To the Lakes of England (3)

I walked on to the streets of Windermere, my hefty jacket wetted by the drizzle. I was not exactly sure how far Beckmead Guest House was from the station and so I took a taxi and it is worth mentioning here that I did not have to pay more than the minimum fare and I was already outside the central areas of this little town. My initial impressions of the town itself, even if one discounts the weather, were not particularly impressive. It was clearly touristy with guest houses and restaurants lining the its few streets, and I was rather convinced there would be very little local flavour to savour, in contrast to the quaint Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds, something I guessed right

Beckmead Guesthouse is run by an old lady, who reminded me immediately of Verna, who was my first landlady in England, and for that matter, outside India. As with most English places, the house was fully carpeted: I generally hate carpets, but at least the ones here were soft and furry and did not irritate me in any way. The room was small and sufficient and neat and well supplied with ingredients for making coffee, tea and hot chocolate. There was also a TV, which I did not put to much use anyway.

I was not planning to sit around in the room doing nothing, even in this weather, and accordingly stepped out, mentally charting out my plan of action for the day. I first went over to Mountain Goat tours, with whom I had booked my bus tour for the next day, and made sure everything was alright. I also wanted to go to Wastwater and Eskdale, which were not easily accessed by public transport from Windermere. But Mountain Goat were running a daily bus tour to these remote areas and I booked myself on this trip for the Sunday. That done, I walked over to the nearby Tourist Information Centre and took a local map and some advice on where to walk that afternoon. All the while, the weather appeared to be clearing slowly - definite breaks were appearing in the clouds and the drizzle was no longer incessant. For once, I had to admire the weather forecasters: this was almost exactly as predicted by the Lake District Weatherline a day or two earlier. Even though the town failed to impress me, as the weather started to somewhat clear, I took a couple of snapshots for the record.



I was now ready, armed with my cameras and lenses and the tripod fixed to my Karrimor rucksack, to take the walk up to the Orrest Head viewpoint at 784ft and less than a mile walk from the Tourist Information Centre. And not without apprehension about what the weather would do to my photographic ambitions and even if, in the rain, I would be able to enjoy exhilarating views of the Lakeland 'fells' from this 'view-point'. The only way to answer these questions was to go up to Orrest Head and I did just that.

(to be continued)

To the Lakes of England (2)

The day dawned and I was waiting for the taxi that would take me to the train station. It was 5 minutes past the time the taxi was supposed to arrive and I was still waiting. Worried, I called the taxi company and was told they had got the address wrong - Chestnut road instead of Chesterton road. When i called them to make my booking, I gave my address once and there was no confirmation. Given that and my accent, I am not surprised that they got it wrong. But all is well that ends well: a replacement taxi arrived the next minute, impressing me, and five minutes later I was at the train station, well in time for my train.

A word on the weather would be appropriate here: "crap". It was dull, grey and there was every prospect of rain. And it could only be worse in the Lakes: afterall, with saturated clouds from the Atlantic hitting against its mountains, which are the tallest in England, this region is supposed to receive a large amount of rainfall. I kept shaking my head so many times during the morning, looking up at the sky and largely seeing not so much of a break in the thick grey blanket of rain clouds. And it was cold. But I was wearing my newest acquisition - a rather heavy and thick jacket meant for the mountains, and hence, I am not entirely justified in complaining about the chill. Here, it would be appropriate to quote a fellow passenger on one of the trains who commented we were going to have a "Siberian Easter".

I will conclude this blog entry with a few comments on the train ride.

As I got on the train the first thing I noticed was a lack of space for large items of luggage. I have traveled by train in England many times, but this was the first I was traveling with so much luggage and I must say, it was tricky to get everything suitably positioned. And if one compares the situation here with the space in Indian trains, you have no comparison really! I cannot, in my wildest dreams, see anyone comfortably placing the large trunk boxes that often go on Indian trains in the English ones.

I had to take four trains during the journey; Cambridge to Nuneaton, Nuneaton to Crewe, Crewe to Oxenholme and a local train between Oxenholme and Windermere. The first two trains ran on time, but the one between Crewe and Oxenholme was delayed by 15 minutes. And given that I was supposed to wait only for 10 minutes at Oxenholme for the train to Windermere, I was justified in deciding that I was going to miss my connection and end up waiting another hour. Luckily, this was not the case. In fact, the train to Windermere was also late because it was caught behind the delated service I was on!

