Windermere Jetty Museum; Waterfront

After my hike up and down Orrest Head and lunch in Windermere Village, I strolled down to the lake to visit Windermere Jetty Museum, an almost half-hour walk away. But, before I get to that, first an aside.

Aside

Free Money

While still in Windermere Village, I saw the ATM pictured here. (I also saw all of the very good dog whose rump is captured in the picture.) During my time in the UK this trip, I’ve seen other ATMs with signs bearing the same words, or something very similar, “Free cash withdrawals.”

This confused me. If the cash withdrawals are free, why do you need a card at all? I suppose there’s some fine print limiting how much free cash you can withdraw, and they need the card to control that. Or maybe I misunderstood the concept. 

Or maybe I didn’t misunderstand. I brought some British cash with me, but I haven’t used any of it yet. I’ve paid for everything—even the smallest of purchases—with cards, not cash. Perhaps all of the unused cash that banks have is taking up too much space, and they need to get rid of it. Perhaps not, but maybe I should have tried. 😉

The first few blocks of that walk to the Windermere Jetty Museum were along city streets. But it cut onto a road and then through largely green space. For a piece of it, there were some big homes with well-treed, large lots on one side of the road and a sheep pasture on the other side.

For a portion of the way, it was exclusively forested greenery. It was a very enjoyable walk proving that, despite what they say, while it’s rarely the journey to the exclusion of the destination, it can be about both.

To jump in with an almost non-sequitur, contributing to my confusion during my time here as to what comprises the town of Windermere and what comprises the town of Bowness-on-Windermere is the fact that some establishments in Bowness include “Windermere” in their name, but not “Bowness.” I’ve come to believe that their name references the lake that dominates the area, not the town of the same name.

The Windermere Jetty Museum, for example, has an address in Bowness-on-Windermere. I suppose that makes sense for the museum. It sits beside a jetty on Windermere Lake and focuses on vessels that plied the lake. So, its name indeed references the lake.

However, that doesn’t explain why some businesses well within Bowness, set at least somewhat back from the lake, and not selling products or services related to the lake, would have Windermere, but not Bowness in their names.

They probably do it to confuse me. Specifically me. They likely changed their business names and signs before I arrived and will change them back after I leave. Harrumph.

Windermere Jetty Museum

The Windermere Jetty Museum is fairly small. It starts with a room with a couple of small boats on display. There is also a stand with two sets of some hinged boards. You can flip through the boards, each of which contains information about a different component of a boat. The described components included navigation lights, anchors, sails, oars and boat hooks, and, among several others, most importantly, toilets, which the sign helpfully told me are called heads on boats.

This room also contains a display of some of those components detached from boats.

The next room in the Windermere Jetty Museum, which is much bigger than the first, contained several other boats, along with a model of a larger old boat.

Hanging from the ceiling is a seaplane (or probably a lighter model of a seaplane).

Hanging on one of the walls are a few speed boats. A sign accompanying the speedboats explained that Windermere is the longest lake in England and, therefore, good for testing and racing speedboats. That used to happen a lot, creating considerable noise and disturbance around the lake. To return Windermere to a state of tranquillity, a speed limit of only 10 miles per hour on the lake was set in 2005. Now, speedboat racing is allowed only a few days a year.

Also in this room is another set of hinged boards like the one describing boat components in the other room. These boards contain information about “Windermere People”—people of note, but not necessarily of fame,—from around Windermere.

Beside this bigger room was a boathouse which, not surprisingly, housed a few small boats of various types.

Heritage Boat Ride

For an added fee, the Windermere Jetty Museum offers heritage boat rides. They last about half an hour. The boat is constructed of a mid-darkness wood that’s varnished to a high lustre.

When I went on the ride, there were seven customers, including me, plus the captain and one other crew member. The crew member provided some live commentary on the cruise.

The boat has two sections. Up front, it’s completely open above the gunwale, and there are benches along the two sides. The customers on the cruise I was on all sat in that section. It would have been difficult to squeeze another passenger onto these benches. The back section is covered and has windowed sides. It looked like it might have had even a little less bench space, but this was also where the captain was.

Before the ride, the crew member gave us a very brief safety message. One of the things he said is that he is 5’4″ and if he goes into the back section and doesn’t bow his head, he bangs it. So, he said, if we’re taller than 5’3″ we’ll need to duck if we go back or we’ll knock our head. I should have gone back. It makes me feel tall to go into a space designed for humans, but where I have to duck. That’s exceptionally rare.

One of the stories the crew provided during the cruise is one that I’ve heard on a few of the other boat rides I’ve taken over the past few days. I meant to relay it then, but forgot. This is as good a time as any.

On the side of the lake that Bowness-on-Windermere is on, the shores are relatively built up for much of the way along the lake. But across the lake, it’s mostly forest for as far as you can see up the hills, with a few plots of grass by some of the shore.

Back in the days of Beatrix Potter, there used to be large, scattered estates on the Bowness side. But they began to be bought up and turned into summer homes and hotels, with more being constructed all the time.

Beatrix Potter didn’t want to see the whole shore around the lake developed. So she grabbed an opportunity to buy a farm on the other side of the lake. Then she bought another. And another. Eventually, if my memory serves, she managed to amass 12 or 14 consecutive farms, taking up much of that side of the lake and for 12 miles back from it.

In her will, she bequeathed it to the National Trust. Now, it’s public parkland. The National Trust claims that for all of the species of trees native to England, there’s at least one of each in that public space. So, we have Peter Rabbit to thank for much of the scenic beauty on that side of Windermere Lake.

Waterfront

After I left the Windermere Jetty Museum, I walked back into central Bowness. Here, much of the lakefront is blocked by stores, restaurants, marinas and piers for the passenger cruise boats. I walked farther along on a path by the shore beyond where I’d been until then.

At one point, the path dips down right to the water’s edge for a piece. There are a few benches there. I’m also proud to say that my country was proudly represented by a squadron of Canada Geese just hanging out there.

I don’t know how far Canada Geese can fly, but my possibly incorrect imagining is that it’s not far enough for this contingent to ever have seen the homeland. If not, the Government of Canada should sponsor a program to allow all foreign-based Canada Geese to visit their mother country. This would allow them to develop a stronger bond with their heritage. It’s just an idea.

As the path rises back up again and away from the water, it passes some more waterfront businesses, but then gets to a section where there’s nothing but greenery between the path and the lakefront. I walked along there until it ended. I then turned around and went back to my hotel to finish my day.

Programming Note

I leave for my next destination on a train tomorrow, a little after one in the afternoon. I likely won’t do anything worth writing about tomorrow morning, maybe merely take a random stroll. And, the weather calls for rain. If that happens and it’s heavy, I might not even do that. I may simply hang out in the hotel’s nice sitting room.

But in case I am inspired to write something about my morning tomorrow, I won’t post a summary of my time in the Lake District here. Whether or not I write about anything I do in the morning, I will post something before my first post from my new destination, even if it only includes that summary.