UK Trip report- The Lake District (part 2)

The Lake District. What town to use as a home base?

We are well aware that Rick Steves recommends that tourists stay in Keswick, - and it’s a fine town to use as a base, depending on what you are interested in doing. But the tours we wanted to take, all left from Windermere or Bowness.

Also, When we read or hear travel guides talk about the Lake District, we think of lakes. And my wife wanted a home base that was on a lake and a hotel that had a lake view. As we would arriving by train in Windermere and did not have a car, we would have to rely on the public transit or private tours to get us around. After doing my research, we chose to stay in Bowness-on-Windermere, which is on the lake and two miles from Windermere station. We thought it was an excellent choice and location. If we had a car, we would have chosen one of the lakeside hotels between Windemere and Ambleside.

Bowness on Windermere

As it appears the taxis know when the trains arrive, we walked out of the station and immediately grabbed a cab. We did not have to hail an uber. I asked the taxi driver, if we was available for hire, and he said that it depended on where we were going. I told him our hotel in Bowness was the Macdonald Old England hotel and he said he was the former concierge there and he was headed home near the hotel for lunch, so he would gladly take us. I guess he didn’t want a fare that took him to Grasmere or Ambleside.

When we told him that this was our first time to Windermere, he gave us a running commentary and history of the sights as he drove the 2 miles toward Lake Windermere.

Macdonald Old England Hotel

He told us the best room in the hotel was room 327 and we told him we had room 325. A fine room he said. And it was. It was a very nice hotel. It was not run-down as one tour guide thought, but appeared to have been refurbished. Our large room with a lake view was in the modern wing extension. Our room came with breakfast and the breakfast room had lake views. We declined the dinner package as we knew there were several good restaurants within walking distance. The hotel was in a great location, walkable to the lakeside as well as the shops and restaurants in Bowness. As we discovered, many tour groups stay here, including OAT.

As it was a Monday afternoon and a sunny day, the streets of both Windermere and Bowness had lots of day tourists, but at around 5 pm, the streets emptied. In the evenings, we practically had the place to ourselves.

At dinner, we walked the short distance along the Bowness pier and the lakeside over to the Boardwalk Bar and Grill with its lakeside view. The food was good. afterwards walked along the lakeside back to our hotel and watched the sunset.

Day 11

Breakfast faux pas?

Breakfast was made to order from a menu. No buffet. I ordered the full English Breakfast on the first day, and found I did not like the black pudding or the baked beans. So the next morning, I ordered the full English breakfast without the black pudding or baked beans, no ham, just the sausage. The waiter gave me a strange look and said, “So you’re not ordering the full English Breakfast, you just want it a la carte.” And he had a point. Without the black pudding or baked beans, it’s just a Denny’s Grand Slam breakfast. But he knew my breakfast order for the next few mornings.

We had a leisurely morning. We walked over to Tesco Express to get sandwiches and chips to take with us on our afternoon tour. The clerk reminded me “Don’t forget the drink” as there was a Meal deal – sandwich, chips and drink- for £4. What a deal!

Beatrix potter tour

We took the Mountain Goat afternoon tour of Beatrix potter’s Favorite Countryside. We looked for tours with small groups and this only had 19 people. And yes, we booked directly with the tour company and did not use a third party aggregator like viator, tripadvisor or GetYourGuide.

We walked over to Bowness pier and waited for pickup. But we discovered as the bus pulled up, that the tour was first taking a boat ride from Bowness Pier to Ambleside pier and the bus would pick us up there. That was great as we would not have to book a separate boat ride.

The weather on the boat was sunny but windy and we enjoyed it very much. We saw the blue haired young lady from the train on the boat with her partner and that’s where we talked to her.

At Ambleside pier, the tour did not go into Ambleside, but turned off on a side road towards Wray Castle. The castle is closed, so we enjoyed the lake views from the outside picnic area as we ate our lunch during the brief stop here.

The tour then drove to hilltop Farm, the home of Beatrix Potter, which was a must-do on our trip to the Lake District. We spent only 45 minutes here. My wife said the stop here should have been an hour as she is a Beatrix Potter fan. But it began raining, so nobody on the tour bus wanted to visit the garden after the house tour and returned to the bus. Of course, we were the last to reboard.

The tour visited Hawkshead and we spent an hour here wandering the town and shops. It began raining hard and the bus shelter for the public bus to either Ambleside or Coniston had at least a dozen people huddled in trying to stay dry. The 505 bus comes every hour and when it pulled up, it was standing room only and there were many unhappy people who did not get to board.

It was here in Hawkshead that my wife encountered our first Pay toilet. 60p to pee. She didn’t have any coins and the credit card slot didn’t seem to work, so another woman with the correct change offered to slip in together through the turnstile.

