As you might know, I've been away for a short break with my lovely girlfriend to the Lake District. This was our first holiday together and we both had a wonderful time, thanks for asking.

Where is the Lake District?
The Lake District is a large national park, taking up most of the county of Cumbria. To get there by car, we had a 4 hour journey through the Midlands up the M6, passing such scenic locations as Liverpool (Hi Bahamut!) and Manchester.

We were staying on a caravan site in a village called Grange-over-Sands. It's about as far south as you can get in the Lake District without falling into the North Atlantic Ocean and meeting the same grisly fate as the Chinese Cocklers, who were caught by the surprisingly fast rising tide and sadly drowned.

Day 1 was spent mostly getting accustomed to the freedom of living alone for five whole days. The journey was horrendous, with spray on the motorway reducing the speed to 50mph, due to poor visibility. Once there, we explored and planned what we would be doing through the holiday.

Day 2 was when the holiday really started - Windemere is the largest of the lakes in the UK and we took a boat trip, with a video to follow soon... The trip was to the north of the lake, where we walked up a reasonably sized hill - about 2 miles in length and something around 1,000 ft above sea level - estimates based on how far we actually got. It was so good that we actually had to go back on day 3.

Day 3 had the other attractions that Lakeside had to offer - an aquarium / wildlife centre and the views of the old steam railway. Plenty of scope for protecting endangered animals and a good dose of industrialisation to go with it. Not quite a trip to the Motor Museum that I was hoping for, but maybe next time :P

Day 4 and we wnet back south to Blackpool Pleasure Beach. The weather wasn't exactly spectacular, but we made a decent day of it. Though we didn't go into the Pleasure Beach itself, to join in the adrenaline fuelled fun, we did find some decent attractions, such as Ripley's Believe it or Not, which was amazingly informative. Of course, no seaside holiday is complete without a trip to the beach, which we spent most of our time dodging the incoming tide.

Day 5 was the trip down the M6 again, back to base. Bumped into a few soilders from the Royal Logistics Corps, who were moving a tank back south. That was certainly one of the best things that I could have bumped into and it certainly raised the spirits seeing that and the horrendous traffic jams that were in the opposite direction, while we were cruising at about 75mph.

We're back now and we did it in one piece as well! Now all that remains is to plan for next year's jaunt.

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