UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions - Lake District

Our first day in the Lake District and... it rained!  A lot!  Never mind, there's the K Village Outlet Centre in Kendal.  After checking out the huge discounts and standing in the rain for this shot we ventured inside.

Belinda pondered where to go first, but the sign she's under made this a no brainer!  Meanwhile, Mike went to have a look at the interesting K Shoes museum section, then we lunched in the good café there.

In the afternoon it was still raining as we walked through Kendal to find the world famous Kendal Mint Cake Shop and buy some to try.  Check out our tourist resources for Lake District websites.

Later in Kendal the rain stopped so time for a little walk over the River Kent to find the castle.  At the top of the hill (to the left out of this view) we spotted the castle and scrambled up to it.

Looking back towards Kendal, where we'd just walked from.  Is that the Mint Cake factory in the middle distance?  The information panel here had badly faded in the sun (er, what sun???) so was rather useless for reading all about it!  Now...

...Kendal Castle is in ruins and doesn't seem to be maintained too well, with its faded information points.  But hey, the rain had stopped and the exercise getting up there was good practice for our walks in the Lake District Fells later in the week.  But for now...

...here's a nose inside our spacious and comfortable Lake District holiday cottage in Staveley.  Belinda was watching the world cup which had just started that week, in fact she was up at 7am for one match, at least Mike got a coffee in bed that morning!

On the second day of our Lake District holiday we headed to Coniston, and after visiting the excellent information centre and ignoring the expensive pubs, we enjoyed a superb lunch in a small café, located just to the right in this picture.

This is the Coniston Launch arriving at the landing pier on Coniston Water to take people for a lake cruise.  A tour party had pre-booked the whole boat so we were unable to go and the Steam Yacht Gondola that operates here, wasn't, owing to the poor weather.

Belinda used Mike's old video camera on this holiday, seen filming here at Coniston Water with some heavy, threatening clouds in the background.  She has her new waterproofs on and this holiday certainly tested them out!  See our Lake District video clips.

We walked round the lake for a short distance and saw just how big it is, in fact it's the third largest lake in the Lake District.  No doubt that's why Coniston Water was chosen for the world water speed record attempt and was where Donald Campbell's Bluebird fatally somersaulted at over 300mph in 1967.  Later, back in...

...Coniston we came across this tea room, a very welcome site and buzzing with walkers and cyclists despite the non-weekend day we visited (Monday).  The Lake District is extremely popular for outdoor activities, despite the often poor weather, owing to its stunning landscape.  We enjoy more on the next page of our holiday in Cumbria >>>