Lake District

So that's us not long back from our week away in the  - I've posted before about how wonderfully dog friendly the area is and we were not disappointed a second time!

I wont witter away for too long, so here are the highlights!

Our first port of call was in Ulverston (about 40 minutes from where we were staying) to the Laurel and Hardy Museum. Its completely dog friendly and goes over the life of Stan Laurel who was born in the village. There is a little bit about Hardy too and there is a cinema screen constantly playing the movies. The chap who runs the place (his grandfather founded it) was very chatty and full of interesting facts. A definite recommend! 

We then went to the nearby Buddhist temple and took Missy on a nice walk along the 'beach'. We had planned on stopping at the Stott Bobbin Mill, but fortunately I noticed when putting in the postcode that as it was off-season, it happened to be shut the Tuesday.

Wednesday we did a cruise with Windermere Lake Cruises and did the green walkers route, which picked us up at Brockhole, took us to Ambleside (we found an amazing pet shop there and got Missy a new collar and a lovely tea shop) and then to Wray Castle. We had planned on walking out to the newly built view point but hadn't realised it would be a 6 mile round walk (next time we'll do it!). We had a theatre show booked for the evening, so instead did a 3 mile walk to a lovely old barn house that was another viewpoint. 

The show that we saw was "Meeting Mrs Bea" at the recently built Old Laundry House theatre. It was about Beatrix Potters later years as Mrs Helis when she had become an accomplished sheep farmer and had given up on writing stories - I wont say more than that, but if it tours by, or you can find the original radio play its based on, its well worth a watch.

Thursday was a busy day! We started out by hunting down the locally infamous orange sheep and enjoying a walk around Troutbeck which is were we were based for the holiday. The sheep did not disappoint and are much more orange in real life than either photo or video shows!

We then took Missy out on a row boat and, whilst unsure at first, she quickly settled into it all, even risking a damp nose and peeking into the water a few times! Whilst Missy is an incredibly strong swimmer, she stoically makes a beeline to shore and does not enjoy the experience in the slightest , so we had no worry or concern that she would jump into the lake (living by a river that flows very strongly after rain, we did test that she could in fact swim not long after getting her, whilst she would allow me to carry her into the water, she did not venture in on her own free will!).

Our last day was going home through Keswick. The Pencil Museum was sadly closed for refurbishment, but we found some nice shops and a lovely little cafe to enjoy our last day in.

Its now Sunday and Missy is still quite tired from her adventures, and we're already planning the next one! Till next time!

Windermere Lake Cruises

Windermere Lake Cruises

Place Name: Windermere Lake Cruises

Location: Various around Lake Windermere

Cost: Varies depending on cruise type

Parking: various pay and display car parks - information is well provided on website

Time Required: 45 minutes to all day

Restrictions: Dogs to be kept on leads and not allowed on the furniture.

Refreshments: There is a small bar on most boats that does tea/coffee and alcoholic drinks

Website:  https://www.windermere-lakecruises.co.uk/

As you can expect with a name like Windermere Cruises, the attraction here was going out on either a launch boat or a steam boat on the lake. The company offers a variety of packages depending on where you sail from, how long you want to stay on the boat and whether you want to do a walk around Wray Castle as part of their seasonal walking cruise. The larger trips use the steamer, the smaller ones use the wooden launch boats.

The plan from day one had been to do one of the cruises on the lake, but like all great plans, other things came up and instead of a full day on the lake we only had time to fit in the 45minute Island Tour. With Missy being prone to the odd bout of travel sickness, it also made sense to just do a small ride just in case. The Island tour sails in and out of the Bowness harbour every half hour. The location allows for plenty of ice cream, duck feeding and strolls along the shore line before going onto the tour, and if you're up for it, more of the same once your back off the boat.

Once we'd bought our ticket (dogs go on free) we simply strolled onto the boat. The staff made no complaint to us sitting downstairs in the shelter on the nice soft chairs (Missy on the carpet) and had no problem with us all going onto the more exposed top level during the tour. The weather was fortunate enough that we stayed up top most of the time, but it's good to know that had the elements turned against us, we could all huddle downstairs together.

The boat set off and we had a guided tour of the different islands - it was interesting to see that one had simply eroded down to a single tree whilst others had been the film set to Swallows and Amazons whilst the largest was privately owned with its own house and everything! The only real complaint to be had was that the information was quite brief and the guidebook we had purchased covered all the tours so the information on just the islands was a touch sparse.

Missy stole the show as usual and we got a lot of compliments on how well behaved she was - truth be told not a lot phases her and she really does take new and odd surroundings in her stride. She thankfully didn't suffer any travel sickness and strolled quite calmly off the boat with us.

And yes, we did go back and have a second ice cream on our stroll along the shore line!

Overall rating : 4.5/5 - Timetables and maps were a touch confusing to figure out, but the staff were great with us. Great fun and a novel way to get about if you have a whole day to do it.

That's the last of the Lake District reviews for now, we hope to get back down again soon, but in the meantime please feel free to let me know any recommendations in the Scotland area!

attraction, Cumbria, dog, dog friendly, Dog walking, England, Windermere lake cruises, Lake District, missy, pet