A day in the British countryside

Tarnhows view, Hawkshead, Cumbria.

We're in the midst of the serendipitous section of our travels, with loose plans and usually no overnight reservations.  It's quite different from our planning and booking ahead norm that has us in a place for a few days to a week to get to know an area and to live a normal sort of life.  This serendipitous part isn't that. This was our day three days ago:



Arise to a full-on English breakfast in the B&B (pictured, left, in Hawkshead, Cumbria) with, as desired:  cereal, fruit, yogurt, juice, eggs, bacon (we'd call it ham), sausage (again, different), potatoes, tomatoes, mushrooms, toast (brown or white), coffee, tea.  Followed by "Can I get you anything else, love?"  Only tourists eat like this, we've been assured.

We waddle back to our room, check email, pack our little suitcases (the big ones live in the car boot) and hit the road.  The driving's become pretty easy, even on the tiny, winding roads, which is the norm around here.  But we average only about 25 miles in an hour, and they're a little fraught for the navigator.

Cumbria is also known as the Lake District, and it's sibling towns (they all have them!) are in the Alps and Italy's lake district -- because that's kind of how it looks here.  It used to be that steam ships operated as pleasure boats in the area in the 1800s, and there's one remaining that's recently been restored.  Modeled after a gondola, it's weird, and steams around the fairly large flat lake.  

Its fancy masthead.

School kids in the lake learning to kayak.  

Inside, pretty fancy.

When we got off the boat, we found mallard ducklings, about a dozen in all,
napping in two little fuzzy piles, with 2 moms nearby.   I'd never seen this before.

We realized that we'd picked up a passenger snail on our car during the night.  We later delivered it to a damp tree trunk.

 We'd had trouble finding local information on Grizedale Forest and its environmental sculpture (a LP recommendation), but we eventually found it.  Once there we decided not to rent bikes for it (great decision) and not to get a map of the sculpture park, not a great decision.   We took off thinking the trails were well-marked.  Our first sculpture was one of my favorites -- a monkey puzzle tree, with faces on its trunk (okay, not actually a sculpture, but a gorgeous work of nature).

Environmental sculptures are often tricky to spot, because the artists enjoy the hide and the surrounds so much.  But it's especially tricky in a real forest.  I have no idea how many we missed, but we found this one on the left -- a big piece of a tree with coin like objects nailed into it in lines.  Unsettling, odd.  And we couldn't help but notice the wind up possibilities with the trees below.  They wound, but nothing else.

A concrete sculpture, playing on the idea of the many stiles that allow folks
to cross fences along the public footpaths (more later). 

This giant fern was hiding behind a copse of trees.

We ended up hiking for several hours and getting pretty lost.  We finally found our way back, pretty tired.  We didn't find the Andy Goldsworthy that was supposed to be there, although we found another in a different sculpture park the next day.  

On the way out of the forest, we saw this field of sheep and odd little brush plants.

We still had time before sunset (the sky lightens here at about 3:30A, darkens at about 10:15P), and drove to within about a mile of a lake view we'd heard about and followed a public footpath to it. Public footpaths crisscross/net the country.  They've been around for centuries, and rights of way for the public remain through people's lands, often with grazing sheep, cows, often through backyards, farms, active fields.  Just an accepted way of life, and they're well used by locals, tourists, long-distance hikers.  They are great fun, and it's pretty awesome to be allowed to walk almost anywhere, with permission.  A very civilized, friendly system.

A public footpath "finger post" pointing the way to different public paths.  

The views from Tarnhows were spectacular.  

Steve's the speck on the fell (hill), viewing the lake below and all around.

View down into a section of the lake.  

One of many sheep in the field of the tarnhows.  This one was losing its winter coat naturally.   We hear from farmers that the wool is not of value these days; it costs more to shear them than the wool is worth.  Still, it has to come off, and some do it on their own, as they would in the wild. 

We found a B&B for the night, went to a pub, literally across the street from the B&B, and had supper, then "home" for the night.

Steve's tired.  

These are the standard sauces at a table in a pub.  Lots of lamb here, hence the mint sauce.
Malt vinegar (for fish and chips)  is in its own little bottle.