24 hours in the Lake District; AKA: to plan or not to plan, that is the question

I recently bought a new 2019 planner and have been adding dates for the year ahead with school days off, trips planned and visitors that are booked. I was transferring some birthday/anniversary dates from 2018 to 2019 when I stopped and looked at my August 2018 page vs. September 2018. June, July, August…each day completely filled with work activities, kids activities, events with family and friends.

Then we moved. And all of the sudden the calendar entries cleared up completely – white, blank spaces. Sometimes I would just open the calendar like, “What am I forgetting?” I couldn’t function without my planner before we left and all of the sudden I didn’t even know where it was. (Yes, I’m old school and still like a paper planner.) The silence and nights at home were different at first, and then I came to enjoy it.

But slowly, we’ve been getting busier. The boys have added sports to their schedules on most weekends, in addition to music lessons and after school clubs. We’ve even been trekking to Manchester on some Sundays so they can get in some baseball practice with the nearest club we’ve found. Our weekends are starting to fill up.

A few weekends ago, Tim received a message saying that the boys’ football practice had been cancelled for that morning because of the frozen ground. And then we looked at each other, with the white space on the calendar until Sunday afternoon, and decided we should take a trip.

We’d been talking about visiting the Lake District for a while, and had heard it was beautiful. It’s a few hours north and populated with what’s known as the fells – the hills/low mountains that take over the landscape and surround beautiful lakes. There’s plenty of hiking and outdoor activities. But we hadn’t planned anything…so this is how the conversation in my head went:

Angel on one shoulder, a meticulous planner. Devil doesn’t care, obviously. They debate the trip.

“But you don’t have an itinerary…” cautioned the angel.

“Google stuff on the drive,” grumbled the devil.

“But you haven’t meticulously packed appropriate winter-time hiking gear!” the angel gasped, in horror.

“Throw your crap in the back of the car and freeze your ass off later!”

“But … you haven’t booked a place to stay! Your children have no bed in which to sleep!”

“Find a semi-dodgy hotel and hope for no bed bugs!” the devil roared.

Seemed reasonable enough. It was only a couple of hours drive to the area so I Googled while Tim drove. We always try to find a good spot for sunset, so I started my search there, leading me to the lakeside town of Windermere and the fell of Orrest Head.

During the drive, the landscape started to change, and soon we were making our way up very steep roads overlooking lakes below. The roads became narrow and curvy and I was glad I wasn’t driving, and prayed that our new used Ford Kuga wouldn’t let us down. We drove through Windemere and found it was a very cute, bustling town – what I imagine a ski resort town would look like, not that I’ve ever been to one.

 

We thought that during a random winter weekend, we may be the only ones out and about, but far from it. We found a parking spot near a hotel, and then Tim went inquire about rooms. He came back out shaking his head, quoting a price and saying that we would need to have two rooms since they didn’t have a family room available and it was a little out of our budget.

We’ve found that in England, similarly to much of Europe I believe, it is harder to find family rooms that will sleep four comfortably – I know it’s even harder for larger families. We decided to stop in for a snack at a nearby pub, get the boys some crisps, ourselves a beer (fueling for a hike) and do some further online searching. We had driven past a hotel earlier that said it had an indoor pool, so we found it and called – luckily they had a family room available. We didn’t know anything about it and I didn’t have time to read dozens of reviews, so we booked it.

Then, we ascended on our hike. It was a brisk but pretty day, and we really didn’t have a sense of how high we were going. At one point, not even halfway up, I said, “I think this is it?!” because there was a small landing with a tree-obstructed, but pretty, view. It wasn’t. We ran into another Gruffalo statue for the boys (similar to the Gruffalo trail we explored during fall half-term), and continued upward. The boys started to get a little tired and whiny, but forged on. They were wearing wellies that didn’t have the best traction, so it was a little slippery. My sneakers weren’t doing much better.