All said and done, I arrived at Windermere station at about half past one, facing the bleak prospect of a grey holiday!

(to be continued)

To the Lakes of England (1)

Over Easter, I went to the Lake District National Park, in the English county of Cumbria, in what is the considered the most beautiful corner of England. In this series of blog posts I will share my experiences that might inform the uninitiated as to why William Wordsworth thought the lake district were more beautiful than the Alps despite the English mountains being upwardly challenged! In this first part, I will write about the plans I made for my trip and nothing about the trip itself.

I decided to go to the Lake District for Easter, way back in January, when I was still on my Christmas-New Year holiday in Chennai. I made my first plans, looking for train or coach routes and hotels in early February. And finding a Bed & Breakfast with a vacant single room was already proving to be difficult though I was searching more than 6 weeks ahead of my proposed trip. The booking process involved one whole week of evening web browsing and one failed attempt at booking one in Keswick, in the North Lakes - and all this when I could have just called the Tourist Information Centre and asked them to make a booking for me! Following this I was forced to shift my base to Windermere town, on the shores of Windermere lake, the longest in England. I was going to stay in Beckmead Gust House here. I would be staying here from Thursday, 20th March to Monday, 24th March.

Then I purchased my train tickets including seat reservations where possible. I made a particular note of getting seats reserved following the rather frustrating experience at London's Paddington station durin Easter last year that put paid to my plans of travelling to Penzance and Land's End in Cornwall.

I then booked myself on a bus tour of ten of the lakes, run by Mountain Goat bus tours. I expected this to give me a good overview of the sights in the National Park that I could investigate in more detail later on this trip or future trips. But otherwise, I felt overwhelmed by the options at my disposal - I was faced with the problem of too many! How did I tackle this problem? Did I really enjoy my trip? And most importantly, was the Weather God favourable - the forecast looked bleak the day before I was to leave!

(to be continued)

John Constable's subject

Last Saturday, it was time to take it a bit easy and not travel too far. So I decided to go to Stour Valley or Dedham Vale, also called Constable country, for this was the inspiration to a British painter from two centuries ago whose set his massive, and beautiful six-foot canvases depicted scenes from this region. To be frank, I had not heard of John Constable until I read about him somewhere on the net last week, and had not seen his works until I saw them in a National Trust Exhibition in Flatford, an idlyllic village in Dedham Vale. All right, to the story from the beginning.

The weather forecast was no good - surprise, surprise! And when I went to bed on Friday night, I was not sure if I would go anywhere. My initial plan was to be there by 8AM, which would be about an hour and a half after sunrise. Appropriately I woke up at 4:30 in the morning only to see a rather evil forecast for the whole day. I just cannot remember what really went through my head those few minutes except that I went back to bed. Definitely, given a terribly cloudy day, there would be no point in going anywhere that early in the morning!! And anyway, I dont think I even intended to go there even later on in the day at that moment. But, you know, you can never predict what will happen - I woke up at 9:15 in the morning and at 10:30 found myself stomping along with my complete digital kit and tripod towards the train station. It did not matter that I was starting so late for my destination was rather close to home, in the nearby county of Suffolk and just about an hour and a half away by train.

Alright, I took the train from Cambridge to Ipswich and then on to Manningtreee which was where I started on the National Trust-recommended walk to Flatford village. The first sight of interest was a field full of sheep in the foreground, various representations of the hand of Man in the middle ground and a stormy-looking sky in the background. Snap!




Further along the walk, there was a fenced off region where some of the largest specimen of cows were grazing. Among these was a particularly massive and menacing, but stupid-looking, individual who must have decided my intentions were not holy and decided to keep an eye on me even as I studiously kept to the way-marked foot path making sure I did not make any sudden or calculated detours that would take me any closer to this herd of cattle. Whereas, under different circumstances I might have considered photographing these characters, I decided it would not be wise to do so while under this humongous animal's surveillance.

The walk then leads to the Cattawade marshes on the Stour estuary offering intriguing views of reeds, water, wooden gates and fences in various stages of disrepair and high pylons. It is also supposed to be good for bid watching, but as is usual with me, I saw not a single interesting one.




