Battling with the Bank Holiday Crowds

Everyone knows, because it’s repeated all the time, that the Lakes is impossibly crowded during the holidays.  Except that it isn’t, and it’s only lazy commentators who say so.  All the hotels in the Lakes are full this Bank Holiday weekend (at least, mine are) but the National Park is so vast that you don’t have to try very hard to avoid the crowds.
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​This afternoon I set off on my bike from Grange, through Lindale and along the road to Cartmel Fell. ​

The road takes you along a valley which runs parallel to Lake Windermere through the kind of scenery that dreams are made of. This is easy cycling country with undulating hills divided into fields by limestone walls, some with sheep, and their lambs at this time of year, and some populated by beef cattle- rare breeds such as Longhorns and Highlanders.  What you don’t see is people.  I cycled for an hour without passing a single car, or for that matter another human being apart from a solitary farmer rounding up his lambs.  In the winter I often see buzzards on this road, but today small birds predominated; their birdsong is a constant accompaniment- better than any iPod.  And occasionally the pastureland is punctuated by an area of ancient woodland, which at this time of year is carpeted with bluebells and daisies.  I stopped to take this photo on my iPhone, thinking “where are all the tourists?  They shouldn’t be missing this”.