Maryport, Windermere,Bowness and Keswick

We decided to slow down our arrival to the Lake District by stopping off in Maryport. It's an old mining town but since the mines have closed fishing and pubs seem to be its main claim to fame.

It's an interesting place and our sightseeing would have been more pleasant if it wasn't raining.

We stopped at one of the Captain Nelson Tavern in the town for a coffee - the local fishermen must be a thirsty bunch as there seemed to be more pubs than houses !!

We then continued on to Windermere and found the Beaumont House Hotel without too much bother and we were mightily relieved to find it had a decent sized car park for guests.

The rooms are really large and there should be no danger of falling out of the bed !!

Windermere is very busy with traffic and pedestrians we have decided to leave the car in the car park and use the bus or shangtse's pony to do our sightseeing. There is plenty of eating establishments in town and for our first nights dinner we chose the local Indian Restaurant - we were not disappointed.

The next morning we were welcomed by a wet and gloomy start to the day. After breakfast we had a mooch round Lakeland looking at all their fancy kitchen stuff before deciding to brave the weather and walk into Bowness which was a couple of miles down the road.

We walked passed lots of hotels and B&B,s the buildings are all very big and well kept with lots of colourful hanging baskets. There must have been a lot of money circulating around these parts.

Bowness was buzzing - lots of tourists - mostly of the Asian variety, I suppose fairs fair we walk on their wall they can boat on our lakes. The lake looked quite moody in the mist and rain.

Us brave souls decided to walk back up the hill to Windermere getting quite wet in the process.

We chose a French Restaurant for our evening meal and it was excellent - I had "pig on a plate" while Sue had guinea fowl.

Today our last day in the Lakes and after breakfast at Lakeland we caught the bus to Keswick. We managed to get pensioner tickets even though we didn't have UK documentation - nice people these Cumbrians.  The bus journey takes about an hour and the scenery is magnificent. We had come this way in the car but yours truly had to keep his eye on the road and my passenger kept her eye on the driver !!

Keswick is quite a large town that has good shops and eating establishments. We had a walk down to the Lake through some really pretty gardens I saw a red squirrel but wasn't quick enough with the camera.

Here's a photo of Sue looking for poppy seeds to smuggle back to Australia.

There were some interesting statues outside the shops.