Northern England: My Happy Place
My leap of faith on our Ghyll Scramble
After leaving Scotland we tried to stick to the smaller towns and villages on our return journey to London. After an hour and a half train ride from Glasgow and a forty minute bus ride we had arrived in Keswick in The Lake District. There was something familiar about this place and I instantly fell in love with the area. It has now become my preferred dream retirement local.
For Natalie, her dream location to retire is Nice France with its delicious food, French language, and palm tree laden coast line. For me it would be the hills, lakes, and forests that surround Keswick where everybody was friendly and nary a Frenchman in sight. With the kids back in school, Keswick was full of happy and fit seniors who were left to take advantage of the abundant hiking trails. Almost everybody had a set of hiking poles and were using their second set of appendages to scurry from one hiking trail to the next.
We stayed at a small cottage on the river that runs through the town. The first night we took in a production of The Hound of the Baskervilles at the aptly named Theatre by the Lake. It was adapted into a comedy and only had a cast of three. I was already imagining having seasons tickets as part of my future life there.
On the second day I took Mia and Sophia Ghyll scrambling down a mountain river (for more details see Mia’s post) while Nat and Diane went to see the once home of Williams Wordsworth. The scrambling was so much fun we have started looking into doing something similar in New Zealand.
On the third day we took a boat across the lake to Langholm Estate for a forest walk with alpacas. The alpacas were docile and seemed to enjoy the walk as much as we did. After the walk we ate lunch at the restaurant there and took in the gardens where Beatrix Potter was inspired to write her Peter Rabbit adventures.
After our four days in Keswick we are now in York with its beautifully preserved Old Town and over two thousand years of history. We did the Mad Alice walking tour where we learned of Yorks bloody past and dined on the famous Yorkshire pudding wraps. We also did a tour of the Yorkshire dales and visited some of the filming sites for the TV show All Creatures Great and Small which is a favourite of Natalie and I.
Tomorrow we will head to Stratford-Upon-Avon and the Cotswolds. York has been great but I already miss the Lake District. I truly hope I will get to come back and spend more time there one day but I think it will be a hard fight with Natalie to decide where our future vacation and retirement dollars should be spent.
