Steaming to Glenridding

Saturday 18th May 2024

It was beautifully sunny when we woke, up early and a breakfast of hash potato, eggs and bacon cooked on the Cadac.

Gayle had plans for us to walk ten miles around Ullswater as far as Glenridding, but the sun was too hot.

So we decided to head for the Glenridding steamer, which is one of the last remaining Heritage Steamers in the world

We just made the 11:05 sailing, it takes around an hour to get there, and it was full of small boats, paddle boards and other craft.

It is definitely a leisure lake, and looked like great fun.

I think I heard the boat announcements saying that the lake was limited to 5mph, which perhaps explains why there were so many other water-sports on the lake.

We arrived in Glenridding, and wandered around the small town centre, it’s slightly smaller looking than Pooley Bridge (which is pretty small), we picked up a fridge magnet and a walking guide to Ullswater.

After our breakfast, we weren’t really hungry, so we had ice cream, Kendal mint cake and caramel sticky toffee pudding in sugar chocolate dipped cones, really nice.

Back on the steamer to Poolie bridge, chilly breeze but pleasant trip.

We popped into Granny Dowbekins for a late lunch, I had the Greek chicken and Gayle had Caesar’s salad, both were very nice.

We popped into Verey Books and Gayle picked up a Stephen King novel, when the weather’s nice it’s lovely sitting just out of the sun reading.

We wandered back to the campsite in the sun, sated.

A lot of fellow campers were returning from the lake with all sorts of inflatable and not-inflatable water craft.

We read and relaxed, then wandered down to the town to grab something light to eat, a ham and cheese roll, egg mayo roll and coronation chicken, I snagged a little banoffee dessert.

We sat out ‘til late, made up the bed and crashed.