Lake District Holiday 2010
Posted in Family, Friends, General, Holidays, Outings on 08/30/2010 09:59 pm by VictoriaI’ve been home from my holiday for over a week, but as I’ve been so busy catching up on things it’s only now that I have some free time to update my blog.
This is actually the 4th time that I’ve been on holiday to the Lake District, although this time my 2 nieces Anya and Emily came as well. (Last year they stayed with us for a few days, but not for the full holiday, as they had other things planned). There was no mobile phone reception available in the holiday cottage where we were staying, so I kept a paper diary instead of using Twitter. At first I was a bit disappointed about that, but at least it meant there were less distractions.
At the beginning of the holiday (Saturday 7th August), we arrived at the cottage in Grasmere just after 3pm. Much of the evening was spent unpacking, although we did go for a short walk by the local rock stream. I had a nice big bedroom at the cottage – in fact I think it’s the biggest bedroom I’ve ever stayed in! The following morning, we went for a walk up to Easedale Tarn. We do this walk every year, but on the first full day of the holiday I’m not usually very fit and it takes me a couple of days to get used to all the climbing, especially as we live in an area with no hills at all! Therefore I was dreading going to Easedale Tarn on the first day, as there are some steep climbs involved. At one point during the walk I thought that I was going to be sick and I felt dizzy and light-headed, so I had to stop and drink some water. Luckily I felt better once we’d reached the top of the mountain (where the tarn/lake is). I never had any more of those dizzy feelings during the holiday. Later that afternoon, we went to the Cumbria Carvery (which is favourite restaurant in Grasmere) for a meal. I had a Yorkshire pudding filled with Cumberland sausage, chips and gravy. That is a typical local meal in the Lake District.
On the first Monday it rained heavily, so we didn’t go on any proper walks. Instead we visited a village called Hawkshead and we went to the Beatrix Potter Gallery. There wasn’t that much to see, so we walked round it fairly quickly. We also looked round some of the local shops and had some sandwiches and a piece of cake in one of the cafes. On Tuesday we walked round Rydal lake – this was a walk that I’d done 5 years ago, but I still enjoyed it. Luckily I didn’t get too worn out this time! The first part of the walk is all uphill and quite tiring, but after that it is OK and the scenery is very good, and you get a nice aerial view of the lake. On the higher path, there is a big cave – I’d actually forgotten just how big the cave is, since the last time I’d been there! It started raining really heavily and all our clothes were soaked right through. At the end of the walk we went to the Rydal cafe and had a quick walk around the Rydal gardens. On Wednesday we went for a walk at Thirlmere, which is a reservoir near Coniston. There was also a woodland walk where we saw a waterfall and a really big old tree (European Silver Fir), which was about 200 years old. Later that afternoon, we went to an internet cafe in Grasmere, but there was only one (really slow) computer, so I didn’t have a chance to do much with it. I just checked my email and that was about it
Thursday was Mum’s birthday so we all gave her birthday cards in the morning. We spent most of the day in Ambleside, which is a town near Grasmere. We walked to a waterfall and we had lunch in a pub. When I’m on holiday, I always miss my weekly takeaways, but this pub served chicken makhani curry with rice and naan bread, so I had that and I enjoyed it. After dinner, Emily and I played on one of the quiz machines. We walked around the town and we went to a chocolate shop where I bought some chocolate truffles and some jelly beans. On Friday we went for a really long walk up to Codale Tarn (which is the second tarn after Easedale Tarn). We’d been there 5 years ago, but this time we took a different route. It took much longer than I thought it would – in fact we were walking for over 6 hours, making it the longest walk of the holiday. We saw many streams and waterfalls along the way, and it was a very pretty walk, even though it was steep and slippery in parts.
On Saturday we went to Coniston for the day. We hired out a motor boat for an hour on the lake and we had a meal at Harry’s restaurant afterwards. There was a meteor shower that evening, and as there was a clear sky, we were able to see the shooting stars. It looked very pretty and I took several photos of the stars. When we are at home, we can’t see the stars so well in the city due to the light pollution. On Sunday we did another steep walk – this time to the Lionhead and Lamb in Easedale. We did this walk 5 or 6 years ago and the path at the start is very steep and not very well laid out. However it was all worth it in the end, as we had lovely views all over Easedale and Grasmere. From the top, we could see Easedale Tarn and Grasmere lake, along with Windemere and Coniston lakes. On Monday, we got up early to go to Aira Force, which is one of my favourite walks in the Lake District. We walked amongst the waterfalls and woods for 2 and a half hours and had a picnic at the top of the waterfalls.
On Tuesday we went back to the cafe in Rydal but this time I had a white hot chocolate with cream, marshmallows and a flake. It was one of the nicest hot chocolates I’ve ever had in my life! We parked at the cafe and walked into Ambleside. I bought everyone a meal at the pub, where I had the same chicken makhani meal as before. On Wednesday we went to Derwentwater and had cream scones and milkshakes at The Grange cafe. Afterwards we walked around the village. On Thursday we visited John Ruskin’s house at Brantwood, which was very interesting. We walked round the gardens as well. On Friday – our last full day – it rained very heavily so we didn’t do much. We had been planning to walk up to Easedale Tarn again but it was too wet. We had a meal at the Cumbria Carvery, bought some gingerbread at the Sarah Nelson gingerbread shop and then we walked to the top of Sour Milk Gill (the waterfall leading up to Easedale Tarn).
Several exciting things have been happening since we arrived back from our holiday. On Tuesday last week, Anya received her GCSE exam results. She did very well and she got 8 Grade A’s and a Distinction for ICT. We went out for a meal at The Oaklands in the evening to celebrate. It was a really nice carvery. On Friday evening Mum and I saw Toy Story 3 at the cinema – unfortunately it wasn’t being shown in 3D, but we still really enjoyed it. Afterwards we had a meal at Malaysian Delights. On Saturday night I went clubbing with my friend Kay. Today Terry and I went to Norfolk Lavender. Disappointingly, the lavender fields weren’t open (as they’d already been ploughed) but we still walked around the gardens and farmyard, and we also had a snack in the cafe and I bought some lavender oils. I also had a piece of lavender cake and a little tub of lavender ice cream, which was nice as lavender ice cream is very rare.
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