A First Encounter with England: Lake District 18/6/2006

We took advantage of our full day hired car to see a bit more of our adopted country. The weather, which had behaved for Lucy and Andy's visit took a sharp turn toward rainy. It wouldn't be enough for a river trip, so we decided to see what England looked like. The Lake District had been given a big thumbs up from other foreigner friends. On a map, it looked like maybe 2 hours of driving. In reality it was a tad more. The drive in to the Lake District impressed me as being designed with a Mini in mind. Our Ford Fiesta was no Mini, but she handled herself well. Zip zip zip.

We found our way into Windermere, one of the bigger towns in the area, and began our quest for lunch. The plan was a picnic. The rain picked up. We picked up food from the Co-op and picnicked in the car. After lunch, we found our way down into Windermere proper, found the visitor centre and picked up a 50p hike guide for an easy walk we could do in a few hours.

I forget the name of the trail, but the objective was to end up at a nice overlook down to Windermere and the big lake before descending back into town. We followed many trails up, wound around through the countryside, paid our respects to the English sheep and occasional fellow walker and enjoyed semi-consistent rain. Raincoat on. Raincoat off. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

The summit overlook did indeed give us a lovely view back down to the lake and town. Overcast seemed to add personality to it, rather than detract from it.

Not far from the summit on our hike down, my ankle had a painful encounter with a loose rock. Not the worst sprain ever, but definitely the worst in recent memory. Continuous motion made it hurt less. Driving home made it hurt more.

On the drive home, overcast and rainy became very rainy. The high pass became quite foggy, so I had a caravan of impatient English drivers behind me. I attempted to shoot some video on the way home, but unfortunately Lucas and I miscommunicated about what I wanted him to capture. I wanted to send a clip or two of Lake District curvy fun to the MINI club back home. Unfortunately, he corrected the camera angle for every zip in the road, making it nearly straight. Ah well. Next time. Perhaps if I shoot the video while my evil twin drives, we'll get the zip zip zip and then some!