The bus also stopped at Tarn how’s, an overlook of an area that Beatrix potter purchased to save it from development and later gave it to the National Trust.

Dinner was at Porto, a high end modern British fine dining restaurant in Bowness. It was very good but expensive.

While we dined there, at the table behind us, we could hear an elderly lady talking about her days in the theatre and telling the waiter that she had a theater show to attend tonight and would need faster service. My wife looked at her and said to me, “That’s Dame Eileen Atkins.” “How do you know that?” “She was in the PBS show Cranford and we have a Britbox subscription.” My wife pulled out her iPhone and looked her up on Wikipedia and her photo matched the lady at the next table. It appears Dame Atkins was attending the show, “Fourteen Again” at the Victoria Wood Theatre up the street. That piqued our interest in the sold-out show.

In the evening, as we learned from the Beatrix potter tour, Rene Zellweger, had starred in the role as Beatrix in the 2006 movie, Miss Potter, and my wife wanted to see it. I was able to plug my ipad into the HDMI port of the room’s 55” TV. The room had excellent Wi-Fi. I set my VPN to a US location, and we were able to watch the movie on Amazon Prime. Without the VPN, none of my US streaming services would have been available to me.

(continued)

Day 12

An early and rushed breakfast, as we had to be at the Windermere train station by 8:45 to start our All Creatures Great and Small Tour (ACGST ) with English lake Tours. We were fortunate to have been there on the day of the month when the tour was offered, as it seems to be only offered once or twice a month from Windermere. We took an uber to the rail station as the bus would not get us there in time. The Uber cost was £4.95, which was cheaper than the bus at £6 for the two of us.

All Creatures Great and Small Tour

AT the start of the tour, we were surprised that we were the only ones on this group tour, so we had a private all day tour for the cost of a group tour. Our guide/driver Tim was outstanding, very knowledgeable and since it was just us two, very adaptable on our tour.

We are great fans of the show, both the 1978 original production, and the latest 2020 production. My wife has also read most of the 12 books, both the UK series and the US series.

So our tour guide/Driver, Tim, was surprised that she was well versed in the books and they met head to head on exchanging information both from the books and the original and latest shows, including the trivia that the title comes from a poem titled “All Things Bright and Beautiful” by Cecil Alexander as does the titles of several of Herriot’s books, “All Things Wise and Wonderful, and “The Lord God Made Them All.”

As it was just the two of us, Tim, went into extra detail about the books, Alf Wight, his veterinary practice, etc. Facts that would have bored normal tourists silly, if the tour had been more than just us. We took it all in.

Tim also leads the Bronte tours, so he also provided some commentary on the Brontes and when he heard that we had visited Chatworth house, my wife and he had a lively discussion on which Mitford sister married Oswald Mosely, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, who was a Nazi sympathizer.

We stopped at St Wilfred’s church in Burnsall, whose exterior was a film location for ACGST, and since I am a diehard geocacher, and there was a geocache puzzle there, I got the information on the front gate to solve it later. We had lunch down the road at the Craven Arms pub, whose interior was used as the film location of the inside of the Drover Arms.

During lunch, I sat and did the calculations to find the final and since it was just us two on the tour, Tim agreed to drive back through Burnsall and stop a mile outside of the town for me to find the geocache before heading to the next stop. Don’t worry, I tipped him well.

The tour took us to Grassington (Darrowby) to see the outside of Skeldale house, and the Drover arms. We drove through Yorkshire Dales countryside to see two churches where the show was filmed and some other filming sites such as Mrs Pumphrey’s mansion, the home of Tricki Woo (Broughton Hall) and finally Heston Grange, Helen’s home, which is the real life Yockenthwaite Farm, in Langstrothdale.

It’s a long 13.5 mile walk (6 hours) from Grassington along a public footpath on the Dales Way, to Yockenthwaite, so I’m glad we took the tour. But you could take a bus to Buckden and walk to Cray, (4 miles) passing by “helen’s farm” and then walk back Buckden, and take the bus back to Grassington.

At the farm, film crew’s trailers were parked all along the country road and it appeared they had set up for more filming. Just before the bridge to the farm, Tim pointed out that the modern day red mail box had been removed and replaced by a green mailbox that would have been apropos for that period. I must say, I was very excited to see Helen’s Farm in person.

(continued)

We also stopped at the Wensleydale Creamery in Hawes. This is Wallace and Gromit’s favorite cheese that is mentioned on their animated show. And that mention saved the cheese factory. We sampled several varieties of Wensleydale cheese and bought Wallace and Gromit souvenirs.

I wish this tour could be taken from Skipton, as Tim drove through the town of Gargrave, where we had just been, and we pointed out where the Lady Teal canal boat had moored and the locks we transited.

It was a nine hour tour and one of the highlights of our visit to the Lake District, even though technically, the tour is not the lake District, but the Yorkshire Dales. Since it was just us two, he dropped us off at our hotel in Bowness, rather than Windermere.

