Windermere: Part One - August 2015

Having learnt our lesson at Bassenthwaite not to bite off more than we can chew, John and I decided 10 miles (or 16km if you are so inclined) was much more appropriate for our weary old legs. But we wanted to do Windermere as it's so easy to get to from the Fylde Coast: on a snatched 'good weather' Sunday, we wanted to get to a lake asap! Those of you who know such things will be aware that Windermere is the biggest lake of all of them, so we have broken it into sections, (no, not literally) and walked our first one on Sunday 23rd August.

So, how to walk along 10 miles of lake shore in one direction, yet return to your car?
Use Windermere Lake Cruises of course! They even allow dogs on the boats, so Usko came along too.  

Our first boat of the day

Hmmmm - not sure how this would pan out when they realised we just had 'a dog'.

Settling down in the shade. Bless him. You can see where his fur is all clipped and his stitches were from his attack on our last (attempted) walk.

We got on the first boat out of Lakeside, Newby Bridge and went all the way up the length of the lake to Waterhead in Ambleside.  It was breezy, but beautiful. I loved seeing the shore from the water itself, rather than the opposite shore.

our first view up the lake

one of the 'horseshoe' mountain ranges in the haze

both 'horseshoe' mountain ranges in the haze

the man's voice told us what these mountains are but I've long since forgotten

Where I would like to live please

Approaching Waterhead

Once at Waterhead, we had about 10 minutes turnaround to buy our next ticket (practically no-one else makes the same journey as us, it seems, as the woman in the ticket booth had to phone someone else and ask what ticket we should buy), and get on the much smaller boat 'The Lady of the Lake'.  

To my concern, there was another dog on this boat, and in close proximity to Usko. On first sight, they both lunged to greet each other, but then I told Usko 'leave it' and He Only Went And Did It!!  He turned around and did this:

Amazing behaviour!!

After a shorter journey, we disembarked at Wray Castle and began the walk itself, already nearly full-to-bursting with gorgeous lake views, but hungry for more. We had first, though, to enjoy the sights and sounds of a woodland walk.

Before sneaking out at the edge to see this:

And although we endeavoured to get a dog-on-a-log pose, it was not to be, the shadiness of the forest put paid to that. However, we managed the ultimate dog-on-a-rock picture, as you can see:

Looking snooty?...

...with good reason!

Love my doggy :-)

We continued along the lake edge, and found the shade of a tree to sit and have a cuppa (just ahead of me to my left in the photo below)... but then found it to be inhabited by many wasps, and I didn't fancy being sociable with wasps, so we had to go a bit further before we could stop for our brew.

Said brew. Which actually turned in to lunch. Usko not smiling because he's desperately trying hard to be good so's he can have some of my sandwich.

In contrast to our walk at Yew Tree Tarn, where we saw absolutely no-one, whilst on this walk, we saw vast throngs of people. (Well, comparatively, anyway.)  Costa del Windermere.  There were folks sunbathing, swimming, getting changed under towels, everything you expect to see in well, St Annes actually!  Although we felt very under-privileged not to have taken a yacht with us.  The west side of the lake is where everyone seems to take their vessels to escape the busy-ness of the east side of the lake.  Except it creates a busy-ness on the west side of the lake.  But a very attractive boaty busy-ness. And I can hardly complain because I'm only jealous really.

one of the handful of water-skiers we saw

all those boats on the right are 'tucked away' from Bowness, hiding behind an island in the middle of the lake.  On an aerial shot, it must look to be *the* place to hang out on a yacht.

Where I would like to live please (part 2)

Shortly after this was taken, Usko went for a paddle on the shallow rocks just in front of the jetty.  Except he didn't worry about keeping to the rocks, and ended up shoulder deep in Windermere.  He looked startled for a second, I hoiked him out, and after a thorough shake off (on to yours truly; don't worry, it was quite cooling on the ol' legs) it was as though it had never happened.

Ok, if I can't have the first one, I'll make do with this lakeside property.

 

even the stiles in the Lake District are charming :-)

the man's voice on the boat also told us about this jetty. And true to form, I have forgotten that too.

two of my boyfolk

There were many boathouses along the shore line, but this was the best named

 The last couple of miles back to Lakeside were along a road, which although pretty, was more than a little hazardous, and Not Much Fun. 

Looking up WIndermere again, at the other end of the day

 The cloud cover forecast for 8pm had turned up to the party about 5 hours early.  But we managed to perfectly dodge being out in the rain... it started to spit just as we drove out of the car park!  And then on our journey home, it turned a bit more torrential:

The joys of the English weather!

An attempt at Tarn Hows, with more success at Yew Tree Tarn - July 2015

This beautiful setting proved to be traumatic for Usko, as he was attacked by another dog. I'll spare you the gory details here, but include them at the end if you want an in depth account. So unfortunately we didn't get to see much of Tarn Hows, as we needed to get back to Ambleside (and then Windermere) for vet intervention.

