Walking in the Lake District by James Davenport

Phil Gayle took a walking holiday around some of the picturesque villages in the UK’s Lake District.

The Lake District is one of the UK’s most popular National Parks. It covers some 880 square miles of Cumbrian countryside, and attracts over 14 million sightseers, walkers and climbers, every year. The trip started off in Grange-over-Sands, an Edwardian town known as the Riviera of Cumbria. At the start of the trip Phil claimed to be “not a walking type”, but his guide Andy, managed to change his mind.

Walking holidays are ideal if you are travelling solo, as walkers are usually a very social bunch. For three days the team covered between six and ten miles each day, sticking to the Southern Lakeland area. They headed as far north as Coniston Water, one of the longest lakes in the Lake District.

The first village that Phil visited was Cartmel, the only village in England to have it’s own race course. It is also famous for it’s sticky toffee pudding, there’s also Cartmel Priory to visit.

A five minute train journey across the Arnside Estuary, started off day 2. From the spectacular views at the top of Arnside Knott, the team headed downhill to the infamous sands of Morecambe Bay. Here Phil met with Cedric Robinson, the Royal Guide to the sands. Cedric is the only man in the country who is allowed to take people across the estuary on foot. Cedric knows exactly how to avoid the quicksand, and so the safest route across.

After the walk on the sands, Phil headed north to Grizedale Forest, which also doubles up as a sculpture park. There are around 80 pieces of art throughout the woods, most of which blend in, so keep an eye out for them. There are a number of walks you can take through the forest, they are graded by difficulty, and set out with coloured markers. From the forest it was on to one of the most visited spots in the Lake District, Tarn Hows. Surprisingly, the beautiful tarn was artificially created by landscape architects in the 19th Century.

No visit to the Lake District would be complete without taking to the water, so Phil tried out Coniston Water, about 5 miles from Windermere. While Coniston isn’t as pretty as it’s neighbour it’s certainly more historical. It is here that Donald Campbell attempted the World Water Speed record in his speedboat Bluebird. It is estimated he reached 328mph before the boat crashed. These days boats on Coniston are restricted to a speed limit of just 10mph.

Although Phil confessed to not being the walking type at the beginning of the trip, he really enjoyed himself, met lots of people, ate like a king, and hardly spent a penny.

About The Author

James Davenport writes articles on walks, UK walking routes, hill walking UK and Walking holidays UK. He is an employee of http://www.walksandpeaks.bedsearcher.co.uk a company which specialises in Walks, UK walking routes, hill walking UK and Walking holidays in the UK.