Day 7 Bowness – Sep 18th, 2013

We had the day off. Since this was my third visit to Bowness, I was not champing at the bit to dash off in the rain.

I slept late and generally dozed until 08:00, finally going down to breakfast at 08:45 just finishing before the 09:30 cut off. I filled out the mandatory dinner menu selection sheet and took it to reception. I have not found out what happens if you fail this test.

One year from today, 18 Sep 2014, the Scottish people will have have a referendum. The question is very straightforward. To wit:

“Should Scotland be an independent country?”

From my four months on a British ship last winter, my memory tells me that the Darien Scheme, whereby the Kingdom of Scotland tried to establish a colony on the Isthmus of Panama in about 1700 resulted in a bankrupt Scotland. About one quarter of the money in circulation in Scotland went down the drain. England bailed them out by forcing the Acts of Union of 1707 and 1708.

Since it was pouring rain, I decided to stay at the hotel until things improved. With the help of the clerk at reception, I was able to post the blogs from the previous two days.

At breakfast I spotted an RAF fighter making a low pass down Lake Windemere. I was surprised as I would have thought the local land owners would object.

While this area is quite picturesque, and is certainly peaceful, I could never live here as the perpetual gloom would leave me very morose.

I basically spent from after breakfast to about 13:30 transcribing my notes into the blog. There had been no sense trying to go for a walk as bands of heavy rain kept passing through. I sat in the downstairs lounge with a good view of the steamer landing. Once in a while it would clear enough for me to take a photo. But mainly, the weather was grisly.

I had a late lunch in my room, dining on scraps from breakfast and savouring hot cups of tea.

By 14:00 I had cabin fever. I waited in the lounge until things brightened and then took off wearing clothes as if it was a fall day in Ontario. I was lucky as a brief burst of sun gave me enough time to get the mandatory postcard shots of the hotel and the steamer dock.

As I walked up the hill into the shopping zone, I witnessed a very near miss. One vendor’s booth stuck out onto the sidewalk forcing pedestrians to within two feet of the road. Just as a man was passing this restricted space, a coach with those huge elephant ear rear view mirrors whipped by the mirror missing his head by six inches.

I went into several outdoor clothing shops, but I really was not interested in a mountain tent or a sleeping bag. I have seen lots of people with the walking sticks, but they are just too impractical for travel. In the local franchise of the Edinburgh Woollen Mill (they are in every small town) I was tempted by a dark red fleecy. Coming to my senses, I realized I was buying for the cold local conditions and that I would have no use for such an item in my next trips to Jordan, Morocco, Guatemala, Costa Rica and Burma.

After about 45 minutes, during which time I had feverishly tried to grab local colour photos, my luck ran out and the bumper chute went up.

I slunk back to my hotel having failed to give a visiting woman directions to local toilets. That of course is the bane of visiting a strange place. The local chambers of commerce hide all the toilets so you will be forced into eating establishments to buy something in order to use the facilities. So far our toilet salvation has been coach parking lots and local bus stations.

We had the normal dinner at 19:00 and I must say that the food at this hotel has been very good. Added to which, we have a very compatible group of seasoned travellers so the conversation has been enriching.

Over dinner I heard an excellent definition of bagpipes. They are:

“An ill wind that blows nobody good.”

After dinner we had clog dancing put on by a local group. I had had this experience before in Harrowgate, Yorkshire and it is a very acquired taste. I wore my earplugs and took the appropriate photos.

But, did you know that Charlie Chaplin was a clog dancer? Or that Stan Laurel was a member of the famous Lancaster Lads?

Day 9 The Lake District – Eden River Valley – Sep 17th, 2013

Note: [There are probably numerous spelling errors in this piece as I was at the back of the coach taking notes and my handwriting is hard to decipher.]

I was awake by 05:00 and went down to breakfast at 07:30 hrs. I tried one little bit of Marmite just to renew an old acquaintance. The Australian Vegemite is far worse.

