Hey people, I am back from my trip. Apologies, because I dun have time to really document my blog nicely like I did for Spain, so I am just going to run through all the photographs.
With me are Sebastian and Chongwai. This is strictly, an Air Force Outing haha.. First day was spent in Manchester, having taken a 5hr (and rather noisy) bus ride up to the city. First stop, home pitch of Manchester city. This stadium was also used for the Commonwealth games in 2002, where our Table Tennis teams did us proud =)
Day two: In Manchester, how can you NOT visit Manchester United? Alright, even though I am an avid Liverpool fan (no, not die hard), but Manchester United does have a pool (pun intended) of fantastic players whom I admire. AND they are not as foreign-ish as Chelsea and Arsenal, whom I dun really think highly of considering they are EPL clubs (sorry Choy) haa..
And thats the Old Trafford grounds in the background, with the three explorers across the road. Its a long walk back to our B&B (hotel), and we seriously overestimated ourselves. We nearly missed the train to Windermere as a result, but as luck holds, we made it *grin*
Day 3: We are in Windermere, Lake District! It has been my Year 1 wish to come here.. and finally, I am... even though I am a couple of years late. The first thing we did was to climb up to Orrest Head Viewpoint for a view of the lake from up high. Too bad it was pretty foggy and misty today, hence it didn't really present a beautiful panoromic view.
But nonetheless, the view from the top was still breathtaking. I hate the clouds.
We got off Orrest Head, walked along the lake, and got to the adjacent town to Windermere: Bowness. Its a lightly larger (and more commercialise and tourisy) town, and it was burstling with tourists. We were a little lost on what to do, having not planned beforehand, hence, we hopped on a cruise and went with the flow (of the river!).
We hopped off the ferry at Ambleside, another little village north of Windermere. Its real quiet here, so the three of us, while waiting for the return ferry to Bowness, got coffee at the cafe, while I got to work with my camera.
Pigeons, Ducks and Seagulls (a.k.a. Nature's Dive Bombers) resting on the jetty.
I love Sepia shots.. and this photo really looks good. No we are not deliberately posing.. we were already in that pose when I realised that it would be a nice photo. So I told them to stay there, set up my tripod and took the shot.
Chongwai went to the gents just before the jetty was set to leave, SO we were at Ambleside for another 20 more minutes, hence we roamed the otherside of the village =P and here we are ;)
Day 4: Bike hike! We got up early, rented our bikes from the train station and off we go. We initially only planned for biking around the top half of the lake, but by noon, we were almost done with it.
Ending up at Sawrey, near where we would take the ferry back to Windermere means that we are going to have to make post lunch plans fast. Ok, hence we decided to give the lower half of the lake's perimeter a go too. But first, we shall get back to Bowness for lunch.
It turned out that the route to Lakeside (the southern most point of the lake) was through hills! We nearly killed our thighs going through that stretch of road. This picture was taken after we stopped to rest by the road after a darn long stretch of uphills. Note that the road STILL winds uphill. *tired*
Finally, after almost an hour and a half of frantic cycling, we were at Lakeside. Its another quiet village with a very nice pier with a great view of the lake and THAT hill you see was one of those we cycled through. Impressive looking eh?
If you look carefully, you can see a pair of rainbows in the background. It was too faint to be caught on a camera. Yup.. here we are at Orrest Head again after returning the bikes, waiting, and hoping for a glorious sunset. Hui Min is there too.. standing in the background..
And finally, the sun sets. It wasn't as beautiful and glorious as I hoped it will be, but oh well, its something you would not get to see often anyway =)
Day 5: A final walk around the town. We initially wanted to head to one of the towns at the outskirts of Windermere, but the 3 of us ended up wanting to just laze around and bum around in Windermere, hence we wandered the streets, checking out the novelty stores in Bowness. Another one of my favourite sepia shots ;)
After a thorough search of all the novelty shops in the town, we settled down for a cuppa at one of the open air "coffee shops". We ended up chatting, reading and stoning here for 2 hours odd. What a relaxing way to spend a vacation. lala~
Of course I am not going to stay in the cafe for that long, so after about an hour, I went off for more photographs. I took this at a private jetty. Was lucky not to have gotten chased off heh, but heck.. it was a nice photo opportunity.
Yup, that more or less concluded my 5 day sojorun in Northern England. It was a great countryside break, where I really loved the tranquility of Windermere, as compared to bustle of city life. The people there are in general, so much nicer too. I would love to return to Lake District again.
