Bowness to Lakeside to Haverthwaite

Yesterday, I predicted that boat rides and rain would be recurring themes during my time in Windermere, England. The one I have control over, the boat trip did come to pass. I took a boat trip from Bowness-On-Windermere to Lakeside, and from there I travelled overland to Haverthwaite.

As to the rain theme. I don’t have any power over that, now do I? As the members of the United Stupids of America MAGA cult will tell you, the weather is produced by space lasers controlled by the deep state, or perhaps the Deep State.

Fortunately, the deep state or Deep State spared me the rain for most of the morning. It remained drearily overcast the entire time, but it started to drizzle only a little before noon.

Oh, before I forget, I should mention this will be a short post. If you plan to read it while sitting on the toilet for your regular, um, movement, you might want to bring some additional reading material to occupy you for the remainder of your time on the throne. Then again, if you’re a slow reader, this might do nicely.

I hope that warning didn’t come too late for you to act on. If so, sorry. Carry on.

You might have guessed from the opening paragraph that I learned since yesterday that the pier that serves the town of Windermere is in Bowness on Windermere (Bowness), not Windermere.

I’m still confused about the dividing lines between the two. There is no discernible gap between them. And I haven’t noticed any signs welcoming me to one as I leave the other. I can’t see any lines on my online maps showing the boundaries. My best guess, based on which town the maps tell me specific buildings are located in, most, but not all, of the commercial and residential areas beside and near the lake are part of Bowness on Windermere. Windermere seems to have some lakefront, but occupies more of the high ground. Then again, I might be wrong about most of that.

Bowness to Lakeside

The pier for the boat to Lakeside is close to the one the lake cruise I took yesterday left from and returned to, and the same company runs the boats.

The first part of the more than 35-minute journey included scenery I’d seen yesterday, but it continued south beyond where yesterday’s cruise turned to form its circle. Lakeside is at the southern end of Windermere Lake, which is much longer than it is wide.

The scenery for the rest of the way to Lakeside is equally as exquisite as what I saw yesterday. It is far too beautiful to be cast into adequate words by someone as inept at describing scenic splendour as I am. A normal person who possesses at least an average level of—what’s the word I’m looking for? It starts with “litter” and has a “see” on the end—would probably have less difficulty with that task. Suffice it to say, the lake and the mountain greenery surrounding it are very super-lovely.

I bought a return ticket that included ground transport from Lakeside to Haverthwaite and back. Said ground transportation was waiting when the boat docked.

Lakeside to Haverthwaite

To be honest, there’s not much reason to go to Haverthwaite except to take the ground transportation going there. It’s a heritage steam train.

The line used to connect to a longer network that provided service around the country, including to London. But most of it was abandoned, I forget when. The short line between Lakeside and Haverthwaite was revived, and some heritage steam trains were acquired for it, again, I forget when.

(There was some commentary on the train. As you can tell from the dearth of information above and the dual use of “forget,” a fat lot of good that did me.)

The locomotive of the train pushes an integrated horizontal water tank in front of it, or pulls the tank behind it, depending on which direction the train is heading.

As it chugs along its 18-or-so-minute route, steam billows forcefully out of the cylindrical chimney. Occasionally, the engineer blows the confident, throaty steam whistle.

At either station at the ends of the line, a crew detaches the locomotive from the carriages, and the locomotive then proceeds ahead for a short way. At the Haverthwaite end, the locomotive proceeds to a small water tower, where a large hose is used to replenish the locomotive’s water tank.

At both stations, there is a second track beside the one where passenger cars wait. After it reaches the end of its track, the detached locomotive reverses direction and switches to the other track. It then drives along beside the resting train to the other end of it, where it switches back onto the main track and reattaches to the other end of the train.

The locomotive doesn’t turn around at either end. So, in one direction, the front window of the locomotive faces the tush of the train. In this direction, the engineer drives either with his head out the open window or by looking through a small glass-filled window that allows him to peer over the top curve of the long water tank.

The inside of the train cars is somewhat plain, but with a simple, classic elegance. The seat upholstery is blue checkered. As the train travelled, it made, not quite a clickety-clack sound, but a rhythm that was similar but much heavier than that. It was calming in a mechanical sort of way.

The train passed through some wooded areas, alongside fields with sheep, and by various structures.

There are some relatively unadorned, frosted-glass, tiered domed lights on the ceilings of the cars. At least, I think they are lights. They might have been decorations. They weren’t on while I was on the train. This included when the train passed through a tunnel shortly before arriving in Haverthwaite. For probably at least half a minute, the interior of the train was pitch black.

The train doors challenged me. I was the first passenger to reach the door through which I intended to exit. I couldn’t figure out how to open it. There was no handle.

I had to wait for another passenger to make her way to the door. She reached through the open window of the door and, with some difficulty, used the handle on the outside of the door to unlatch it. I guess she’d taken the train before and was savvy to its ways. Either that or she’s just cleverer than I am. The latter is often the case when I find myself in such situations.

On the return trip, I knew the trick and was able to let myself out of the train.

Haverthwaite

I don’t know why I placed a subhead for Haverthwaite immediately above. There’s not much to say. Haverthaite has a parking lot behind the station and a road behind that. Beyond that, there didn’t seem to be much. The station has a lovely tea shop that serves delicious, fresh-baked scones that were, in fact, made just two hours prior. I can’t verify any of that. It’s just what the announcement on the train said. I didn’t go in.

There is also a small picnic area on the other side of the tracks, accessible by a pedestrian bridge over the tracks. Plus, according to the announcement on the train, there is a woodland path to walk along. I saw the sign for it, but the announcement didn’t say how long it was, and it was starting to drizzle. Not seeing anything else in Haverthwaite, I took the return trip of the same train back to Lakeside.

I had a bland lunch and spent some time in an attraction in Lakeside before heading back to Bowness/Windermere, but I’ll expand on that in my next post.