We had dinner at the Village Inn, a pub that was lively and had decent food. But then doesn’t everything taste good after a long day and a pint of cider?

Day 13

After a long tour day yesterday. Today was our down time day. No long bus rides today. Since we were halfway through our trip, we needed to do laundry. We took an uber to Windermere to the Windermere Launderette and dry cleaners. We weren’t clear on how to operate the machines, so we went next door to the dry cleaners and the proprietor helped us start the machine and put the detergent in. He said we didn’t need to wait the 45 minutes as the machines lock upon start and our clothes were safe and does anyone really steal wet laundry?

We walked over to the Windermere library where there was an exhibition on the Windermere Children. We had watched the movie “The Windermere Children” and the documentary as part of our travel prep beforehand.

Windermere Children

As you may know, in 1945 hundreds of traumatized children, mostly orphans, who were liberated from German Concentration Camps were brought here to Windermere to the Lakes School in Troutbeck Bridge on the Calgarth Estate as a place for the children to recover and reintegrate into society. The original school isn’t there anymore. There’s only a plaque, and we since we didn’t have a car, we didn’t visit there.

After we moved our laundry to the dryer, and paid for the wash and dry, (no coins needed) we did some souvenir shopping in windermere before taking an uber back to the hotel.

World of Beatrix Potter Attraction

After a fish and chips lunch, we walked over to the World of Beatrix potter Attraction. We walked through 3D vignettes of Beatrix Potter’s beloved stories and saw 3D statutes of Potter’s fictional characters such as Peter Rabbit, Mrs Tiggy Winkle, Jemima Puddle-Duck, etc. It took about an hour to walk through the exhibits.

In the same building, is the lobby for the Victoria Wood Theatre. It’s an intimate theatre, so every seat is good. The show that was playing was a new musical “Fourteen Again” and it was premiering in Windermere. The signs outside said “sold out” but when I inquired at the front desk about availability, they told me they just had a cancellation with two seats (in the worst spot in the theatre- back row and corner side, but still good sightlines), we bought them for Friday night.

Jacksons Bistro

Dinner was at jacksons Bistro in Bowness. The food was good. They have a fixed price 3 course dinner. And lots of people leave great reviews. However the service was atrocious. Almost non-existent. We asked for our check, it was never brought to us. So we finally stood to leave and talked to one of the waiters who had to search for it and we paid by tapping our card at the front door. I’m sure there was a service charge but there was no way I was going to leave a tip.

(continued)

Day 13

Today we took full day (8 hour) 10 lakes Spectacular tour with Mountain Goat Tours, which picked us up at Bowness Pier. Without a car, I felt this was a good way to see the lake District, but it was a long day.

We did see all ten lakes, some from afar. We stopped among other places, at Ullswater, Castlerigg Stone Circle, Honister pass to visit the slate Mine, Keswick for lunch, drove through Ambleside and stopped at Grasmere, where we bought gingerbread cookies and fudge, and saw William Wordsworth grave and drove by his house, Dove Cottage.

I thought it was a good tour to get a glimpse of the Lake District, but my wife was disappointed that the tour didn’t stop at Lake Coniston. So next time, I’ll have to figure out how to get there by bus.

Victoria Wood theatre

We ate a quick dinner at the Village Inn again, and walked over to the Victoria Wood theatre to see the premiere of “Fourteen Again”, a new musical that celebrates the work and memory of british comedian and writer Victoria Wood. The theatre is named after her. It was an excellent production and I hope it comes to London’s west end. The lyrics to the songs were campy and fast, so I admit, I didn’t get all the nuanced british humor. But I am glad we got to see it.

Day 14.

Holehird Gardens and Orrest Head

The sun was shining and was a good day for a hike. We took an uber up to Holehird Gardens and visited for an hour before heading out the garden’s Fell gate and onto the open fields up to the public footpath. I had previously downloaded a brochure from Holehird that described in words how to walk from the garden to Orrest Head.

I had been carrying my foldable hiking sticks in my suitcase and I finally got to use them for this hike. The public footpaths went through farmers private fields and we walked through the green sheep fields from gate to gate. There were signs at each field gate that said, stay on the track, but the green grass had overgrown the tracks and it was hard to see. Fortunately, there was a red sign on each gate, so we knew to head towards the red sign.

At one property line, we had to cross a stone fence. The fence had an opening in the top with stone steps leading to the opening. Easy to climb if you’re agile and young. My wife began videoing me on her iPhone as I attempted to cross the fence. She said so that if I fell flat on my face, she would post it on Facebook.

The open fields led to a road, and then to a path in the woods across a small creek. My written instructions said, at the “kissing gate” walk…. I had no idea what a kissing gate was.