The Belsfield hotel I am staying in was built by a rich fellow named Schneider. He was the one who created the Schneider Cup which figured so prominently in the development of the Supermarine float plane of the thirties that evolved into the Spitfire. There is a further connection to the Royal Air Force in that this hotel was commandeered in WW2 as a training facility for WRAF officer trainees.

The hotel is supposed to have WiFi but the iPad would not connect. The next day I discovered that it took the ministrations of the desk clerk to fiddle it.

The BBC reported that the Costa Concordia was upright. I consider that achievement quite remarkable.

We started our coach trip at 09:00 in cold (8 Celsius), wet, windy, gloomy winter weather. . Of course the coach windows were streaked with water, so that killed photography. Other than that, things were quite nice

We were in the county of Cumbria, which was created in 1974 by merging the old counties of Westmorland and Cumberland. There are many locals who still resist that political reality.

We drove north along the western bank of Lake Windermere passing through the Lake District National Park headed for the Eden River Valley.

The geography of the area was created in the Ice Age. Glaciers on the highest ground gradually inched downhill carving a series of deep depressions radiating outwards like the spokes of a wheel. When the Ice Age ended, the depressions filled with water to create today’s lakes.

Man discovered this area quite early with archeologists finding fifty axe factories dating from 4,000 BC. The flint from the volcanic material was perfect for axes.

So called “Danes” inhabited some of the area. I have to do some research to find out if the term really means “Viking”. The Romans pressed north into the area to secure a northern border to the Roman Empire. They built forts and roads and started to clear the land.

The winners in the Industrial Revolution, the industrialists of Liverpool and Manchester, “discovered” the Lake District and built huge summer homes. Today most have been turned into hotels. Usually the only hint from the road is a substantial lodge where the gate keeper kept the common folk at bay.

The common people started coming into the Windermere area with the arrival of the railway in 1847.

We passed the area where the Short Sunderland flying boats were built on Lake Windermere during World War Two. The lakes were also the area to which many of the urban children were evacuated to escape Nazi bombing.

We drove into Ambelside at the north end of Lake Windermere. At one time nine mills took advantage of the Robbie River tumbling from the Kirksten Pass into the lake. The mills were all driven by water wheels. Today the main street is a stretch of Victorian era shops.

Into the National Park, we started seeing hundreds of sheep. One distinct species is the swale dale, with their black and white faces. Both the male and female have horns.

Then were in William Wordsworth (WW) country and our guide recited his daffodil poem of April 15th, 1802, “I wandered lonely as a cloud….” We passed Rydell Water where WW skated and carved his initials in the ice. Then it was Grasmere and Dove Cottage that WW rented – I had visited it on a previous trip. WW described it as, “The loveliest spot that man has ever found.”

The guide said that WW rarely wrote his poems, preferring to dictate to his sister Dorothy or his wife Mary.

In 1890 the City of Manchester needed additional water supply.  Prior to the construction of the reservoir the site was occupied by two smaller lakes – Leathes Water and Wythburn Water.  The water level was raised by construction of a dam by the Manchester Corporation at the northern end of Thirlmere – 1890 to 1894. The reservoir was then able to supply water to Manchester via the Thirlmere Aqueduct , roughly 100 miles long

The only building that has survived the inundation is the church that had been built on higher ground. One hold out at the head of the lake, one Countess Ossalinsky, a mystery writer, was persuaded to part with her property for a mere fifty thousand pounds.

The Lake District is the wettest place in England. At the top of the mountains the rainfall is 256 inches per year, falling off to 56 inches per year in the Keswick area. Our destination, the Eden River Valley, gets only 40 inches per year.

The type of sheep changed to the unique Herdwick. It starts out with black wool early in life and then it turns grey as the animal ages. The wool is tough and wiry and is good for carpet manufacture. The first year the “newbies” are brought to Lowland areas to escape the harsh winter conditions. Thereafter, they spend the whole year outdoors on the “Fells”.

Sheep have an extremely strong attached to the land on which they are born. It is almost impossible to overcome this “heafing” instinct. So much so, that when a farm is sold the sale includes the sheep.

