Lake District National Park, England - May 22nd to 25th, 2025

The Lake District is a large area in the northwest of England which contains beautiful lakes, mountains, and villages. The majority of it falls within the Lake District National Park. It is a magnet for people who love outdoor activities. We were no exception, as we hiked every day during our visit there.

Our previous post was about Westport, Ireland. From there, we drove back to Dublin to return our rental car. Then we retraced our steps by taking the ferry from Dublin to Holyhead, Wales, then caught a train back to Conwy. Another train took us from Conwy to York, where we picked up another rental car. We covered our stays in Dublin and Conwy in previous posts (Dublin, Ireland - April 17th to 21st and May 16th to 17th, 2025 and Conwy, Wales - April 15th to 16th and May 18th to 19th, 2025) and we’ll cover our short stay in York in a following post, when we return the car back to York for a longer stay. This post starts as we leave York for the first time.

Thursday we picked up a rental car to drive to the Lake District. Our car reservation was not until noon, but we needed to check out of the guest house in York by 10:15 am. However, they gladly held our luggage until we needed to walk over to the car rental office. So we spent an hour or so walking around the Museum Gardens behind the Yorkshire Museum and the York Art Gallery before going back for our luggage.

The walk over to the Enterprise office was not too bad, about a 20 minute walk from St. Raphael’s Guest House. Along the way, we took a little detour to use the restrooms at the train station. We had a two and a half hour drive ahead of us, and didn’t want to have to stop for a bathroom break.

Our car was a Vauxhall Mokka. We got in and tried to connect Keith’s phone to the Apple Car Play. We spent quite a bit of time fumbling around before we asked an Enterprise employee to help us. They couldn’t get it to connect either. We had been working at it for about half an hour or so. They were about to look for an alternate car to give us, but we decided to just live with it. We turned on the car’s navigation and spent more time figuring out how to put in our destination. So, after about an hour after we arrived at Enterprise, we were finally pulling out of the parking lot.

As we were going down the road, we noticed that the speedometer was in kilometers per hour instead of miles per hour. All the speed limit signs in United Kingdom are in mph. How confusing! At least the car was detecting the speed limit signs and displaying the speed limit converted to kph. Ann tried to fumble through the car’s settings to change the speedometer to mph.

We were staying in a cottage on a farm outside of Keswick. It had a fully equipped kitchen, so we wanted to stop at a grocery store to pick up breakfast food along with food for dinner that evening. We had looked up a grocery store in Keswick and we thought that is what we put into the navigation system. We thought it was called Boots, so we were a little confused when we ended up going to Boots on the pedestrian street and seeing that Boots was just a pharmacy. Wait! We’re positive we both saw that it was a full grocery store, and there was parking right next to it.

After consulting Google Maps again, we realized our mistake. The grocery store was called Booths, not Boots. After all the frustration with getting the navigation working, we didn’t look closely enough at the destination. Oh well, no harm done, other than we could have parked for free at the grocery store instead of paying for parking at the public lot near the pedestrian area.

We picked up yogurt, granola, blueberries, raspberries, orange juice, and mocha instant coffee for our breakfasts. For dinner that evening, we found a couple of frozen meals, a bag of veggie crisps (chips), a couple bottles of ginger beer, and a real beer for Keith.

Then we drove up to the cottage. We rented it through AirBnB. We had an address, so we plugged that into Google Maps, as we gave up trying to get the car navigation setup. For some reason, Google Maps on Keith’s phone was not talking to us. So Ann relayed the instructions to Keith.

We turned up a narrow country lane for the last half mile. Before we reached the address as indicated in Google Maps, we saw a sign with the name of the farm. We weren’t sure if we should turn or not, so we continued a little further. Then we decided we should have turned at the sign. We managed to find a place to turn around, but it wasn’t easy.

As we started up the road with the sign, we passed a couple of buildings. Luckily, we had seen a picture of the cottage through AirBnB. None of the buildings looked familiar, so we kept going. We were uncomfortable continuing up the farm road as we felt we were just heading for a barn on private property, but we kept going anyway. As we came around the barn, just as we were about to turn around, there it was. We pulled into the spot that said cottage parking and got out.

