The Lake District

Skeletal outline ( Bev will fill in the enjoyments)

Saturday

A Cumbrian breakfast at our Country Hotel, Crow How. Too much to repeat each day. Old buildings, great gardens, and by Tuesday Bev and I were the only guests.

We pursued the whereabouts and historic residences of William W.

Walton? Wilberforce? Wainwright? Ahhhh - Wordsworth!

And bought a dead-trees version of his works, because try as we may, reading it on an iPad or Kindle just doesn't work.

From our hotel, just a short walk to the start of the Coffin Route (Ambleside to Grasmere) with Wordsworth's Rydal Mount (palatial!) half-way along.

The Coffin Route is an exceedingly pleasant walk, as Alfred Wainwright might phrase it.

This took us to Grasmere, where we lunched by the stream.

We postponed entering Dove Cottage at Grasmere as Lizzie was suffering from a raging rash on neck and body, which we eventually narrowed down to her merino singlet having spent the winter cuddled up with some nasty moth-repellant. We sped back to Ambleside and bought out Boots, but it took many hours for the screaming to subside, and there was still some evidence of its cause on Sunday morning.

Sunday

A little more of William and a lot of Beatrix.

Back to Grasmere, poking around in the cramped gloom inside Dove Cottage. W lived there with his extending family 1799-1808, later moving on to Rydal Mount (1813-1850).
The Jerwood Centre at left below is adjacent to Dove Cottage, supports Wordsworth research and has an extensive display of his material.

We had read Beatrix Potter's biographical brochure and watched the film and re-read some of the tiny books (we have the lot, in several formats) before we came over. But being here and visiting the holy sites was still excellent fun.

Hill Top was her first farm, which she eventually used as a studio.

We were only marginally aware of her biological and archeological work beforehand. Much more in the picture now. We have a much more rounded understanding of her as a hard-headed businesswoman who knew what her material was worth and invented the brand extension now practiced by every film and rock band.

Sunday at 6.28, Liz was to catch a train from Oxenholme back to London, arriving nice and early so she could be fit for work on Monday morning. Problems up the line made the train 35 mins late at Oxenholme and even later in London, but the 50% refund on the fare offered by Virgin covered the taxi from Euston to Notting Hill, and Liz was happy to be home by 10.40

Monday
Lonely Planet Lake District quite denigrated the Armitt Museum in Ambleside, so we didn't visit while Liz was here; what a mistake!

Spent several hours there this morning, seeing lots of original Potter fungi paintings, lots of personal family and scientific background details, and her personal collection of the bunny tales.

Lunch at the Giggling Goose, with its fake waterwheel

Then we tied on our snowshoes and headed for the 3-hour walk up Loughrigg Fell, overlooking Grasmere to the north. Wainwright spends 16 pages of his Central Fells Walks book on Loughrigg, nominating about 6 different ways to ascend. We came up by walking past Rydal Water and the end of Grasmere, shown below, with Grasmere village at the end of the lake and Dove Cottage hidden by the hotel at centre right.

 And a larger view of the same region.

We were guided by our hotel's leaflet and with a 1-16000 map in case of error.

Hard work, rewarded by amenable weather, sore muscles and great views.

On the way down we got close enough to chat to some locals

and pass by some more idyllic scenes.

Then a suitable end to a wonderful day


Tuesday
We  gobbled our last breakfast feast and cleared the room

Off to Keswick, to the Pencil Museum, via more fine scenery. At the PM we indulged in some artistic materials collection, and gained some appreciation of the economic and cultural role of said materials.

Then we sped down the M6 towards a reunion with Elaine and Martin Jenkins, who we last saw in Christchurch NZ. The Fiat had other ideas, gobbling a rear tyre at 70 mph while we were surrounded by semi-trailers. Scary!

We had all the bits to change the wheel, but found that the replacement was a "space-saver", half as wide and rated only for 50 mph. So our journey slowed and we spent three hours being harassed by semis who wanted to go much faster in the slow lane than we we going.

Eventually our trusty GPS led us to Clifton-Upon-Dunsmore, near Rugby, and we were welcomed into the bosom of friendship again. And very relieved to be there.

Early days

Wednesday evening.
 We're now at Liz's flat and getting ready to crash. Tomorrow already has important events planned including a 10.00 am booking to see the Collider exhibition at the Science Museum in South Kensington.

All went well on the way over, other than the tedious overnight (8 hours) wait in the terminal at Singapore.

This means we experienced 8 hours flying to Singapore, 8 hours at Changi Int'l airport and then nearly 14 hours flying to London. Disembarking was a joy.