In September the sheep are mustered. Most of the unfortunate males are sent off to Lowland farms to be fattened up for the dinner table. The females have an incredible ability called fetal reabsorption. If there is more than one embryo, and there is a very harsh winter, only one fetus will remain, the other(s) having been reabsorbed. These sheep all have tails. The farmers do not dock their sheep as they need all the protection they can get to survive the winter.

Driving down the old Roman Road, that is now the A66, we passed the area of a famous hunter of the 1800s and that brought up the familiar song, “Do you ken John Peel with his coat so grey….” His coat was made from Herdwick wool.

We paralleled Hadrian’s Wall some twenty miles to the north. It spans the narrowest part from the Solway to the Tyne for a distance of 78 miles. From all accounts, the Romans got on quite well with the indigenous Celts in a mutually beneficial trading relationship.

We were now in Revear Country where many cross border skirmishes took place in the 1400s between the Scots and the English. There are still examples of sturdy, stocky Pele towers that were used to spot and defend against marauders.

As we entered the Eden Valley one of the coach wiper windows decided to fall off. Since it was pouring rain this was no trivial matter and we doubled back to retrieve it.

The rugged terrain of the Lake District was gone and now we were into fertile red sandstone fields producing good crops. We even passed a prehistoric “Henge” monument which consisted of a circular ditch with a mound in the centre.

The star of the day was Lady Anne Clifford, who was born in 1598 and died in 1676 at age 86. Her father was the Duke of Cumberland and he had huge estates. But he died when she was only fifteen and her uncle inherited and when he died the fortune passed to his children. Lady Anne spent most of her life fighting to regain her inheritance. She had two unhappy marriages, first to the Earl of Dorset, and then on his death to the Earl of Pembroke. Finally, in her sixties she got her land back. She spent the rest of her life refurbishing her castles and farms.

We stopped for coffee in Appleby from 10:55 to 11:45 hrs. The “by” at the end indicating that it was a Danish farm.

It was raining so I did some duty shots from beneath my umbrella and then retired to the church where Lady Anne is buried on the left side of the altar. She established twelve Alms Houses for widows in the town. There is a book chronicling her life entitled, ” A Proud Northern Lady”. Her life spanned the reigns of Queen Elizabeth the First, James the First, Cromwell and Charles the Second. Appleby Grammar School was where George Washington’s father was educated.

Every June there is Horse Fair that lasts for a week. Gypsies come from far and wide to participate. Some bring there tradition Romany vans towed by horses, while others arrive in BMWs. They trade horses with just a wink and a nod. The locals lock their doors having learned over several hundred years that things disappear.

We kept passing the Carlisle-Settle railway with beautiful brick arched bridging. I have a faint memory that the line was built with great loss of life.

The Eden Valley used to lie on the Equator 250,000,000 years ago. Geologically, it is much younger than the Lake District. Once in a while we could see the Pennines, the great north-south backbone of England. The highest point in the Pennines is Crossfell at 2,930 feet and the formation stretches 270 miles.

We learned the endings of town names indicate their origin. Already mentioned was ‘by’ coming from the Danes, whereas ‘ham’ and ‘ton’ denote Saxon.

In the rain we did a huge U-shaped journey down both banks of the Eden River. We wove our way through tiny villages in a prosperous agricultural area. Many of the working farms have ceased operation and their buildings turned into modern accommodation.

By 12:15 we passed through Temple Sowerby where there is an annual Lying Contest on the village green. Lawyers and politicians are excluded as they are considered professional liars. From this same village green the Methodist John Wesley preached in 1792. In Danish times, the houses surrounding the village green provided a defensive perimeter against attackers. It is also the village to which Cynthia Lennon retired following her divorce from John Lennon.

Then we were into Kulgraith, built of red sandstone. In this area the Eden and Eamont Rivers join at a place called – wait for it – “Watersmeet”.

The next village of Landwarthby featured an ostrich farm. In these villages kids are bussed to school by the County Council.

On one side of the valley was Little Salkeld and on the other Great Salkeld, where the church tower was fortified to ward off Scottish raiders. The word “Keld” means well.

