Lake District Road Trip

This past Friday morning Ann asked me if I wanted to go on a road trip to Cumbria (the Lake District). I asked her when she was planning to go and she said, "Later today." Have I mentioned I love living in England?

The Lake District is about a five hour drive away - the plan was to leave at 1:30 p.m. and return the following evening. Ann's family comes from the Lake District so she loves going to that part of the country; she had a contact who was selling her a book connected to her family history and picking it up in person was a good excuse to do a road trip.

I found this truck highly entertaining.
Is it just an advertisement or is it really a huge tanker full of Marmite?

In the evening on Friday we started looking for B&Bs or hotels and the first city we encountered had banners advertising a jazz festival and every B&B window held a "No Vacancies" sign. We continued driving to the next town and finally found a Travelodge. After inquiring at the front desks, both the Travelodge and a neighbouring hotel claimed to have no vacancies. I found this highly unlikely as the parking lots were almost empty - my guess is they only use a small portion of the hotel rooms until the season gets more busy. We continued on and inquired at a boutique size hotel in the town of Cockermouth. The room rate was £44 per person - more than I was prepared to pay. We asked to see the room; I practically had to lean forward to compensate for the sloping floors and I knew I'd get lost if I had to find my way through the winding passageways on my own. The room was beautiful and had a huge jacuzzi tub, but the price was just too high. I told the woman at the front desk that we were hoping for something more in the £25-30 price range and she was skeptical that we'd find anything, but suggested a couple of B&Bs up a nearby side street.

The second B&B we tried had space available for £45 for both of us - definitely more in my price range! The building had sloping floors, sagging ceilings, an old rock wall on one end of our bathroom, and a fabulous rock spiral staircase to our room on the third floor. A plaque on the outside of the building gave its age as 1650. There were three pets - a big dog named Bluebell who greeted us with a tough bark which did little to hide her sweet nature; a black cat named Jack who sat on the floor between us during breakfast, purring even when nobody was touching him; and a fluffy black and brown cat named Otto who was shy but had a gorgeous face that somehow made him look like an owl.

The spiral staircase.

Oh, and we passed a fellow guest in the hallway and he was not only cute, but he also smelled amazing. I know that's a very random thing to mention, but I found it to be a nice perk, fleeting as the moment may have been.

The B&B had unique throw rugs throughout the house, mostly with animal themes.

One of two rugs in our room.

I'm not high maintenance; I just want a clean room and good breakfast and we weren't disappointed.

After checking into our room, we headed into town to grab some fish and chips. We ate in the car as the restaurant was kind of nasty. We had a great time "bird-watching" as we ate our dinner. There were a couple of pubs nearby and there seemed to be an unending groups of girls going in and out or walking down the street. We were in awe of some of the fashions - the girls in this country wear unbelievably short skirts. Part of me is tempted to go out to a really cheap, fashion-forward shop and buy a complete outfit just for fun. I'd never really wear it, but when I lived in South America I bought a full native outfit for fun, so why not do the same in Britain?

Even before I moved to England I heard about the Lake District and how beautiful it is. I've heard similar stories about other areas and I've been disappointed so I didn't want to get my hopes up, but the Lake District lives up to its reputation. Stunning views around every corner, beautiful forests, hills, and lakes. Quaint villages and farm houses. Lambs and calves in every field. The landscape provides a display of every shade of green imaginable.


The Lake District is similar to most of this country with the way the roads are set up; winding and narrow, with few, if any, areas to pull over to take photos. Ann told me to let her know if I saw a good view and she would stop if no other cars were around. Almost every time I saw a good view we were on winding roads or there were other cars around so I rarely asked her to stop. One view in particular was absolutely breathtaking, but we were on a steep, winding road with cars behind us so stopping was impossible. I will never forget the view - a green field leading away from the edge of the road with a few sheep grazing, behind them was an ancient rock wall, beyond that were a few trees, then a lake glistening in the sunshine, with steep hills rising on the other side. The image was stunning and represented the Lake District beautifully.

Here are some of the very few images I was able to capture. I'll be taking my parents to the Lake District when they visit and hopefully I'll have more opportunities to capture the beauty in photos.

The Lake District has a wide variety of landscapes and the weather changes rapidly. We encountered light rain, a torrential downpour, howling wind, and glorious sunshine, all within one hour. Literally.

This image was shot as we drove up through a pass.

There was an organized Lakes Tour for classic Ford cars - we saw at least 50 different cars. We noticed a few confused drivers so we pointed madly in the direction they were supposed to drive in and we got plenty of grins and thumbs-up in response.

I almost got run over by a classic Ford as I ran across the road to get the shot above.

The lowlands of the Lake District are lush and green, but moor-like areas (called "fells") are found when you drive into the hills.

Although these photos make the Lake District look quite bleak, much of our day was spent driving through incredibly beautiful countryside and farmland, I just didn't manage to capture any of it in photos. This was definitely a whirlwind tour of the Lake District, but I hope to do some walking and capture the area better in photos on my next visit.