Do we just walk inside the cottage? The owner finally appeared out of the barn. Yes, you are in the right place. The key is in the front door. Half of the cottage was for us to use while he lived in the other half, with a separate entrance for him around the back.

After we unloaded the car, we cooked our frozen meals in the oven. Keith’s meal was a yellow vegetable curry with cashews while Ann’s was a honey and ginger chicken. They were pretty tasty, but we would have liked them better with a little rice or noodles, just something to soak up all of that sauce.

We planned on three hikes during our stay in the Lake District. Since Friday was predicted to be the only day without rain, we decided to go on the longest hike first.

After breakfast at the cottage, we drove 45 minutes to the town of Ambleside to start our hike. The route in AllTrails was called the Loughrigg Fell Circular. It started from parking alongside the road near the trailhead, but we decided to go to one of the pay lots in town, the Miller Bridge Town Centre Car Park, which was next to Rothay Park, not far from the trail.

We arrived at the car park just after 9:30 am and the large car park was mostly empty. You could pay for parking by the hour, but we just paid for a full day, 9.60 pounds. Next to Rothay Park were public toilets, but you had to pay 60 pence to use them. We didn’t have any coins, but it was a contactless payment system anyway. Pretty easy, although it seems rather silly to charge such a small amount to a credit card.

The hike was beautiful. It started out as a road walk, past sheep pastures and rental cottages, then went alongside two lakes, Rydal Water and Grasmere. From there, it was a spur up to Loughrigg Fell (mountain peak), the steepest part of the hike. The path most of the way to the top were nice stone steps with only a few short sections of rough terrain. The views from up top were spectacular.

After descending back down the way we came, we continued the loop, past Loughrigg Tarn (lake) and stopped at Tarn Foot Farm and campground for an ice cream and cold drink. Tarn Foot Farm was the whole reason we took the loop counter-clockwise instead of clockwise, as AllTrails recommended. We saw in one of the comments that there was ice cream, so we wanted it towards the end of our hike instead of near the beginning, as a reward for our steep climb up to Loughrigg Fell. We both had a Magnum ice cream bar. Keith’s was the salted caramel, while Ann had the classic, chocolate covered vanilla. We sat on a bench, overlooking the Loughrigg Tarn, while we enjoyed our treats and cold cans of Coke.

From there, there was one more climb, but much shorter and not as steep as up to the peak. Our refreshments gave us a nice energy boost to make the climb easier. Then we had a nice descent back into the town of Ambleside.

By the time we returned to the Miller Bridge Car Park, we had covered 13.1 kilometers (8.2 miles) with an elevation gain of 596 meters (1955 feet) which we completed in just under five and a half hours. It was hike number 16 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2025.

After dropping off our gear back at the car, we walked into town. We stopped at the first coffee shop we saw, Esquires Coffee, so we could sit down, have a drink, and use their toilet. When we saw they had milkshakes, that sounded much better than a hot drink, so we both ordered one. We’ll let you guess which one of us had vanilla and which one had chocolate. The milkshakes were pretty thin and foamy, generally not how we like our milkshakes. But they quenched our thirst better than a thick milkshake, which is what we needed after our hike.

Feeling a little refreshed, we wandered around the town. Over at White Platts Recreation Ground, we watched a foursome playing Crown Green Bowling. From what we could tell, it looked similar to bocce ball where the players try to roll their balls (or bowls) close to a smaller target ball, called a jack.

Near the Bridge House, we stopped at the Ambleside Tap Yard for dinner. The Bridge House is a quirky little 17th century house on top of a small bridge over the river. The Tap Yard had burgers and pizzas, but since we just had pizzas the night before, we opted for burgers. Ann had the Classic burger with sweet potato fries while Keith had the Korean burger with regular fries. The Korean burger is not what we would call a burger in the States. It was a chicken sandwich with Korean BBQ sauce and kimchi slaw. It’s been a while since Ann has had sweet potato fries, so they really hit the spot.