The next point of interest on this walk is Flatford itself. It is a very pretty village with row boats and ducks on the river, quaint little houses and a small bridge across the river. There is also a National Trust tearoom which sells good fruit scones!




Then there were two options - I could either walk back along the same route to Manningtree or go further on to Dedham, a village on the Essex side of the Suffolk-Essex border. I took the second option for I thought I had all the time in the world. This leg of the walk was mostly uninteresting - there are supposed to be panoramic views of the Stour Valley from a relatively high point along this route, but just one week after being on top of Hope Valley and also under a dull grey sky and somewhat wet weather, the panoramic views did not turn out as enchanting as they were supposed to me. May be one would get a better impression on a clearer, dry day well into Spring or in Autumn. However, I got to walk along some very nice tree-lined footpaths, which despite not offering great photo ops, allowed me to switch off and soak in the calm and quiet atmosphere.

Just as I was about to enter Dedham, I saw a boat house and a few boats that I obviously photographed.


I am unable to write much about my impressions of this small village here because of the following reason: I just dont have any, or rather, did not have enough time to form an impression. Read on!

It was when I entered Dedham that I realised how lucky I was! I was there just in time to catch the last bus that would take me to any kind of a town from where I could take a train that would somehow take me back to Cambridge. I did catch the bus that went to Colchester train station from where I took the train towards Peterborough, got off at Bury St. Edmunds and changed to the train to Cambridge. If I had been a few minutes late, I would have to take the walk back to Manningtree and given that it was turning a bit too wet, it would not have been the ideal situation, never mind the fact that the return route would have been substantially shorter.

(See http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/DedhamVale for more pictures and http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-flatfordbridgecottage/w-flatfordbridgecottage-walk.htm for more information)

Light in the Hope Valley

This Saturday was one with a difference. The difference was not because I decided not to travel - I did travel, but, for the first time, I went on a guided walk. And, this was also the first time I was in the heart of a National Park - the three earlier trips being to the fringes of different NPs. That said, I will describe the day from the beginning.

I did not have a great night, I must say. I was unable to find sleep till it was half-an-hour past midnight and I had to wake up at four thirty in order to be ready to take my train. And it turned out to be a windy night; I do not know how strong the winds were, but I know that they were strong enough and lasted long enough to slow down my North-bound trains in the morning. I could hear the wind whistling inside the permanently closed Victorian fire-place in my room. On a different day, I would have just decided to call off the trip and curl up under my warm (and sometimes hot) duvet. But not today! Fortune favours the brave, they say! I decided to be brave and went to the train station, as usual.

I was headed to Hathersage, a little village in the Hope Valley, on the railway line between Manchester and Sheffield. My first train, at 5:50 in the morning, was from Cambridge to Peterborough. From there I was to take the train to Edinburgh and get off at Doncaster, then transfer to a train to Sheffield. From Sheffield, it was 15 minutes in a local train to Hathersage. Just before my first train arrived at Hathersage, some official in the train came and told us that there were some power failures north of Peterborough and we should expect problems. Good start to the day, I thought! But the problem was not as difficult as I imagined it to be. The winds were strong and as a result, the train towards Edinburgh could not run as fast as it should and ended up reaching Doncaster about 20 minutes behind schedule, which meant that I missed the train I was supposed to take to Sheffield. But luckily, Doncaster and Sheffield are well connected to each other and there was a train just leaving in another 10 minutes or so and I took it. This train would reach Sheffield just five-six minutes, if it ran on time, before my local train into the Hope Valley was to leave. It did run on time, Congratulations! And still I had to walk as fast as I could in order to find and get to the platform from where my train would leave. And all is well that ends well. Soon I was standing on the platform at Hathersage station, waiting for 10AM to arrive so that we could get on with the walk.

At this time, things did not look rosy at all! It was gray and there was an incessant drizzle falling and being driven on to my face by the wind, which was not as wild as it was earlier in the day. It was under these circumstances that the walk leader, John Howson and the walking group organisers (TransPeak Walks, http://www.transpeakwalks.co.uk), Peter Wild and Angela Ritchie, came to pick us up, on time. John had even brought a couple of nice dogs too! One thing that I immediately noticed was that out of the 20 odd people joining the walk, no one except me seemed to be under 40 and I am under 40 by a long way (phew!). To see relatively old people going on walks along cliffs (albeit not high) on a blustery morning was amazing to me.

