We were up and out early with no problems. I was a little
slow and had problems getting down my chocolate croissant, so I only ate one
instead of my 2 of the pack. I ate it later! We walked with our luggage from the ibis Hotel and got to Euston Station about 10
minutes before they posted the platform. After that it was a mad rush and
the train left within 10 minutes of telling us where to be. So far the trains
have run smoother than clockwork! We were in Coach B which was the length of
the train away. But we made it. My only complaint would be that it was
overheated in the train. It was a Virgin Train to Oxenholme. We changed at
Oxenholme to Transpennnine Express for a short 10 minute ride to Windermere. It
made 4 or so stops along the way! Seats were unassigned on this small commuter line. We paid £17pp for the trip to Euston Station to Windermere.
It really is a 2 minute or so walk to Lakes Lodge. The only
thing between the Inn and the train station is Booth’s and the Visitors
Information Center. So high points for convenience of location. We were in
plenty of time to use the facilities and drop our luggage and meet our LakesSupertour at 9:55am. We could have checked in but they never found their way to
that. I will just go ahead and say that they couldn’t seem to get to it when we
got back after 5:30pm either. Our bags were where we had left them and we had to lug
them down a flight of stairs to get to the ground floor room we were assigned
after a very long day! The room was fairly clean and large with a tiny funky
shower. I don’t have too much nice to say but partly that maybe my fault, since I got sick during the day long tour.
We took the A- full day tour with Ken of Supertours. We paid £35pp for it. All day we were a couple of women from Australia. The older
one had lived in the Lake District during the 50’s and 60’s I think as she
spoke about remembering a year when Lake Windermere had frozen completely. In
the afternoon, we were joined by 5 more people, but Ken let me move to the
front passenger seat. I will have to consult my map to tell you everywhere we
went, but we drove over quite a lot of the Lake District that could be driven.
It was truly beautiful and in places charming or breathtaking. I will have to
get photos from Clay. So, looking at Clay’s sign photos and a map, it looks
like we drove north from Windermere and we saw one of Beatrix Potter’s 14
farms, Troutbeck, drove over the Kirkstone Pass, through Patterdale, with a break in Glenridding, where Clay had a locally
made Taste of Eden ice cream, through a private farm and turned left on A66 to
Keswick for lunch. We saw tons of daffodils and sheep and lambs and lakes and
fells (mountains) and valleys. We drove over miles of crazy narrow curvy roads.
It was probably about 60 F and sunny to start and about 50F and cloudy and
drizzly to end. We had about an hour stop in Keswick (say Kezik). We tried and
failed again to have lunch in a pub. We walked until we found one with clear
written directions and a menu. Sorry, I don't seem to have anything with the name of the pub, so I can't make a recommendation, but I would if I knew. I didn’t think I could eat. Coke was like
sandpaper on my throat. I ordered chips (fries) with garlic mayo. Clay ordered
Cumberland Sausage with mustard mash and vegetables. I had a small portion of
his. His was good. My fries were really greasy and the mayo was very garlicky.
After lunch, we took
a boat ride on Derwent Water from Keswick to Lodore Landing. We had stood on
the cliff above this in the morning at Surprise View after the Ashness pack
bridge. We drove through Rosthwaite and Seatoller on our way to Honister Pass
where there is a working slate mine. They had a lot of tourists there. That would be interesting if you had time. At Buttermere we had a stop at Croft House Farm Café where Clay had another locally made ice cream, English Lakes. We saw
Moss Force waterfall. We visited Castlerigg stone circle. We drove on B5322 to
Grasmere, where we saw Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage but didn’t go in. We drove
through Ambleside and saw the little Bridge House which I’m sorry to say Clay
did not get a good photo of it. We drove on to Bowness to drop off 2 of the 5 Asians
who had joined us for the afternoon. Ken then returned the original 4 of us to
the Lakes Lodge. I am sorry to say that Clay never got a photo inside or
outside of the Lakes Lodge.
I came down sick over the course of our daylong tour. I was
running snot, had a terrible sore throat and lost my voice but worst of all I
was running a fever as the weather went from warm and sunny to chill and
sprinkles. I felt terrible, but the Lake District is stunning. It is picture
perfect. Read Wordsworth! Somehow Clay was not familiar with the Wordsworth poem
about dancing daffodils beside a lake. Somehow he also managed to not get a
good photo of the masses of daffodils along Ullswater where he said to me, “Who
knew they had so many daffodils?” I told him, “Are you kidding?” He wasn’t. I
mean who hasn’t heard that poem? That poem was the reason I was here and I was
thrilled with all the daffodils. The Lake District exceeded my expectations. I asked Ken, our guide/driver, if he knew the poem since he had
come up with a couple of other poem snippets by this point. Between him and the
younger Aussie they gave us the first couple of verses from memory. But here it
is and I don’t think I am violating any copyrights by pasting it here. Since
Wordsworth's been dead so long, I suspect it is the public domain.
The Daffodils
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
- See more at:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15925#sthash.NuQsb1us.dpuf
There were embarrassments of daffodils and Herdwick sheep
with all their little lambs. Herdies (as they
are called by locals are born black and turn color. At one to two years old
they are brown. As adults they are a grayish white.) We saw pairs of ducks and
rabbits. I also saw a deer with short fuzzy antlers and a pheasant. The stop at
Ashness Bridge was crazy picturesque! The stop at Surprise View was stunning
and gorgeous. That said, I am no great
walker and that is what is to be done here, so much was lost on me.
We were done when the tour returned us to Lakes Lodge at close to 6pm. It
was a fiasco getting checked in etc., which was a mystery since we had started
all this with the same guy that morning. Since I had lost my voice since then, at least he realized I had gotten sick
while we were out and he carried my bag downstairs for me. I was not up for
eating. I had a coughing fit that had been building for hours and ended with me
on my knees vomiting up lunch.
We paid £80 for the 2 of us for 1 night at the Lakes Lodge. This included breakfast but it started after we needed to be at the train station in the morning. The guy that checked us in told us to go up 30 to 15 minutes early and tell them we needed to leave early and if we could get a cold breakfast. We did and the woman was very nice and quick about it and even offered to cook eggs and toast for us when we had finished our cold cereal and yogurt and the hot tea and coffee with juice that she brought out. No complaints on that score. Our room, 7 was quiet and on the ground floor, decidedly referred
to as not a basement. What we call a daylight basement. There was another room
down there across the hall from us. It was roomy with 2 beds, a double and a
single. I slept in the double and Clay in the single, then there were 2 chairs,
a table, a desk, a closet, a TV and refrigerator. The bathroom was up a small
step with a terrible tiny shower. They gave us plenty of towels and toiletries
though. Free Internet. I don’t know, maybe it was the fever or maybe it was the
wallpaper, but I kept waking up and thinking I had fallen into a vagina. It was
not a pleasant night. All the chemists in Windermere were closed for the
evening after we got an inventory of our traveling medicine chest. Clay went to
Booth’s twice and at least I got what I most needed, Kleenex. There was only a
half-roll of toilet paper in our room and we couldn’t make double use of
it. I had used up almost my entire
trip’s stock of Kleenex today and I was in a desperate panic. We should be good
now though. Clay got himself a cold sandwich and me a raspberry yogurt. I dosed
up with cold medicine and Advil and crashed.
We have an early morning tomorrow. We have to be on the
7:55am train from Windermere to make all our connections to Inverness.
Photos
Photos