Bev was targeted by an Evangelist while trapped in the window seat. She received a helpful pamphlet that informed her that she was special and that God loved her. As the 14 hour leg of the trip dragged on Bev felt that if God really loved her he would have provided sufficient funds so that she could have travelled first class. What saved everyone, in fact, were the movies. 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty' was worth watching and Bev thought 'Saving Mr Banks' was well done. The latter is of course of interest  to children's literature enthusiasts.

When we were finally on the ground at Heathrow, we picked up a pocket wifi modem in T3. We've rented it for a month to try to out-guess Telstra. It seems quite OK - easy connection, etc. It's a Huawei product, E5331. A$69 via Optus in Oz. A$136 for a month in the UK including 150 MB/day.

Thursday

Liz has a Nespresso machine, and has provided us with a "Welcome" box containing 15 varieties of coffee, 10 capsules of each. Great mornings to come.

The Collider Exhibition at the Science Museum concerns the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland/France, etc. The exhibition provides a series of excellent multimedia experiences of the outside and the inside of the collider, complemented with real examples of machine components

and more general artefacts, like the bicycles needed to get around the 27 kms perimeter of the collider. There are audiovisual chats from engineers and scientists and audio reports encountered as you walk through the simulated tunnel. Heaven for physicists!

After lunch at the museum, we headed back through the South Kensington Museums' subway to take the Tube to St Pauls Churchyard to collect the National Trust passes for the three of us to use in the Lake District. That was done without a problem.

Next stop was Two Temple Place to see 'Discovery', an exhibition of material from the 8 Cambridge museums. Lots of amazing items to view. The venue was a discovery too, a fabulous former Victorian mansion with lavish appointments everywhere from carved balustrades to marble floors and fireplace and the sections of carved wood wall panelling and enormous stained glass windows.

In the evening, a 45 min trip to Angel, meeting Liz for pizza before going to see Belinda in an Australian musical, We Live Here (?).

All too much and we were in a daze well before the end of day, but all three events were closing before we return to London, so it was see it now or never.

Friday
Russ off to Kensington Olympia by 27 bus to Europcar. Eventually drove off in a Fiat 500 L, 1.4 litre diesel. Initial hire cost for 17 days was thought to be 203 pounds, but the switch to the Fiat added 85 pounds. No research done so far on the difference in fuel consumption over the Vauxhall Astra, but the Fiat is roomier as well. We shall have to see whether we save the extra cost over the hire. We later realised that the prices quoted did not include 20% VAT, bringing the total to 350 pounds. The 5 pounds extra/day for the Fiat more than doubles the daily cost after the first fortnight.

So back to Notting Hill, parked inside Liz's Portobello Court (the auto gate was broken) and load up with bags. Then the magic of GPS weaves us north for an hour or more of suburbs to the M1, where we can finally relax.

By 4.30 we were at Stafford, 

having endured an afternoon of heavy traffic coming up the M1 and M6, just spending time on the transport day to the Lake District. Not crawling much, mostly 70 mph (115 kph) but continuous 3-lane crowds, shoulder to shoulder for 250 km. A$40 of fuel to get this far, just over half-way and using a quarter tank.

So we were well behind schedule for the day. At that point we had intended to go straight to the hotel, book in, then come back out to get Liz at 9.15 PM at Oxenholme rail. But with 212 mies to go, it won't happen. It will be so late when we get to Kendall that we'll just wait for Liz's train and save ourselves the extra hour drive.

And then it got worse. In the hour and a half after Stafford, we covered 40 miles. After Leicester the traffic vanished and we reached Kendal with time for fish'n'chips before meeting Liz's train.

Full dark for the 40 mins to the hotel, in the gate at 10 PM.

Beginning

So we're off tomorrow to have some adventures with Liz in the UK - the Lake District, Isle of Skye, and also to see our UK family and friends.

We've done lots of reading of Lonely Planet and Rough Travel Guides and many dedicated websites too, so we can be as informed as possible about what to see and do and how to get around. We'll recharge our Oyster cards at Heathrow for tube travel in London and we've got National Trust passes organised to be picked up in St Paul's Churchyard once we are in London. The passes will be useful for the sites we want to visit in our literary pilgrimages.

The bags are packed and with the suitcases at only 15kgs each we think we are doing well. The short puffy down coats and Bridgedale socks are packed as we know we will need them.

Peggy and Don offered to take us the Richmond train station as they have done on previous trips we've taken. So the journey begins once we are on the airport train tomorrow at about 1.30 pm.