Camping in The Lake District

The Lake District - loved, loved, loved it! Cant wait to go back! Over this last Bank Holiday weekend (3 day weekend) we drove up to the Lake District and went camping. Nope, I'm not the most avid camper :-) but we had a great time. The area was popularized through the works of Beatrix Potter and William Wordsworth. Potter lived just a couple miles away from our campsite, Low Wray on Windemere lake. The movie "Miss Potter" brought even more attention to what has to be one of the most beautiful parts of England.

Our SatNav said it was a 4.5 hr drive, but when leaving London on a Bank Holiday Friday afternoon, just tack on some extra time to that. Took 6 hours and we found ourselves at a campsite with the barrier closed at 10:00pm. I anticipated having to sleep in the car with all of our stuff, but due to DA's diligence we were able to borrow a card key from another camper and get inside to set up our tent. DA and I went about setting up camp in the pitch black, cold night - brand new, fancy, 2 room tent with 1 flimsy page of instructions which were in total 6 sentences and a couple of pencil drawings. Word to the wise - always familiarize yourself with the tent BEFORE having to pitch it up in the dark. It took us 2 HOURS! We found out the next morning that we had broken a major rule setting up after 8:00pm and the National Trust was none too happy with us and they let DA know about it. He was just being honest and was trying to pay for that night. They allowed us to stay after reading him the riot act, maybe being a NT yearly member helped a little. We were serenaded all night by the cows and sheep and very noisy baby lambs right across the fence from our tent. Sometimes the country can be so loud. B was so distraught by the lambs "baa-ing" all night, that she wanted to jump the fence to go rescue them.

Our neighbors in the fieldSaturday was fun - took in a hike along the Windemere Lake shore, saw tons and tons and tons of sheep and lambs, and cooked over the new gas burners DA bought me! (he's given up the image of backpack camping since I insist on eating real food and not bagged-pour hot water and stir up - nasty camping food.) There was a creek about 15 feet from our tent, it was calling B's name. She got wet, and wet, and wet... and ended up changing clothes 9 times on Saturday. The tennis shoes were wet, all socks wet, inside of the wellies wet, everything! but she loved it. L managed to stay dry. He was a little subdued (tired) after arriving home from a 4 day school field trip to Bath the day before.

Sunday was rainy, but our tent held firm and endured about 15 hours of continuous rain. Fortunately we had that 2nd room in the tent to keep food and stuff dry or else we would have been camping in the car. Ended up touring Hawkshead, Grasmere, Ambleside and just enjoying driving through the area. It's so lovely, peaceful and green. We spoke to one of the locals who said, "yep, it rains alot. That's where the lakes come from." So I guess if you ever travel there, expect some rain. The Beatrix Potter gallery in Hawkshead was very interesting. I enjoyed getting to view some of her original artwork up close. The drawings are so charming. No wonder generations have loved her books. It was B's first introduction to her stories, so now she is writing her own about the cows and the sheep we saw.

Monday we rented a boat on the lake for an hour in Bowness-on-Windemere and just cruised around. There are lots of little boats in the water with people doing the same thing. The kids loved driving the boat themselves. It had two gears - forward and reverse - so driving was pretty simple. (Mary and David - B said it reminded her of Cedar Creek and she wished she was there instead).

DA and I had to laugh at the boat rental procedure though. In the States, there would have been forms to sign, liability releases to sign, insurance info, life jackets, etc. but in England where they don't have the liability issues, we handed them 18 pounds and they showed us to the boat. No signatures, no names, no forms, nothing. Just take your money and here's the boat. DA asked as we got on the boat, "where are the life jackets?" the guy said, "you want life jackets?" There were none on the pier so I guess they don't provide them. crazy.

As we were leaving the Lake District, DA and I decided that besides Italy, it was the one place we had visited that we absolutely will come back too. Even talked about staying for several weeks in the summer. I'm sure the traffic is congested with the tiny 2 way roads, but the scenery is just so nice. We loved it.

see, I'm having to remind myself of all that fun we had because today, well it's clean up, do laundry, get out the tent to dry it off, put up all the stuff day. fun, fun!

I asked them to hug each other and this is what I got, a fake hug with stiff arms. No actual hugging took place.