Introduction
This is the second set of photos from our Lake District holiday. (First set here.)
Thursday
We took a tourist boat across the lake from Ambleside to Wray Castle.
Before visiting the castle, we went for a circular walk in the area. We left the castle by its road entrance.
The walk ran along a road for a short way, then on paths through farmland.
We were circling around towards a hill called Latterbarrow.
The climb up Latterbarrow was relatively easy (although I’m not sure R agrees). The summit is 244 metres above sea level and has a cairn on top. There’s a nice view; we would probably have been able to see quite a long way on a clearer day.
We went down the other side of the hill, heading for the lake.
When we reached the lake, the sun came out for a bit.
We finally visited the castle. There’s not much inside it - after being built as a private house in the 19th century (somebody just wanted their house to look like a castle) it was used for various things including as training base for naval radio officers. The National Trust now looks after it.
We went back down to the landing stage to pick up the ferry again. There was a little while to wait, so I climbed over a fence to get some interesting views of the boathouse area.
The boat takes a circular route, so it goes back a more interesting way.
Friday
We took a couple of buses to Coniston, the main town by Coniston Water (another lake). Once there, we went for a short trip on the National Trust’s Steam Yacht Gondola. It’s a restored old boat and is indeed steam powered - and impressively quiet with it.
After the very pleasant boat ride, we took a short walk back into Coniston.
We visited the local Ruskin Museum, which is packed with stuff (highlight is probably the original ‘Amazon’ sailing dinghy).
Saturday
Before heading for the station to catch our train home, we took one last walk by the lake.
And that’s all! We had a very nice trip. (As you can probably see from the pictures, the weather could have been better, but it wasn’t too bad either.) We’d like to come back some time. Especially since the pencil museum in Keswick was closed for refurbishment, so we couldn’t see that!