Lake District - Tarn Hows and Coniston Lakes

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!

Last Monday was the last bank holiday of the year. So naturally, my friends and I planned to go for a trip somewhere. It was initially either to Snowdonia or Lake District. But because going to Snowdonia is more difficult, we decided to go to Lake District instead.

We took a train from London Euston station to Manchester and drove from there to the Lakes. My friend had booked a cottage for us located at the south of Lake District. The journey took about 5 hours in total including getting lost..=P

We arrived at the cottage just before 5pm. The cottage that my friend booked was absolutely gorgeous! 

The review of the cottage can be found here. 

As we arrived, we just put our bags, performed Zuhr and Asr prayer and immediately head out before the sun went down.

We just drove around nearby areas. At first we thought to search for the beach, because according to the map, it's not that far from there. We explored until Foxfield to find the beach, but we were dissapointed to find very little water seeing that it was the 'estuary' (is that right? in malay is called kuala). 

*pictures will be posted later when my friend gave them to me.

There was even a very old train station there. These types of train stops can only be found in the village and rural areas. 

The train even need to be stopped by waving or gesturing to the driver, kind of like a bus. That's what it means by stop by request.

Then we went to a town nearby. There were a lot of tourists here. Most of the stores, including the tourist information centre are closed, except for the pubs, of course.

After that, we drove someplace near our accommodation. There were beautiful sceneries along the way, so we decided to stop and explore. 

We walked a bit towards the empty field and found this breathtaking view!

As per usual, those who love to pose, will pose..hahaha

K. Zada and her many...many poses. LOL

My bestie also doesn't want to miss the chance.

Group pic is a must!! We just fell in love with the sunset view. 

After draining all our energy for the day, we went back to our cottage to plan for the next day. The adventure awaits!!

The plan was, we went to the nearest lake which is Coniston Water. We were supposed to park on the right side of the lake, take a hike to the top of a hill nearby to get a great view of the lake. However, we missed the turn and make a stop on the left side of the lake instead.

sail boats...if only I could..

nice view eh?

We still went for a hike a bit..

tada..

We heaved and pushed our limits to climb up...

Success!!! When in truth the height of tree is like this...

hahahaha...still a nice view though

After that, we decided to drive further north to find the north part of the lake

We stumbled upon this viewing area parking. However, this car park is only for disabled car. Even disabled people are provided with a place where they can have an amazing view of the lake. You can walk further in to see the lake from above.

We didn't stay long because there's no parking space, so we drove to a place called Tarn Hows.

There's a huge parking space for £4 for 6 hours! We luckily found a space very near to the road for a hike, in front of this cute bird feed.

There's actually a small lake very near the parking space.

We were going to walk around the lake, when a friend of mine found a path with a river!!!

Of course we would go through this path. The path around the lake is way too easy...haha..

This is a true hike.

It's been a while since I've been in a hike like this.

Little that we know, this path actually leading to here...

jeng jeng jeng....a waterfall!!!!

I was sooooo excited! I really wanted to jump in, badly. But none of us brought any extra clothing along.

Well, we didn't care. The water was too good to resist!

We got wet, but we figured it'll get dry by the time we walked back.

After being satisfied with getting soaked, we continue our walk to find a place for a picnic.

This quaint location is just perfect for a picnic. We recharged our energy here before continuing our journey.

The path is still a bit far before we finally found the end

This bridge marks the end of our path

We decided to go round the other way to go back to the lake because during our walk from the lake through the waterfall, we found the path was quite steep.

Little that we know, the other way (although not so tough), was just as steep. Heave..heave...heave...

Further up we go. We needed to be careful of oncoming cars because the road was narrow.

Look at that view. The purple colour on top of the hill is from flowers. It's gorgeous!!

I took a picture of this sheep because the colour is weird. The colour is rare but commonly found here in Lake District. There's a actually a lot of sheep that look like this. The tail is long too.

After dripping sweats off our brow, this is what nature serves for us.

On top of the hill, we found these....

We rested a while to enjoy this magnificent view

How amazing is this!

Just beside the top of the hill, is actually where we started from.

Where's the livestock? hahaha..

This time, we wanted to go around the lake before heading back because we still have time in the parking meter. 

Feeling serene surrounded with all the nature

How can you resist not having a photoshoot at a place like this? =P

  

Thinking about the future...

This dog were with this elder couple. My bestie were shocked to see the dog, and the dog got startled when she jumped. hahaha...it was such a funny scene.

These trees were huge, I just had to do this. =P

Along the way, we saw this weird tree. At first I thought they were parasits, but when I look closely

They're actually coins! Loads of them!! People stuck it on to the trees. Don't ask me, I have no clue.

A lot of people here came with their families, kids and all. This little cutie walked the whole way. It was quite far too. It's amazing how they trained their kids to be one with nature. Some kids I know, couldn't even walk in the mall. This kid didn't even whine once. He even chatted the whole way and asked a whole bunch of questions. 

