UK Tourist & Leisure Attractions - Cumbria

Every morning we cooked breakfast in our Staveley cottage, to provide enough nourishment for the day's activities!  We also sorted out some CDs to play in the car as the FM reception could be a bit 'iffy' around the Fells in Cumbria.

This is the preserved Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway which we took a steam train ride on, together with a cruise on Lake Windermere with a combined ticket.  Here the train's arriving at Haverthwaite station to pick up all the excited passengers.

The Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway train runs for 3½ miles through the beautiful countryside of the Leven Valley in Cumbria on a steeply graded line.  Mike hung out of the window (as you do) to get this shot, ignoring the notice advising against this!

The Haverthwaite steam train duly arrived at Lakeside Station, where we transferred to the boat for the Lake Windermere cruise, but not before watching the shunting operation to attach the locomotive onto the other end of the vintage carriages.

We didn't have to wait long for the large Windermere Lake Cruise boat to arrive.  What an excellent idea to combine a steam train ride with a boat cruise, the round trip cost only £10 each (at the time of our visit) and refreshments could be obtained on board.

Belinda tried the old camcorder again, filming up the lake as we cruise along the vast Lake Windermere in Cumbria towards Bowness.  Notice the little new member of our touring team dangling there, bought the previous day at Coniston.

The boat edged into Bowness-on-Windermere.  We cruised past many water sports centres and yachts along Lake Windermere and saw some really rather nice houses along the water's edge.

After exploring Bowness we found an excellent café for lunch, again ignoring the expensive tourist pubs.  Of course we also did some souvenir shopping - and stocking up with more delicious Kendal Mint Cake!

Mike just couldn't stop videoing the Cumbria scenery from the steam train window on the return journey.  Back at Haverthwaite we looked around the steam railway's engine shed and saw many fine locomotives and carriages in various states of restoration.

Here's a shot taken in the early evening on the way to the Eagle and Child pub looking towards Staveley, the Cumbria village we were staying in.  It had two fast flowing rivers running through it, this one's the River Kent which we were to walk along later in the week.

We enjoyed our excellent meals so much at the Eagle and Child in Staveley that we returned later in our holiday week for another!  We got there early in the evening which was fortunate as it got pretty busy, a sure sign of a good establishment.

We've dug around many Cumbria tourist resources on our UK tourist links page, including many of the visitor attractions featured on these pages such as the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway and Lake Windermere cruises, Coniston, Kendal, and general Lake District tourist websites.

Check out the various videos of our visits.  Now, we can't visit the Lake District without going walking in this picturesque area, so on the next page we try some Fell walking in the Cumbrian countryside >>>