 

 

Finally, we got to the top and looked around. It was worth it – there was snow on top of that particular fell/mountain, and snow on the tops of all the others. It overlooked the glassy Windermere Lake and there were lambs grazing in nearby pastures. There’s a stand and view indicator, helping to identify the nearby fells, with an inscription from author Alfred Wainwright, describing the view that changed his life:

Sigh. Spot on, Alfred. It was stunning and really, not a view that I would have previously associated with England. One of my favorite parts was being at the top and watching others ascend, take a look around and breathe, “Wow.” There’s something unifying about strangers collectively taking in Mother Nature’s awesomeness.

 

We wandered around the top, walked some of the trails from there, taking photos and the boys rolling down the snow-covered hills. Tim and I smiled at their giggles and joy, knowing it would inevitably end soon.

 

And it did. The cold of the snow they were just rolling around in soaked through, making their clothes wet and freezing. The wellies with a thin pair of socks weren’t cutting it and their toes started to get numb. Very quickly, we went from Julie Andrews singing “The Hills Are Alive!” to extreme whining with a chance of frostbite.

It was time to go…and yet the sunset called. There aren’t many days I’m on top of a mountain and the sun is out and I’m about to watch the sunset over a lake view, so Tim happily took the boys down to seek hot chocolate as I stayed and took more photos (I have more photos than I will ever need in my life of a setting sun, I am sure), felt my own fingers and toes go numb, and watched the sun peacefully set.

I met them at a cute little restaurant where the boys had snacked and had treats while sitting by a warm fire. The owners were so kind, asking them all about Wisconsin and complimenting them on their behavior (ha, they must have really wanted that hot chocolate). Then, we headed to the hotel.

It was OK-looking checking in, and they directed us down to a detached building with the family rooms. In theory, it was great. The boys had a little bedroom upstairs with two twin beds and we had a little bedroom downstairs by a bathroom in the hall. However, the rooms – despite being small, a little dingy and outdated, were separated by two large heavy fire doors. Listen, I get it for safety purposes. I also like to feel like I can hear my kids and not have them fall down the stairs and try to lug open a door when they need to pee quickly. So we unsafely propped the doors open, left the florescent hallway light on and made do.

For dinner, the planning angel (wait, should that be my new nickname?!) won. Tim said, “Let’s just walk up to the hotel for dinner. They have a restaurant.”  I looked out the window at the foreboding, near-empty restaurant and said, “No, let’s just look for a second to see if there’s somewhere nearby.” Some Yelp-ing later, we found a pub called The Punch Bowl just a couple of miles down the road. It was totally booked for the night, but they graciously found us a table in the bar area. We ate like kings who had been hiking all day and did not regret the decision to spend the extra time searching. Food > sleep, apparently.

After a meh-night sleep and an even more-meh English hotel breakfast, and a quick dip in the pool for the boys, we headed off for one more adventure. I heard from my friend, the Internet, that the Aira Force waterfall was pretty, so we started the drive there. The drive took us up into the mountains, on winding, slightly wet and slippery roads, and no phone/map reception. It was beautiful, but nerve-wracking, all of which led to a totally normal mom & dad moment in the car arguing over directions and finding parking.

The hike for Aira Force took us through parkland, where signs everywhere cautioning us to watch out for red squirrels. Only eagle-eyed Nathaniel spotted some. We climbed up and around paths before approaching the waterfall, where we stood on the bridge looking down to the base.

Bennett and Nate couldn’t see much from this vantage point because of the height of the bridge wall, and I wasn’t about to prop them up over it, so we climbed down the stairs and stood in front of it. Sure, size-wise it was no Niagara – or even Multonomah Falls in Oregon, our other family waterfall reference point – but was tall and majestic indeed. After snapping photos, ooh-ing and aah-ing, we made our way back to the car and we headed back home, a little cold, a little wet, and tired, but proud of ourselves for the effort in exploration and spontaneity.

 

If you ever get a chance to come visit, based on our quick trip, I recommend the Lake District for it’s natural beauty and terrain. We kept saying we’d love to come again in the summer and maybe camp. But, one trip at a time. Next up, York and Whitby! Stay tuned for more spontaneity (ahem, trips planned with very little time to plan them).

And of course…I went out and bought warm, waterproof hiking boots for us all after this trip. Planners gotta plan, yo.