To drink, Keith had the Splish Splash - Session IPA from the Farm Yard Brew Company in Lancaster, just south of the Lake District. Ann drank a strawberry and lime cider from Rekorderlig in Sweden. It had a very nice flavor.

By the time we finished our meal, the Tap Yard was having issues. All of their systems went down, so they were turning away customers. They couldn’t take card payments and we were not sure they could even look up what people had ordered, so they were letting people leave without paying. We rounded up 50 pounds in cash, which was more than enough for our bill and gave it to them before we left. It’s amazing how dependent we’ve become on our computer systems and internet connections. We hope they recovered OK. That’s a lot of money to lose if they were shut down for the evening. It was just the beginning of dinner time.

It rained Friday night. When we woke up Saturday morning, it was overcast, but the rain had stopped. Our planned hike for the day was the Aira Force and Gowbarrow Park Circular. The route started near the Aira Force (waterfall) next to Ullswater (lake). We saw that there was a National Trust Car Park at the trail head, where members could park for free. Non-members had to pay cash at the pay machines, with no change given.

We bought a National Trust membership when we were back in the Cotswolds (Broadway, England - April 10th to 11th, 2025). We didn’t have our National Trust member cards, since they were shipped to our home address in the States, but we did have a temporary member parking card which we could use. Yay! We get to use our membership!

When we arrived at the car park, around 9:30 am, there were plenty of open spots in the car park. But when we finished our hike, just after 1 pm, the car park was full with vehicles circling the lot waiting for someone to leave.

The hike started out along the Aira Beck (stream), passing by Aira Force, High Force (another waterfall), and the High Cascades. We actually missed a turn at Aira Force and started up on the wrong side of the stream before realizing our mistake. However, there were some nice little cascades along there, so we’re glad we went a little out of our way. We wish we would have taken a little spur right before we reached Aira Force, which would have taken us down to the stream for a different view of the waterfall from below.

The water falls were nice, but they probably weren’t flowing very strong, considering England had several weeks of unusually warm weather without any rain.

Then we started our ascent up to Gowbarrow Fell (mountain peak). We had to stop often to allow runners to pass us along the trail. We didn’t realize that we would be on a trail while a race was going on. It turned out to be the Montane Trail Ultra, 20 & 10 Ullswater Way. So participants were running a 33.5 mile, 21.5 mile, or 10 mile course.

All three routes included about half the route we were hiking. We were glad we were going in the opposite direction as the runners, so we could see them coming and get out of their way. We heard there were about 500 participants. We believe it, as we were stopping about every 30 seconds to let runners go by.

We didn’t mind stopping so much on the way up to Gowbarrow Fell, as it made the climb easier and gave us time to enjoy the views. But it got a little old as we were coming down from the peak. So we were thankful when the path split and the runners were no longer on the same trail as us.

As we were on the last mile or so, the rain started. The drizzle quickly turned into a heavy rain. Our rain jackets kept our upper bodies dry, but our pants were soaked. We have rain pants, but we didn’t bother with them on our hike. Surprisingly, our boots and socks did not get that wet.

By the time we returned to the car, we had gone 7.8 kilometers (4.9 miles) with an elevation gain of 425 meters (1394 feet), which took us just under three and a half hours. Had there not been racers to deal with, we’re pretty sure we would have completed it much faster. No worries, though, we didn’t have much else planned that day. We counted it as hike number 17 of our 52 Hike Challenge for 2025.

After dropping off our gear at the car, we walked over to the Aira Force Tea Rooms for lunch. There was limited seating inside and the tables outside were in the rain. All of the tables inside were occupied, but we walked up to the counter anyway to order. The counter staff asked if we were eating there or having take away. We said we’d like to eat in, if we could find a seat. The woman next to us offered up a couple of seats at her table. She was by herself and sitting at a table for four. Thank you so much!

