Lake District....

Finally, we are going to embark on our mini adventure to Lake District. We have been planning for this trip 1 week ago, from sourcing of car rental to planning of the route to Lake District. This is going to be a rather exciting trip as we are going drive to Lake District and this is the first time that we are driving in UK! Woohoo! Well, the seniors have told us that most of the place in Lake District are rather inaccessible by buses and it would be best that we could drive there, so that we can cover more places.

We went to Europcar to pick up our cars, 1 black and 1 blue Nissan Micra. It was drizzling that morning so it wasn't a perfect day to drive. Our drivers for the first part of the journey are Zhen Siong and Yusen. As for me, being a non-driver, I was responsible for navigation. Well, reminds me of the topo exercises I used to have in SISPECS. Yusen hasn't drove a manual car for 3 yrs, so he had some difficulties trying to drive initially. After driving a few rounds in the carpark, we began our journey to Lake District.


It was around 1.5hr trip and the view along the way was fantastic. We reached Ullswater in the afternoon and the scenery was marvelous. Nice, blue lake with the mountains at the background. It was so refreshing when the cool breeze blew into our face. All of us felt so relaxed just by looking at the lake. It would definitely be an ideal place to stay after retirement, the pace of life seems to slow down by a few time in this kinda countryside area.

We then went to Aira Force. It is like Bukit Timah Reserve but here you get to see the temperate forest rather than the tropical rainforest in Singapore. Along the way we could see trekkers, both young and old, coming here to see the waterfall. It is a rather long way up the hill to where the waterfall is but upon seeing the waterfall, our tireness seems to disappeared.

We eventually had our dinner at an inn in Kirkstone Pass, supposedly the highest point in Lake District. It's a traditional English inn and also the only building on the mountain top. Had the traditional English sausage and hot chocolate for dinner which costs 9 pds plus. Finally, we spent our night at the Patterdale Youth Hostel.


The next morning, we drove down to Wintermere -- the most beautiful lake in the district and also most populated with tourists. The 2 major towns, Wintermere and Amberside are located at the coast of the Wintermere Lake, which accounts for the large number of people. Well, the lake really lifted up to their name. It was really beautiful and there are swans and ducks swimming in the lake. We took the ferry cruise from one side of the lake to the tip of the lake, where Amberside is. The cruise view was absolutely fabulous!