The Lake District

I've been wanting to go the Lake District in Cumbria almost since the moment that I landed in the UK. It's a national park in northwest England that's renowned for its natural beauty, and I've been itching to hike one of its fells for quite some time.

Thanks to the royal wedding, we got a four day weekend and made a last minute booking to stay at the Gilpin Lodge in Bowness, which is a town in the southwestern part of the Lake District. After a 3 1/2 hour train ride there with a change at Preston station, the train pulled into Windermere, which is the "gateway" into the Lake District, since it's pretty much the only town with a rail station (with the exception of Penrith). Most people end up going a mile south to Bowness, which is a much more happening town. Well, as happening as countryside towns get, anyway.

Once we exited the train station, we hailed a cab to Gilpin Lodge, which actually wasn't in Bowness, but turned out to be about 1-2 miles southwest of Bowness. The hotel is super-posh, which explains why it still had rooms available so last minute, and its set far away from the crowds for a true countryside experience. As nice as it is to enjoy being in the country in absolute peace and quiet, it also means that you either have to take a cab into town or take a 45 minute hike.

Since we had been sitting on a train all day, we opted for the hike into town. The thing is, it was an actual hike! We walked along the road for a while, and then we ended up criss-crossing over several dirt paths and public footpaths through pastureland.

The countryside in Cumbria is filled with slate walls that were put up in the 18th century as part of an enclosure scheme, whereby the government permitted farmers to claim land for their own, but only if they enclosed their open farms. The farmers got busy building fences with the rocks they found laying around everywhere. Two hundred years later, the stone walls are still standing - color me impressed!

Anyway, we got to see all the things that we never see in London such as loads and loads of sheep, and since it's still spring, we saw lots of baby sheep!

At one point, we were crossing a farm when we heard a cow mooing quite vigorously, and we stopped to see what all the noise was all about. And then a baby cow popped out of her bottom. Yeah, we literally saw a calf being born during our walk into town. Crazy!

The black and white midwife cow (I'm guessing here) inspected the baby calf and then ran back to the rest of the herd to spread the news. I'm not joking - cows are much smarter than I thought they were. Anyway, we saw the calf dry and walking later on in the afternoon when we walked back to the hotel. It still looked a bit confused, but it was up and wobbling around.

Here's another unbelievable cow story for you bovine fans. I was chased by one when we were crossing through a farm.

I found out later that cows do this because they associate people with food, and they think you're nice and going to give them something yummy to eat, but it was not fun being eyed by a half-ton animal you were thinking of eating for dinner.

All's well that ends well, but a couple that was behind us saw the cows following me, and they just turned back to the way they came rather than face these bold as brass bovines.

Once we made it into town, we set about buying some proper hiking shoes and woolen socks to go with. I was advised by an acquaintance who visits the Lake District quite a bit that a true hiker would always have red woolen socks and a walking stick, but alas, I ended up with hot pink socks and no stick. Close, but no cigar.