A trip to Lake Windermere

A trip to Lake Windermere

 

Yesterday we had a nice little job taking some people from the Hilton Hotel in Blackpool to Lake Windermere. After collecting the coach from the yard and getting some fuel on the way to the pick-up point I had a few minutes to wait so I took this picture outside the hotel with one of the Blackpool Trams passing on driver training duties.

 

 

We travelled up the M6 and it started to rain quite heavily, which was a shame as Blackpool was in bright sun when we had left, and after about an hour and twenty minutes we arrived in the lovely little town of Bowness on Windermere. The coach park was practically full of coaches so after dropping the people off we parked just out of town and then walked back to look around the shops, the lake and to have lunch in a café. As I knew we had plenty of empty seats on the coach, the customer said they didn't mind and it's the summer holidays - my wife and our 11 year old son came for the day out too. She is a bit of a Geocacher (if you don't know what "Geocaching" is there is more information on their website www.geocaching.com) so we had a few of these to find while we were in Bowness. All located, no DNF's and a nice lunch (albeit a bit slow to arrive - but to be fair the man on the till did warn us about the expected delay) from Café 4 (formerly the Bowness Kitchen) we still had a bit of time for a wander round and to look in the nice little gift shops in the town.

 

The views across Lake Windermere from Bowness are just wonderful and the people from our trip decided to go on one of the various boat trips that are available. We were lucky with the weather in Bowness and it didn't rain at all - very lucky in fact, considering the heavy shower we had passed through on the way.

 

Afterwards a visit to Holehird Gardens

After about 4 hours of free time in Bowness on Windermere the plan was to spend a further hour or thereabouts in Windermere (which is a mile or so up the road, away from the lake heading north-east) but in the event some of the group had spotted a leaflet about a local garden that is open to the public - so the group leader asked us to go there instead. Holehird Gardens is a short drive from Bowness, took about 15 minutes and the grounds are open to the public to wander round and take in the beauty of the flowers and shrubs while looking over the impressive Lake District vista. There is a little shop there too, but that had just closed when we arrived as by this stage time was getting on a bit.

 

After the gardens it was a question of retracing our earlier journey and back onto the M6, which was flowing very freely for a Friday afternoon, and back to Blackpool dropping some of the group off in the town centre and the rest back at the Hilton Hotel.

 

A very pleasant day out in some fabulous countryside.