UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions

Our first day in the Lake District and it rained!  A lot!  Never mind, there's the K Village Outlet Centre in Kendal.  Belinda's seen here checking out all the huge discounts and Mike's standing in the rain taking the picture.

Belinda ponders where to go first, but the sign she's under says it all really!  Mike went to have a look at the K Shoes museum section, and we both bought new trainers at 50% off.  There were other shops apart from shoes, and a good café.
 

In the afternoon it was still raining as we walked through Kendal to find somewhere for lunch, finding the world famous Kendal Mint Cake Shop so bought some to try.  Lake District websites on our tourist links page.

Later in Kendal the rain stopped so we went for a walk and found the River Kent and took a picture.  At the top of the hill (to the left out of this view) we spotted the castle, so scrambled up to it.
 

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

Kendal Castle's in ruins and doesn't seem to be maintained for visitors, 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.
 

A shot inside the spacious and comfortable Lake District holiday cottage in Staveley.  Belinda's 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!

Looking up the main road in Coniston on the second day of our Lake District holiday.  We visited the information centre and had a good lunch in a small café after ignoring the expensive pubs.  We have some video clips of the Lake District too.
 

Here we see the Coniston Launch arriving 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.  Great!

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, this holiday was certainly a good test for them!
 

We walked round the lake for a short distance and saw how big it is, in fact it's the third largest lake in the Lake District.  That's why Coniston Water was chosen for the water speed record attempt no doubt.
 

Back in Coniston we came across this tea room, a very welcome site and buzzing with walkers and cyclists.  The Lake District is popular for this kind of activity, despite the poor weather and non-weekend day we visited (Monday).