Is the Lake District an affordable, enjoyable day out?

They had to draw to a close eventually… this will be the last cheap train journey I will be writing about for a while, possibly forever (by the time this eventually gets posted, Northern will have been nationalised and I cannot imagine the government being generous enough to give away virtually free tickets). This was by far our most ambitious adventure yet, involving an overnight stay and a five hour train journey, not once but twice. We explored the heavenly alluring landscape of the Lake District, England’s largest and most popular National Park. It is pretty cut off from the hectic-ness that shrouds much of Britain – before the Northern deal, I did not even realise there were train stations in the Central Lakes. We devised a plan of action – we got the train to Kendal, spent the night there before we got a bus to Grasmere, walked from there to Ambleside, bused it back to Windermere and caught the train back from there. Below is a map of the Lake District, to give you some context of whereabouts we visited:

Time spent in the Lake District = pretty much bang on 24 hours.

Miraculously for Northern, NONE of the three connections on our first day of travel were late – in fact, on the leg between Manchester Piccadilly and Kendal we waited just before the Oxenholme station for around 20 minutes. I was confused why we were standstill for so long, but upon arrival at Oxenholme, it became clear that the rest of the journey would be on a singular track. Despite this, Kendal still has an hourly service to Windermere and Oxenholme / Manchester Airport, which is more than some places get from my local town. We arrived and checked in to our hotel in just enough time to explore the town in the light.

Kendal is one of the largest settlements in Cumbria, behind the county city of Carlisle and Barrow-In-Furness. You can tell this by the amount of popular chains in their high street; other towns in the Lakes which are deliberate tourist hotspots have their own unique style and more localised stores and services, whilst Kendal is more for long-term residents and is therefore more commercialised. This does not mean Kendal does not live up to the wonder of places in the Central Lakes – the central river walk which runs through the town and its parks was lovely, even in the colder climate. Anywhere you can see the snowy mountain tops around you is pretty spectacular too. After around an hour, we headed to the local Spoons for some much needed food after the long train journeys; we decided to save money and treat ourselves to a more grand meal in a local eatery the next day. We grabbed an early night so we had enough energy for our busy next day…

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We intended to be up for 6:30 and to have packed and left our hotel room by 7:30…we kind of knew being awake this early was unrealistic, but we were still out by 9. Another saving tip here: even if it lengthens your journey a little bit, sometimes choosing bus over train can save you a considerable amount. Travel savvy and smart, not necessarily in style. Originally we intended to take the train to Windermere, followed by a bus to Grasmere, then lastly a bus back to Windermere from Ambleside. Through some researching, we found out that we could travel to Grasmere directly from Kendal, and use the same ticket to catch a bus from Windermere later on from Ambleside, by purchasing a day out ticket across the Cumbria and North West region for £14.50. This worked out at saving us around £10, from what it would have cost to do the journeys separately. A slight negative to this decision was that it would take us an hour and a half to reach Grasmere, when we had a very limited amount of time to play with. On the upside, the scenery was extremely winterery, and the journey gave us the opportunity to see parks of the Central Lakes which we would have not seen otherwise.

Our motive for visiting Grasmere was to complete the infamous ‘Coffin Route’ (or follow it somewhat) between the village and Ambleside. Grasmere is a popular honeypot in the Lake District, with its self-titled lake and Sarah Nelson Gingerbread store attracting thousands of tourists a year. Grasmere was unusually quiet when we strolled through the village streets, but this was likely connected to the (at-the-time) recent Covid-19 outbreak. In February the virus was predominately affecting Asian countries, leaving their populations unable to travel to England with flight bans. Since this trip the outbreak has become greater and deadlier than anyone could have ever anticipated – entire countries are under lockdown, flights halted in their tracks, and general services closing down. If our tickets had been booked for even a couple of weeks later, there would have been every possibility we would not have made it to the Lakes, or to some of our other destinations.

The ‘Coffin Route’ is roughly five miles long and a significant section of the walk is around the lake itself, and also through deep woodland. There were too many magnificent photo opportunities along the way, a selection which I have included in this post. I could see why this trail has repeatedly been voted as one of Britain’s favourite walks – you feel far away from civilisation, and closer to the serenity and peace that nature brings. Along the walk you are given the choice to stick by the lakeside path, go via Rydal Cave, or go via other mountains. We were intending to divert via the mountains, but we got a little confused and ended up along the roadside for part of the walk😂. We did not complain, as you still had the Lakes on the right hand side of us. (Although according to one website I looked at some time afterwards, they mentioned walking along the roadside as a component of the walk, so perhaps we did head the right way all along…).

Around two hours after we began, we made it to Ambleside. And as it turned out, in good timing too – the weather took a turn, producing rain, sleet, and snow. Regardless, we had already planned to have a late lunch at somewhere which I had been going to since I was a small child. For many summers as a child, my family would travel north to the Lake District and we would spend a week or two in a cottage, usually in Ambleside. After a busy day of hikes up the local mountain routes, we would reward ourselves with a meal at The White Lion. I wanted to replicate this with Jesse, and it was lovely as a grown-up going back and having a pint there.

We barely had time to walk around the other shops in the town centre and check out my favourite book store as a kid (they had a midnight opening for the final Harry Potter book and I very nearly went to it). With only an hour and a half to go until our first train of the day back, we boarded a bus back to Windermere. The weather was atrocious by then, but we both knew we would regret it if we just waited at the station for an hour for our train. So we braved the rain and walked up and down the high street, so Jesse could say that he had properly visited Windermere. If Covid-19 has shrunk by the summer, we vowed we would return to ride a ferry over the Lake, and to eat ice-creams on the Lake front.

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Day-trip reviews have very much been the focal-point of my blog as to this post. As I write this, I am officially in my second day of social distancing; on other days I still have limited my amount of social contact by only visiting supermarkets for food supplies etc and swapping going to the cinema for long countryside walks. I have gone two full days now of not leaving the proximity of either my house or my boyfriend’s, aside from travelling back home (Jesse drove 40 miles just to drop me off so I would not have to use public transport). For an amount of time, it could be for a couple of weeks or for several weeks, I will refrain from leaving my house. The only exceptions for this rule will be if I want to head out for a quiet walk in the rural countryside, or if I go to Jesse’s place, and even then I will not enter the premises of any building or business unless I crucially have to. What gives me my happiness in life is going out everyday and exploring new places – I already miss normality and I feel silly for ever taking it for granted. I will miss seeing my friends; I haven’t even seen my beloved grandparents for a few weeks, who literally live five minutes down the road from me. But being part of a wider initiative to save lives, and keep my family safe, will make this small sacrifice in my hopefully long life worth it.

Any new content for this blog will now focus on experiences which I have been wanting to write about for a while, including my opinion of the ‘glitz and glamour’ of Los Angeles, and a log-of-sorts of my day to day life during this unprecedented social isolation. Writing will be my way of enjoying this period of certainty, as keeping productive and busy will help me keep a strong, healthy mindset. Stay well and happy everyone, wherever you are.

– The Ginger Globetrotter🌍