Keith ordered the pork sausage roll while Ann had a Cornish pasty with our pair of chai steamers. Ann has had pasties before, but never a true Cornish one. She found it tastier than the beef and veggies pasty she had in Salisbury (link to post). We believe the chai steamers are chai lattes with just a different name.

We stayed at the tea room for dessert. Keith’s was a slice of orange cake with poppy seeds. Ann’s was a blueberry Bakewell. We’ve had a Bakewell tart before, while we were on the narrow boat canal cruise (Canal Cruise on Takara Narrow Boat in England: Part 2 of 2 - April 6th to 9th, 2025). They are tasty with layers of jam and frangipane (an almond-flavored custard) in a pastry shell topped with flaked almonds.

After filling our bellies, we hopped in the car and drove over to see the Castlerigg Stone Circle, near Keswick. Castlerigg is one of over a thousand stone circles in the British Isles and Brittany, but Castlerigg is a favorite one for many to visit due to its picturesque surroundings. The circle was constructed around 3000 BC. There is a rectangle of stones within the circle that is believed to have been added later.

From there we drove into Keswick. Instead of parking in one of the pay lots, we parked for free on a street on the edge of town and walked from there. Even though the skies were still dark, the rain had stopped, so we didn’t mind walking. We wandered around town, through a few nice parks, and strolled down to Derwentwater (lake).

Keswick definitely has a lovely, although touristy, vibe. There is a nice pedestrian street, with a market on Thursdays and Saturdays. Down by the lake is a theater. The parks contained entertainment, like lawn bowling, putting, pitch and putt, grass tennis courts, remote controlled boats, and a cricket field.

After our stroll, we tried to eat at the Dog and Gun. Keith saw they served Hungarian Goulash, one of his favorite dishes. However, we couldn’t find an empty table. So we ended up at a Vietnamese place down the street called Little Saigon. Keith ordered the duck rice bowl while Ann had the beef noodle bowl (Bun Bo Xao Nam Bo). Keith liked the flavor of the duck, but the rice and veggies had no sauce or flavorings. Ann enjoyed her meal, which came with a sweet and sour fish sauce.

On our walk back to the car, we stopped for a little bit to watch a cricket game. We still don’t understand all the rules or strategies of the game.

Sunday started out overcast, with a few light showers on our way to our third and last hike, the Buttermere Circular. But when we reached Buttermere, the rain stopped. The sun actually peaked through every now and then, creating a patch of sunlight that flowed across the beautiful landscape, highlighting different parts of the scenery around us. It was a windy day which made it feel cooler than the previous two days. Ann even put on her warm gloves at the beginning of the hike.

The hike circled Buttermere lake, so it was pretty flat. The highlights along the hike, besides the gorgeous mountain peaks surrounding the lake, were waterfalls flowing down the mountain sides and a dark tunnel to walk through. We saw information in the AllTrails comments about the tunnel and that a torch (flashlight) might be helpful. Keith brought his headlamp, but he was too lazy to dig it out of his pack. There were puddles inside the tunnel to avoid, and being able to see the terrain under your feet would have felt safer, but we managed to get through the tunnel with no mishaps.

Parking was pretty similar to the day before. We found a National Trust car park where we could use our membership again to avoid paying parking fees. Again, at 9 am, there were plenty of spots, but when we returned from our hike, all the car parks were full, with cars parking along the narrow road where they could and others circling, looking for people who were leaving.

There was a public toilet next to another car park closer to the lake. We thought it kind of funny that the toilets, which cost only 60 pence, required a credit card to pay, while the car park only took cash, which cost several pounds. That seemed a little backwards to us.

By the time we completed the loop around the lake, we had gone 7.8 kilometers (4.9 miles) with an elevation gain of 166 meters (545 feet) in two hours and 40 minutes. It was hike number 18 of our 52 Hike Challenge.

There were a couple of cafes near the start and end of the hike. After completing our walk, we went into the Syke Farm Tea Room for lunch. Along with our chai lattes, Keith had a pork and ale roll while Ann opted for the goat cheese, red onion and sweet potato pie. We have been impressed so far by how many vegan and vegetarian options most cafes and restaurants have in Europe.