Our first stop was in Hathersage village, just to give people some time to visit the restrooms if required. At this time, I got talking to Peter, who kindly offered to take my tripod and attach it to a special provision in his rucksack (I have made a mental note to get a bag of that kind for my future trips). And given the time I had, during the walk, to take pictures, I never once felt the need to use the tripod on this day. And once people were ready we set up on our walk. We walked along the village streets where I got my first view of the greens before cutting on to the grassland and muddy paths.



The first object of interest was what is called the Bronte Cottage, for the literary Bronte sisters (Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre). I cannot recollect why this cottage is called so, but it was only a non-descript and run-down little structure. But close to this cottage is North Lees Hall, which is thought to be the inspiration for Thornfield Hall, which features in Jane Eyre.


After viewing these buildings from the outside, we continued on our walk along paths on pretty woodlands and the valley towards Long Causeway, which is the ruin of an old cliff-top Roman road, and Stanage Edge, which I had read earlier affords some exceptionally beautiful views of the Hope Valley. The walk is definitely not the easiest and is not suitable for wheelchairs - there are too many stiles to cross. But, what really made my day was the fact that the grey clouds had started clearing and streaks of sunlight was lighting up the valley. And I just had to look over my shoulders to be graced by this view.


Soon, we were on the path with a gentle incline and on to Stanage Edge. Stanage Edge is a 3.5 mile long gritstone escarpment that overlooks the Hope Valley. The Long Causeway Roman road is just somewhere near the mid-point of the edge. It is not very high - at only about 30 meters - but attracts a number of rock climbers. (I was told that some students in Sheffield University learn rock climbing just because they are not too far off from Stanage). And we did see many of them, some of them even taking shelter from strong winds in little caves on the rock face.

While walking along the cliff, I was able to take some telephoto shots of the valley floor, with the combination of the clouds and the sun orchestrating a special performance of lighting up patches of the valley, while leaving other areas in shadow. This is what I would call picturesque and amenable to some creative Black and White conversions as well. What one gets to see is the gritstone rock outcrops of the Stanage Edge forming strange and sometimes funny shapes in the foreground and beyond is all the magic of the beautifully lighted and green valley floor. It not being a very clear day, the distant valleys appear to be mired in mist, offering only low contrast views through the curtain of sun light formed where there is a break in the clouds. Of interest is what I learnt - that the landscape that had unfolded in front of my eyes was not all natural, but was a product of a thousand years of human activity, sheep farming in particular.




Soon it was time for lunch. I was not going to spend my time eating food while there was some good light, strong foreground, middle-ground and background to be photographed. And, having shifted to my wide-angle lens, I set about taking a number of pictures, some of which were to my satisfaction. It is also worth mentioning that though it was dry by now, it had rained earlier and so the grass had retained water and this water was being sprayed around by the wind to such heights and with such a force I had not imagined anything less than a cyclone to possess.



Post lunch, we started on our walk downhill and back towards Hathersage village. While walking along the plains, one again had to just turn back to catch lovely views of a pair of peaks rising above the ground, one seemingly covered in green and the other in drier brown! And that too with the storm clouds having largely withdrawn and with some fluffy white clouds floating around under an otherwise blue sky. A sight to behold!

Finally, on the walk back we also went to a small church which is where Little John of Robin Hood and Co. is supposed to be buried.

I must say that during this walk, I got chatting to Peter and Angela, the organisers of this walking group. And following the walk, we went for a coffee together and then they took me on a car ride through other towns of the valley, Hope and Castleton, before dropping me off at the Edale train station from where I took the train back to Sheffield. During this car ride I did get a brief overview of various aspects of the Peak District and its attractions. And I would definitely visit the Peaks again, on a more-than-a-day trip, possibly in the third week of April, when there will be a Peak Distrct Walking Festival going on there! And I could join in on another of TransPeak Walks guided trek.

For more pictures, see http://picasaweb.google.com/aswinsainarain/PeaksHope_valleyStanage_edge and http://www.flickr.com/photos/achoos/sets/72157604048026345/. The latter has only a selection of my personal favourites. Write to me if you like any of the original hires images, which have had some more attention from me since they were uploaded to the above album.