Brow Head Hotel Barrow-in-Furness

... mist, though we could hardly make out either the landmarks or the muffled commentary.

Bowness-on-Windermer e is a pretty little town with an old stone church in the centre. We took a brief wander round the church and up and down the high street. Donny did some window shopping.

Back at the shore, there was a jetty with a bird on every post. If the light had been better, it would have been a ...

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... a scramble than a walk, but we made it, puffing and panting to the top. The view is just as impressive, with the bones of the land laid out before us. Down in the valley, several hundred feet below us, we could see the remains of a WW2 aeroplane that had just clipped the ridge.

Two peaks done, it was time for the third and highest of the day. Thankfully, we retained much of the high ground in getting there. The ridge meandered up ...

The Michelin Route Finder suggested the journey to the Lake District would be 3 hours and 40 minutes. I know from experience that they are generally underestimating the real time, so I banked on about four and a half to five hours of driving. I collected Donny from school and we set off straight away.

The M6 was dreadful. It was handbrake driving - on, off, on, off, on, off - we managed less than 90 ...

... of the guys and some other guys from the first floor. (Girls here don't seem to care for American girls at first... I think they question are motives based on are reputations in film... you have to really work to get them to see that your just another 19 year old girl like them) I ended up going back and hanging out with two of the girls on the first floor for a little bit, while the boys went into the city (We all have fairly bad chest colds, the guys ended ...

... the places nearby including:
- Bowness - mum and I visited the Beatrix Potter attraction here
- Grasmere - a peaceful spot amongst meadows where poet William Wordsworth lived
- Ambleside - beautiful little village where we spent the bulk of our visit inside a shoe store
- Kendal - home of the famous Kendal mint cake

We spent the evenings at the backpackers ...

When we arrived back at Holyhead from our ferry journey from Dublin, we continued our journey up to Blackpool. It was Mark's idea!

Unfortunately we got stuck in traffic for about 1 hour trying to get into Blackpool. Furthermore, when we reached the guesthouse we were meant to be staying in it became apparent that we had accidentally booked the accommodation for the night before! Worse still, they had no more rooms available for us! Luckily, we were ...

... about 40 minutes of walking, the path we were on reached a tiny stream, and then stopped. There was no clear path on the other side, but knowing the basics of mountains, we knew any way would do as long as it's up. An hour later we spotted a few other people, and realised that there was probably a path were they where. So we walked in their direction for a bit until we found a small but clear path. An hour wasted, true, but we did see a ...

... around the Lake to Ambleside, then found out that 200 meters up the shore it was fenced off. So I chucked some Duck poo at Helen for a laugh, and we drove to Ambleside instead. We had a nice walk around, checking out "Bridge House", which was once a family home even though it's the size of car; then we went up to Stockghyll Force, a very pretty waterfall on the outskirts of Ambleside.

After mooching ...

We left Kent three days later, having had to sort out some holiday from work commitments. Knowing we wanted to see the UK, we went West, hitting the M25, then eventually ending up on the M40, towards Oxford, Birmingham and the North. Driving is a lot more fun when you have no destination, no time restraints and a comfortable car. Stopping off to sample some of the midlands best motorway service station food (and grab some ...