Travel Writing in the Lake District

Travel Writing in the Lake District

I had dreaded the day that my Duke of Edinburgh would come around once

more and now I was two days into my expedition. The first two days

had been cold, wet and windy in the heart of the Lake District.

The English Lake District National Park is 885 square miles in size,

the largest of the 11 national parks in England & Wales, containing

over 1800 miles of footpaths through some of Britain's most beautiful

countryside. I am sure that we were going to cover at least over half

of the area. The area around Grasmere, Ambleside, and Coniston &

Windermere forms the hub of the tourist activity during the summer

months and are perfect places to base walking and camping trips which

we were about to find out.

We were gloomy and quickly began to comprehend the next three days

were only going to get worse. All we had thought about since leaving

the cosy minibus on Monday morning was the thought of mouth watering

food and hot baths. However, the reality was a bean feast meal and a

‘minging’ wet tent on potholed ground. In the Lake District, there

are many great pubs and restaurants with a friendly leisurely

atmosphere. They all have warm, friendly and welcoming surroundings.

We were at Elterwater campsite near Ambleside. I attempted to wake

Helen up in the sleeping bag next to me. She had insisted on me

dragging her out of the cosy sleeping bag to go for a hot refreshing

shower. (a delightful thought). It was one hell of an almighty effort

to emerge from a wet sleeping bag, which seemed to cling to me like a

baby not wanting to leave its mother. We grabbed our stuff and opened

the tent to the chilling air outside. In Elterwater is the nearby

site of an old gunpowder works, closed soon after the end of World War

I; the surrounding coppices provided a source of charcoal, an

essential ingredient in the manufacture of gunpowder.