We exited the woods and came to a steep hill. The wooden sign that pointed the way to Orrest Head had fallen and we weren’t sure which direction to go. Here, Google and Apple Maps were useless. But I had my geocaching app which uses Ordnance Survey (UK) maps and Open Street Maps and all the trails and gates and topography are shown on those maps.

We took the trail to the left and began the slow climb to Orrest Head from the North approach.
Along the way to the top, as we rested, we met an older man, also walking to the top, and we chatted a bit before he continued on at a brisk pace.

My wife complained “I thought you said it was downhill hike.” “”Well, it is, once you get to the top.” She responded with an expletive.

Still climbing to the top, we met an older single woman coming down from Orrest Head and chatted with her. She was from Minnesota, and didn’t have a map and was lost. We told her about the fallen sign post and that she needed to go through a kissing gate and across a creek. We wished her well and continued on.

(continued)

Almost to the top, the same man we met going up, was now coming down. He was a very fast walker and We were really slow walkers. My wife told him that there was a solo woman ahead of him that was lost and that he should help her find her way. And perhaps walk with her for a bit.

I asked my wife why she said that. She said “Matchmaking. They looked like they would be good together.” And in some perfect, romantic world , we’d like to believe that we saw them the next day together at a café in Windemere.

Orrest Head

The 360 degree panoramic view from Orrest Head was outstanding. we could see almost the entire length of lake Windermere and the Central Fells peaks, including the Langdale Pikes and Ill Bell ridge. Orrest head is famous for launching the career of Alfred Wainwright, the famous author of the Wainwright walking guides. Though, Our tour guide said that Wainwright was an antisocial jerk and a mean and nasty man.

We walked down from Orrest Head along the nice wide smooth gravel path, which was meant to allow wheelchairs and strollers, through Elleray Wood . Lots of people and children on this part of the trail as it is an easy 2 mile hike up to the top. As we arrived at the trailhead directly opposite from the Windermere Railway Station, it began raining.

Thanks to forum member isn31c for his invaluable advice. He suggested we stop in at the Booths grocery store to use the clean, free bathrooms and have a meal in their café.

we decided to get takeout sandwiches. Their meal deal was £6 each and since it was now raining hard, we abandoned our plan (suggested by isn31c) to walk down Lake Road to the Sheriff’s walk path, through the woods, to the Jetty Musuem and instead took an uber back to the hotel.

Afterwards, with a brief pause in the rain, we decided to do another lake cruise, this time to the south from Bowness to Lakeside. But when we got to Lakeside, it was raining hard, so we just stayed on the boat and took it back to Bowness.

Our final dinner was at the Magic Roundabout Restaurant, which had excellent food and we had a window seat on the second floor overlooking – the roundabout.

Derek, thanks so much for taking the time to make this detailed report. I will soon be planning my Lakes District trip for next July. I am hoping to do all 3 of the Mountain Goat tours that you did, but plan to do the All Creatures one from York since I can't be sure that it will be available from Bowness. I also want to stay in the Windermere area rather than in Keswick. Since we also hope to travel without a car, your info about the train was quite helpful, although I may also be trying to do this alone from London since my husband and daughter will be going to the British Open part of the time that I'm in the Lake District. Since they're on a package that only includes their hotel accommodations, I will probably stay in the Lake District during that time. I'm also thinking that we may want to try to stay in one of the HF Holidays Country Houses. Thanks again for the help your trip report is giving me.

I'll be re reading this but I'm right there with your wife being a fan of Beatrix Potter. Peter Rabbit and all the others are a big part of my family culture. So many Peter Rabbit birthday parties, so many hours reading the books aloud, and a huge reason I grew up loving rabbits and still do. I am thinking of basing in Ambleside.

Re- The Windermere Children- There is now a memorial garden to them at The Lakes School at Troutbeck Bridge- which has been very well done. It was constructed for the 80th anniversary last year.
The 599 and 555 stops outside the school entrance- a less than 5 minute walk away.
In some ways a more fitting memorial than the single oak tree across the school access road from the garden, planted for the 70th anniversary.
That tree was grown from an acorn gathered at the foot of an oak tree at Auschwitz (a tree which was there at the time of WW2), so it does have a real significance.

During the war the Calgarth Estate had been used to accommodate workers at the Shorts Brothers Flying Boat Factory at what is now the White Cross Bay Holiday Park (which has a memorial to it's former use).

Giggleswick has a public (for which read private) school in the village, founded as long ago as 1499. The School Chapel is especially impressive, and can be visited.

For anyone else in a similar position on TPE Car D is the unreserved car- the one next to the 1st class car.

And if you want to try good baked beans try those with the TPE 1st class breakfast- they are spiced, and pretty good.

Thank you for your enjoyable report, Derek. I appreciate the info about visiting without a car.