We tried, but failed to find the 68 stones representing the daughters who danced on the Sabbath.

Broadband Internet is reviving the Eden Valley as entrepreneurs flee the Rat Race to establich micro businesses. By the way, there are trout and salmon in the Eden River.

We were into our lunch stop at Penrith, population 11,000, by 13:05 hrs. As we came into town we saw a stone basin. In the Middle Ages 2,000 died from the Black Plague. The basin was filled with vinegar to disinfect coins that the inhabitants used to buy food from visiting farmers. Penrith means ‘Chief Ford’.

In the 1460s and 1470s Penrith was in the charge of Richard Duke of Gloucester. In 1483 he became King Richard the Third.

Lunch was 13:15 to 14:30 hrs. I shared a shelter on the market square with a cheese merchant and three callow youths to eat my biscuits and apple. Penrith is now a town of specialty shops which held little appeal for me.

I wandered about in the rain trying to find photos. On a sunny day it would have been great, but today the cold, damp and rain sucked every calorie from my hands. I ducked into the SPAR store for a five pound bottle of Sauvignon Blanc for pre-dinner drinks. Then I spent the last of my time on the Co-op store trying to stay warm.

None too soon, we drove off to meet our steamer at Pooley Bridge fish market for our boat trip on Ullswater. You can well imagine how excited I was at the prospect of sailing on a lake on a cold wet day. Ullswater is 7.25 miles long and our voyage would take 70 minutes.

The steamer had been built in Glasgow in 1889 and then shipped in pieces by rail to Windermere, from which it was carted to Ullswater for reassembly. It was converted to diesel in the 1930s but the vessels are still called steamers.

We soon passed the hotel where Sticky Toffee was invented. I think the hotel is called Shallow Bay.

We stopped at Howtown to discharged and pick up hikers. I have now idea why it is called Howtown as there is no town in evidence. The hikers are a hardy lot. They made a beeline for a cold beer to drink on the wind swept deck.

We arrived at the south end at 16:25 and quickly found the cairn celebrating Sir Malcom Campbell. In 1955 he established a new water world speed record of 202.32 mph in his Bluebird. He died in 1967 on nearby Coniston Water trying to break the 300 mph barrier. I have visited that site on a previous visit.

Our first village was Patterdale, named by the Danes to commemorate the visit of St Patrick. Here you see road signs warning of Red Squirrel Crossings. The locals are fighting a fierce battle to help their native red squirrels fight back the invading North American greys.

By now I have convinced myself that the references to Danes really should be Viking. The Vikings were kicked out of Ireland in the ninth and tenth century and sought refuge in the Lake District. They were accepted and it is thought they brought the Herdwith sheep. The evidence is in terms such as ‘mere’ for lake, ‘thwaite’ for settlement, ‘tal’ for valley and ‘kirk’ for church.

We started the long climb on a narrow road that topped out at 1,268 feet at the 1496 coaching inn named Kirkstone Pass Inn. To me that translates as ‘Church Stone’.

Then we looked down at a 2,000 acre sheep farm that had been bought by Beatrix Potter. In fact she bought more land, ending up with 4,000 acres. On her death it all passed to the National Trust and went a long way to help establish the Lake District National Park.

We got back to them hotel, in the rain, at 17:05 and had a great dinner at 19:00 hrs.

I kept a GPS track of the entire day and hope to replicate it on a sunny day.

Day 7 – Isle of Arran – September 15th

This was our scheduled day off at the Auchrannie Spa on the Isle of Arran. But, Mother Nature decided to deliver the first autumn storm. I slept in until 07:30 and got out of bed to look at sheets of rain coming in horizontally under gale force winds.

My plan was to have a very slow day. So, I did not go to breakfast until 09:30 and ate as slowly as possible. I had to stretch it out to permit my room to be groomed.

The resort was reputed to have a great spa, but I figured that their lotions and potions would do little for me.

This morning the Great North half marathon launched on the Northern England mainland. About 56,000 runners were supposed to start despite the storm.

Back in my room I used my iPad to work up and post my blog segments. It is amazing to see how many typos the virtual keyboard on the iPad induces.