In the same building was the Buttermere Ayrshires Ice Cream shop. Of course, we had to have some. We both had a single scoop waffle cone. Keith’s was a scoop of vanilla while Ann had creme caramel. The ice cream is made at Syke Farm with the milk from their Buttermere Ayrshire cows. Delicious.

The Lake District seemed to be a very dog friendly area. Most of the stores and restaurants allowed people to bring their dogs inside. Dogs were allowed on the hiking trails. And many of the people we saw had dogs in tow. However, there were signs warning dog owners to keep their animals under control to prevent them from attacking sheep. We’ve heard that in England, farmers are allowed to shoot dogs that attack their sheep.

From Buttermere, we drove over to Keswick. This took us along a very scenic drive over Newlands Pass. The road was narrow, so it was stressful driving as we maneuvered around oncoming traffic, sometimes backing up to a wider spot. But the stress was definitely worth the gorgeous views. At the top of the pass is the Moss Force waterfall.

Then we wound our way down a wide U-shaped valley, sculpted by a glacier of days gone by. We’ve seen glacial valleys before, so the view was a familiar one, reminding us of our time in Alaska. We parked in the Keswick Central Car Park and paid our fee. We didn’t want a long walk to the car in case the rain picked up. Since it was mid day, we were lucky to snag a spot, as cars were circling the lot.

We headed straight to the Dog & Gun pub to see if there were any empty tables. There were! So we grabbed one. We weren’t really hungry yet, so we ordered a couple of pints. Keith had the Old Peculier from Theakston Brewery in Masham, England. Ann had a bottle of mixed berry Rekorderlig cider. While we enjoyed our drinks, we had a wonderful conversation with the couple at the table next to us. They were from Seattle Washington on a three week tour of England and Scotland. We hope they enjoy the rest of their trip.

After Keith finished his beer, he ordered a couple bowls of Hungarian goulash for us. It took a little while for the food to arrive, but that just gave us more time to build up an appetite. Somehow we managed to just about finish off the soup. It came with garlic bread, a dumpling, and roasted potatoes. The goulash was good, but not as good as Keith remembered. Perhaps he had built it up in his mind a little bit over the years. It was a very filling meal, and it was only 3 pm. Needless to say, we were not planning on eating for the rest of the day. It was a good thing we went early, because we found out that their kitchen closes from 3 pm to 5 pm.

Before we left Keswick, we picked up a small container of yogurt since we didn’t have enough left for breakfast the following day. We also stopped at Roly’s Fudge Pantry to get a couple of pieces of fudge for a snack later in the evening. OK, I lied about not eating for the rest of the day. Ann got chocolate fudge while Keith got salted caramel. It turned out to be a nice treat.

As we were returning to the car, the sky let loose. Even though it was a short distance to the car, it was long enough to get our pants soaked. So much for avoiding getting wet that day. We really can’t complain, though. The weather turned out to be better than forecasted and we’ve had unusually warm and dry weather most of the time so far in Ireland and England, for which we were thankful.

When we got back to the cottage, we realized that the heat had not been on all day. The temperature inside the cottage was still comfortable, but Ann had washed her pajamas that morning and was counting on the radiators to dry them. That evening, her PJ’s were still soaking wet. Even after getting instructions from the cottage owner on how to override the timer, we still couldn’t get the radiators to warm up. However, Ann hung her clothes outside on the clothes line in the wind and periods of sunshine for a couple of hours, bringing them inside once when a short rain shower passed through. Somehow the clothing managed to dry before bed time. Whew! Before we left the cottage the following morning, we saw a propane delivery truck out front. Perhaps that is why we couldn’t get the heat to come on, it was out of propane.

The Lake District was a beautiful area, both in the sunshine and in the rain. We’re glad we didn’t let the weather keep us from hiking. The different weather just gave the scenery different moods and drama.

Check out our related video: Lake District National Park, England

(Ann)