Wanderung 25

Fall Follies

August - September 2011


 

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Tuesday, August 9th 2011: Manchester to Holmeshead Farm Bed and Breakfast.

Bob:

I knew I was tired when we picked up the rental car, a beautiful deep blue Fiat Punto 4-door, at Manchester airport, but thankfully I didn't have any problems adapting to driving on the left side of the road. Having driving for several weeks on the left side of the road that Spring in Ireland (Wanderung 24) no doubt helped, and I had kept in practice driving a stick-shift transmission by driving my old Miata down the Blue Ridge Parkway and around town every chance I got in the interim.

Both the Miata and the Punto were 5-speeds, but pretty much that's where the resemblance ended! The Miata has a crisp, short-throw, fingertip shift (the best of all possible worlds) whereas the Punto's shift pattern, what I could recognize of it, was extremely vague, balky, notchy and rubbery (the worst of all possible worlds). Not being very certain about what gear I was really in led me to kill the engine twice, but both times I was startled to have the car simply engage the starter and start up again without any input from me! Not a bad trick, considering, but a bit unnerving if the driver is not expecting it, and this driver was suffering not only from a lack of imagination but also a decent case of jet lag.

Except for driving the long (and wrong) way around the ring road surrounding Manchester, the drive North on the British motorways (American: Interstate highways) went uneventfully. So uneventfully, in fact, that I caught myself starting to nod off and had to pull over and rest a bit before we turned off into the Lake District. The roads in the Lake District itself were much more like the narrow, twisty, 2-lane roads I was used to from driving in Ireland, but by that time I had been driving for several hours and was quite fatigued.

Monika:

I was happy when the crew finally turned the lights back on and served a light breakfast. I might have dozed a little but really never got into a deep sleep. But the night was finally over and I was ready for a new adventure. Although the line for checking passports of the non-EU people was a lot smaller than the line for EU folks, it took a lot longer to process each person. By the time we got through immigration, our wheelies were already enjoying a ride around the luggage carousel.

Now we were ready to look for our rental car. We had booked through Auto Europe, who find the cheapest deal with any of the rental agencies. Last time in Ireland we ended up with Sixt. This time we had been assigned to "RTZ" and I really was not sure were to go. Luckily all the rental agency counters were right next to each other and with a little asking around, we were told we were with HERTZ which really surprised me. They even had upgraded us from very, very smallest to economy size and gave us a pretty blue Fiat Punto with air conditioning. Very nice.

I had asked for directions to the interstate and we also had Google directions, a paper map, and a GPS. What could go wrong? Well, we got out of the airport complex and onto the first interstate. But then came a split. I knew, we had to get onto the M60, the ring road around Manchester, and did see the sign for the M60 in the right hand lane. Only when we were almost turning off, did I see that the very left hand lane was M60 going North, whereas we were going south. There was no quick way of changing where we were going and after all, it was a ring road, how bad could it be. Well it added an additional 30 minutes to our drive, and Bob was really tired since he had not slept well on the airplane either. When we finally got to the M6, the interstate going north, we turned into the first rest area to give Bob a rest. Luckily they also had food, in particular a Subway where we both had a nice sandwich and could even take half of our foot long sandwich with us for Abendessen (American: evening meal).

Bob:

Our GPS location for the Holmeshead B&B turned out to be off by a noticeable amount, and when Monika saw that we were being led in what was clearly the wrong direction she called a halt and went in to ask for directions at a local restaurant near Skelwith Bridge. With a nice Google Map to help us the last couple of miles, we wound our way back along country lanes lined with high stone walls until we reached the farm stead.

Holmeshead is in fact a working farm, complete with pigs, sheep, and heaven knows what else, but when we arrived not a soul was about. I was glad to have done with the driving and the afternoon was a gorgeously sunny and warm, so we just sat on some wrought-iron chairs in the large garden and waited for folks to return. We picked room 1 for the first five days of our stay and settled in, whereupon I took a shower to remove all the travel grime and then promptly collapsed for a long nap.

Monika:

Well, the next part of navigation went ok. We took the correct turn-off and had our first glimpse of the beautiful Lake District countryside. We drove through Windemere and then Ambleside. Unfortunately, the coordinates we thought we had for our B&B were not correct and I tried to go by map and GPS but after Ambleside was really not sure where to turn. So we stopped at an Inn/Restaurant and I asked. The girl at the desk did give me good directions to the B&B. We had to go a couple of miles on a one-lane road and there was the sign for Holmeshead Farm. At the end of the driveway we found a beautiful old farmhouse.

No one was home, but there were chairs out on the lawn and it was a beautiful, sunny day. We both enjoyed just sitting down in the quietness and reading our books. Looking over the stone wall at the end of the lawn, I, of course, saw some sheep. Yes, we were indeed out in the country. When our host came he showed us our room. A beautiful old room was wooden doors and a slightly slanted floor but a nice modern bathroom. I have to admit, I am enchanted by this place. After all the driving Bob did need a nap and I enjoyed finishing my book.

Bob:

But it was a shame to waste such nice weather, so I roused myself while it was still daylight and we went for a short walk down the lane, where I found one of the prettiest street signs I think I have ever seen. It was situated at a triangular intersection in front of a copse of trees, and the white and black striped pole contrasted nicely with the dark green foliage.

We also found a typical public hiking path crossing onto the farm where we were staying, so we crossed the stile and followed the path through some pretty dense bracken back to our farmhouse. There we curled up for the rest of the evening with our maps and Frances Lincoln's guide for "Best Walks In The Lake District" by Frank Duerden (2006 revised edition). Finally I simply fell asleep while reading and gave up and turned in for the night.

Monika:

But after we finished our Subway sandwiches, the sunshine was beckoning and I wanted to see a little more of our surroundings. We walked down the lane to the road with the mountains looming in the distance, and their reflections could be seen in a small tarn. Walking along the one lane road, I enjoyed the sign that warned of oncoming traffic, bicyclists, and pedestrians. And yes, all of those were definite hazards. We walked up to the next crossroad with a beautiful signpost. Coming back, we decided to cross the stone wall on the side of the road using the official stile on the official National Pathway which lead through some really tall vegetation. Luckily it was not too wet.

Back at the farm, we said "Hi" to the pigs and then went up to our room for some more strenuous reading, before turning in for the night.


 



Copyright 2012 by R. W. Holt and E. M. Holt


 

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Index

Prolog Map of Drive in England Map of Transatlantic Cruise Epilog

August 2011
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1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 31
September 2011
Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30

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