Blood dripping from his head, still smiling, right before he had a sedative

4 stitches and 2 other smaller puncture wounds left to heal. Poor furboy.  He was very lovely to deal with post-sedation: I must admit, I wondered about asking the vet if we could have some supplies for home ;-)

All that aside, we did manage to walk some of Tarn Hows before we had to about-turn to the car park.  All 5 human family members were there, which I know I said would not happen again, but Grandma was playing the organ at a wedding in Coniston, and Papa was recovering from both hip and heart surgeries (brilliantly well I might add) so we thought it best to leave him free of boisterous charges for the afternoon.

Our first sighting of Tarn Hows

Lily pads visible, but alas not in bloom yet

He can't have been comfortable!

One keeps one's sunhat on one's head by wearing one's hood over the top. So I am informed.

(unbeknown to us: damaged) dog on tree stump

Boys on a log

That was the morning of 18th July. We then spent the afternoon at the vets' and received instructions not to walk Usko while he had stitches in.  So John and I very cheekily asked if we could go out for the evening, leaving boys human and fur behind.  Do not worry! Grandma was home by this point, and boy1 is capable of babysitting his brothers anyway. Plus the furboy was as placid as a placid thing, just watching the world go by in a disinterested fashion.

So off we trotted, to Yew Tree Tarn.  Being 7.30pm, we found a parking space with ease. We also saw no other single human being for the whole walk: bliss!

Yew Tree Tarn

I tried out various functions on my fancy-pants camera when I could remember how to access them. It seems I am of an age now where I need to carry an instruction manual with me. If I can remember where I put it...

There were foxgloves a-go-go

At the dam end of the tarn

Gotta have a gate photo!

We followed the path past Tom Gill (yeah, I know right?!) to see Tarn Hows again

Photo of me photographing

I do like a handsome smiling man to pep up a waterfall picture from time to time ;-)

Not only were there foxgloves a-go-go, there were slugs Ev-Er-E-Where.  For a couple of minutes we tried shouting 'slug' to one another whenever we saw one. It quickly became pointless because we would have uttered no other word in the english language for the entire evening.

After a while tramping through the woods, we came out the other side to see Tarn Hows from a bit further round where we'd been in the morning.  It was still lovely :-)

The sun had set, so we decided we had better head back before the woods got dark and scary. And we might have trodden on unwitting slugs in the process.  So off we trotted along a 'short cut' which turned out to be anything but.  Mind you there were beautiful views, which made back-tracking through bracken and brambles just about worth it.

Sorry, I'm a sucker for those gate pics...

Even the side of the road was pretty :-)

We returned to Yew Tree Tarn with light to spare, so decided to walk round it. At least then I would have circumnavigated a lake!

The north end

And then we jumped in the car to venture to Yew Tree Farm, which I wanted to snap. It was used in the film 'Miss Potter': made up to look like her Hill Top house.  Very quaint looking it is too. Although the house is now a holiday let, and the farm itself is further away. My mother-in-law buys meat from the farm occasionally, and has very good things to say about the owners :-)

It's a good job my camera works so well in dim light: this was 9.30pm!

So, not quite the day or walk we had planned; though it turned out well.  You may wish to know that Usko is recovering wonderfully, and was his usual bouncy self by the time we returned from our evening walk ;-)

The dog attack story: (cut an pasted from a message I sent a friend. I'm too lazy to retell it from scratch!)

So we were walking along a path around a lake. Not a particularly wide path, but wide enough that we could have all fitted across it.

I saw that a guy and his retriever were coming towards us, so I moved over to the left side of the path, with Usko on my left (so being on the very outside of the path) on a very short lead. I assumed the other guy would put his dog to his left, and walk past to my right, so it would be dog-person-person-dog. But no. The retriever was on a lead about 4 feet long and his owner let it come right up to Usko, thereby cutting in front of me. The retriever came round on the outside of Usko (so, to his left, making it retriever-Usko-me-man) and I was trapped, unable to move Usko forward and walk on. There were the usual couple of seconds of sniffing and then they just started fighting. The retriever had Usko's ear in his mouth at one point, or so I thought. Turns out is was the top of his head where the damage was done. I don't really remember how we got out of the situation... it was a tangle of dog and lead. the other dog was called Oscar which didn't help! Fortunately for Oscar, Usko was wearing his head collar, which restricts his mouth opening, so he wasn't able to inflict much damage, otherwise it would have been horrific, I imagine. We checked him over but could find nothing wrong. He did a huge poo a minute later but then I think I would have too!! Anyway, it was only a while later, when a couple asked us what breed he is, and I was stroking the top of his head that I saw the huge gash there.

The vet old us that the wounds were down to the muscle. Our poor pooch had just carried on walking, though I can only imagine he must have been in a lot of pain :-(

Although I know it was not my fault, it has made me realise that I need to ask people to keep their dogs on their other side so that I can just walk on with my boy when I need to.