates and climbing up and down stiles with varying degrees of grace.
Our reward – a gorgeous town, a fun pub, a lot of dogs and some crisps.
We arrived at our next hotel, The Coniston Inn, in time to see a beautiful sunset and have dinner in the hotel restaurant which was liberally festooned with wee doggies. You might hear me say a few more thousand times how lovely it is that dogs are generally allowed in restaurants in the UK. Surely a sign of an advanced civilization against which (perhaps) we never should have rebelled.
Wee Dram of Scotland 