I had lunch in my room as the weather refused to let up. An umbrella would have simply inverted or swept me up in a Mary Poppins.

By 15:00 I was suffering from cabin fever. I decided to take a chance and to walk into the village. I took a narrow winding residential 10 mph covered route to get as much protection from the wind as possible. My biggest problem was keeping my bucket rain hat on my head. It was 1.5 kms to the Co-op store to buy an Arran Brewery beer to have before dinner. I spotted two men flying a kite. More correctly, I saw two men trying not to get sucked into the stratosphere by their flying machine.

I noted that the ferry was at the dock and the store clerk told me it had not sailed all day. Colin, our coach driver, had gone back to his family in Glasgow on the Saturday evening ferry. Now there were two questions. One, would Colin get back from the mainland and two, would we sail to the mainland? Fortunately, Iian Two Eyes was a qualified coach driver and he could drive the coach down to the dock and onto the ferry if Colin could not get back.

On the way back to the Auchrannie I kept spotting squalls of rain one side or the other. I was was very lucky to get back without getting wet.

I watched RT Russia TV to get a different spin on how President Putin had saved the day over Syria.

That Arran beer tasted great and I went down to dinner at 19:00 hrs.

Day 8 – Isle of Arran and Eden Valley/ Bowness – Sep 16th, 2013

After a three hour weather delay, the five hundred million pound recovery of the Costa Concordia started off the island of Giglio, Italy.

Our day started with bags out at 07:30, breakfast and an 08:30 departure. Colin had made it back from Glasgow last evening. The big question was whether the ferry trip back to the mainland over wind-swept waves would be too much for tender tummies. We were lucky, and despite a slight delay, we loaded onto the ferry and had an uneventful crossing. In fact, the ferry was remarkably stable in winds of 25 to 35 knots with gusts to 50 knots.

Back on the mainland, we stopped at 13:00 in Dumfries for a toilet stop. I bought my lunch sandwich for one pound at Poundland. This summarizes prices very succinctly. In Canada we have Dollarama, and in the UK they have Poundland – 1.6 times the price.

We arrived at Gretna Green in rain at 14:15 hrs. It was immediately obvious that it is a tourist trap with hideously expensive prices.

Gretna Green is a village in the south of Scotland famous for runaway weddings. It is in Dumfries and Galloway, near the mouth of the River Esk and was historically the first village in Scotland, following the old coaching route from London to Edinburgh.

It has usually been assumed that Gretna’s famous “runaway marriages” began in 1754 when Lord Hardwicke’s Marriage Act came into force in England. Under the Act, if a parent of a minor (i.e., a person under the age of 21) objected, they could prevent the marriage going ahead. The Act tightened up the requirements for marrying in England and Wales but did not apply in Scotland, where it was possible for boys to marry at 14 and girls at 12 with or without parental consent.

The local blacksmith and his anvil have become the lasting symbols of Gretna Green weddings. Scottish law allowed for “irregular marriages”, meaning that if a declaration was made before two witnesses, almost anybody had the authority to conduct the marriage ceremony. The blacksmiths in Gretna became known as “anvil priests”, culminating with Richard Rennison, who performed 5,147 ceremonies.

Our group assembled in a side “chapel” and the local “priest” married Peter and Brenda. They laid their hands on the anvil and the priest pounded the anvil with a hammer. So, I assert that they did not get married, they got hammered.

At 15:40 we left Gretna Green in the pouring rain. We were into Cumbria, England shortly thereafter. We drove through some beautiful landscapes marred only by the rain.

Soon the dry stone walls separating paddocks were evident. This was the precursor to the Lake District.

By 17:30 we were in the Belsfield Hotel in Bowness on the shore of Lake Windermere. The hotel could best be described as very tired Victorian. This was my third visit to Bowness and it has rained every time.

At 18:00 the BBC reported that the most critical phase of the Costa Concordia had been completed with a rotation of ten degrees.

Dinner at 19:00 in the large dining room was pleasant and the food both delicious and proportions generous.

I watched TV until I nodded off.