“Next time” is a great touristic rallying cry for us in order to save our vacation sanity. When we can’t see everything we wanted to see, or when things don’t go as planned, we often console ourselves by saying, “Next time!” Sometimes “next time” can happen because of rearranging plans, and sometimes “next time” comes much sooner than you would think.

Yesterday evening I had hoped to hike out to Friar’s Crag, which we did. I had also hoped to hike up to a viewpoint in Castlehead Wood, but the sign said it took forty minutes, and it was late, so I regretfully skipped it and told myself I’d do it next time. Enter jet lag. I was wide awake by 5:00 am, and since we are so far north, it was already light out. I saw that it wasn’t raining, and so I dressed quietly and slipped out around 5:30 to see if I could manage the hike up the hill. The walk took me through town and down to the lake, and I met no one (in fact, I met no one until I got back to town on the way back to the B and B). I loved that. I got to the trailhead for Castlehead Wood and took it next to pastures to where it crossed a road. The directional signs for the trail disappeared, and so I made my trail decisions based on what went up. And up it went. There were two tough sections – one long and steep section and one short section that required a little scrambling over rocks.

It was worth it. The viewpoint had a magnificent view of the lake and the hills overlooking the lake. There were good views over the hills away from the lake as well. There was a bench there, so I sat for several minutes and watched rain showers move in over the southern part of the lake. I decided that that was a signal for me to get going, and I got back to just past the boat launch before the rain caught me, so my last half mile or so was in a light rain. My total time to hike to the hilltop and back was one hour, which included sitting at the top for a bit. I was back in time to shower and still take a forty-minute nap while Mer went out and hiked in a park nearby. Then we had breakfast and headed out for the day.

The forecast called for showers and rain all morning until between 1:00 and 2:00, so Mer tweaked her plans for the day, putting the indoor stuff first. We all (Mer and Dubbs and Candice and I) piled in the small car and headed south for half an hour, to the town of Ambleside. Dubbs had wanted to see Bridge House, a house built on a bridge, and a picturesque one that was sketched often in the 1800s and is now photographed often. We were having trouble finding it, but we drove past a small bridge while looking for parking. Dubbs said out loud, “That can’t be it,” because of the small size. It was, of course. Still a pretty picture to take, but more amusing after Dubbs’ evaluation.

From Ambleside, we drove north again to Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum. Wordsworth, along with his friend Coleridge, invented a new plain style of poetry that celebrated nature and ordinary people, and so gave birth to Romantic poetry (“Romantic” as in the literary period, not the hitting-on-a-girl kind). Wordsworth inherited some money, and so he and his sister were able to move into Dove Cottage here in the Lake District, where they went on walks (at a time when people didn’t walk in nature for pleasure) and where Wordsworth wrote poetry and his sister kept a journal. She also transcribed Wordsworth’s poetry for him, which is fortunate, since his handwriting was poor.

The museum is small, with four rooms highlighting Wordsworth’s poetry and life at Dove Cottage. The cottage itself is furnished much as it would have been back in the early 1800s, according to things mentioned in the Wordsworths’ letters and in Dorothy’s journal. We were allowed to explore the cottage on our own, including being able to touch anything. The admission also allows for touring the grounds, but when we tried to do so, it started raining quite hard. So we gave up on the grounds and drove back to Keswick to get a light lunch before heading out again.

That worked well, as the rain stopped as we were looking for a place to eat, and by the time we were on the road again, the sun was burning through some of the clouds. We headed off west and south to do a Rick Steves’ guidebook’s recommended driving tour.

That was a (mostly) great choice. The sights of driving through the Lake District mountains were spectacular, but the roads were terrible, with a narrow way and bad sightlines. I drove slowly and cautiously, but the driving was tense in a few places. But the results were worth it.

We drove up and up and up to Newlands Pass, where there was a small parking lot. We got out to hike a few hundred yards in a stiff wind over to a waterfall, which was lovely, We then crossed the road and climbed part way up a mountain. I got to a ridge area first and was hit with a very strong and steady wind. It is probably in the top two strongest winds I have ever encountered, only (maybe) bested by the winds at the top of the Saxholl Crater we climbed in Iceland. It was a giddy feeling to experience that much power in the wind. The views from the ledge area (about half-way up the hill) were grand in all directions.

We drove on (down) to the tiny village of Buttermere, which has a cute and scenically situated church, and a convenient cafe. We visited both. From the cafe, we hiked down to Buttermere Lake, another pretty setting of water and hills.

We then headed back up and up through the Honister Pass, which tops out at a functional slate mine, which was closed by the time we got there. From the pass, we drove back down into the Borrowdale Valley. We stopped to hike to the Bowder Stone, which is an enormous chunk of rock that probably fell from a nearby mountain, but is now freestanding. It’s big enough to have a stairway built on to it so you can climb up to the top. We did.

The last stop of the evening was at the very swanky Lodore Falls Hotel, where Candice and I ordered hot chocolate to ensure we got the required exit code for the parking lot. It was a very nice place to sit and relax, but then we hiked ten minutes or so behind the hotel to the eponymous Lodore Falls. The Falls are tall and narrow and pretty. They are surrounded by forest, so we couldn’t see all the way to the top.

That ended the scenic drive, as I drove past an optional turnoff to a few other sights. With the lakes and mountains and rock walls, it is difficult and dangerous to turn around, and it was already 8:00 pm, so I kept going on the road the short distance back to Keswick.

And so ended a long but touristicly successful day. An early start and some strategic scheduling minimized today’s “next time” category.