I miss the peacefulness of this place. After a tiring but worthy day, we head back for a shower and a good rest. 

To be continued...

Spring Cottage Grizebeck Review

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!

Before I share about my experiences at the beautiful Lake District (before I gather all the pictures, to be precise), let me give a review of the place that we stayed at for the whole 4 days and 3 nights. 

My friend was the one responsible of finding this adorable place. The location of the cottage is at the Grizebeck. This is the address: 1 Spring Gardens, Grizebeck, Kirkby-in-furness, Cumbria LA17 7XJ. The cottage is located beside a petrol station (which is very good if you are in a remote place) and just in front of The Greyhound Hotel and Restaurant.

In front of the cottage there's this serene garden and a small river.

You can pick the herbs they have in the garden. There's rosemary, thyme and many more!

These beautiful daisies fill the corner of the river. They were as huge as your palms.

Now, let's enter the house...

Just like an Asian house, you are required to take off your shoes here. There's a shoe rack provided. The owner also left two huge umbrellas for the tenants to use just in case the weather wasn't friendly.

The living room. 

Because this cottage is a getaway from the city, there's a fireplace where you can light your own fire and have a toasty night chatting and bonding with family or friends.

The dining hall. Just enough for four. Through the door is the backyard where the shed that stored extra logs (in case you ran out) and trash bins. There's wires hanging outside for you to dry your clothes as well.

Through the left is the kitchen.

The kitchen is fully equipped with everything you might need for a home cooked meal. There's electric kettle, pots and pans, dishware, microwave and an oven. The owner also provide some salt and pepper, tea, coffee and sugar. There's also a carton of milk and a bottle of champagne in the fridge (which of course we didn't drink..duh~) 

If you want to feel more like Martha Stewart, here's an apron to finish the ensemble. =P

Now the upstairs area...

The master bedroom. Equipped with a double bed, a dresser...love the nook

There's also a cupboard that's filled with hangers, airers, an iron and the board.

So you don't have to bring your own iron like we did. 

The other bedroom is a twin bed with a dresser. Suitable for children too. The best part of this room is...

the skylight window. You can watch the stars while dozing off. And definitely the bright morning sun will wake you straight out of bed.

The last but most important part of this cottage is the bathroom. It has a huge tub provided with 3 different kinds of towels (body, face, hand). They usually provide bath soaps as well, but they ran out. However, they did leave an apology note which will make you forget about it straight away.

This bathroom is super huge! You can fit another two tubs in that empty area. However, if it's in the winter, you will definitely feel the frost bite immediately after stepping our of the tub. 

Although this place has been refurbished to look like a 5 star hotel, some things are left untouched like this lock here. Now that's old school. 

This place definitely serve a 5 star hotel quality service. The towels are soft and thick, the pillows are plumped and the duvets are warm and soft. However, the rate is not bad at all. It's only for £90 per night, £100 during peak days. So if you go with 4 friends, you can divide it to 4. 

Other than my stay at Amsterdam, this makes the list as well! This is the link for the house if anybody's interested. 

Before you go, don't forget to write in the guestbook and give your lovely comments!

Until next time...

Fruitpicking

السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته and good day!

It's coming to the end of summer!! So naturally, the must do activity is going for a fruitpicking. My bestie and I have been yearning to go since Ramadhan and finally got a chance to go with some other friends.

We chose to go to the Parkside Farm in Enfield. You just need to buy a ticket to Potters Bar and take train. From Potters Bar station, you need to take the 313 bus towards Chingford and stop at Roundhedge Way. This place is still in London, so you can use oyster for the bus, but not the train. From the bus stop, it's only 5 minutes walk to the farm. There are signage from the bus stop, so look out for them. 

As we arrived, we picked up the map/leaflet located at the entrance. This place is open 6 days a week, and closed on Mondays as you can see. There are various choices of fruits and veges to pick from.

The price range are stated at the entrance as well. So you can budget how much you will spend. The arrow shows the minimum spending per person (adult and child) which is £3. The price is quite cheap if you compare it with the ones in the supermarket. Plus, they are organic and fresh!

The culprits that went to the farm with me. There are others that already went inside.

You don't have to pay to enter. Only pay the amount of fruit that you have picked on your way out. As you enter, you'll see this girly here with all sorts of basket and plastic. The basket are for fruits and plastics are for the veges. They're free to take as many as you can handle. There's trolley as well if you're planning to harvest the whole farm. =P

This farm is huuuuggee! The first that you'll see are strawberries and cherry tomatoes. I wasn't really keen to pick strawberries 'coz heck, you can do that in Malaysia.

We wanted to pick fruits that can't be found back home. Some of the crops, you'll see these signs. The fruits were just being planted on these crops.

The name came from the loch ness monster (according to me). haha...the berries don't look like loch ness, fyi.

Look at all those fresh juicy berries!! I feel like the chipmunk when I see these. Don't ask me why.

Time for some veggies...the spinach is sooo big!

Next target were the plums!! You would think plums will be sour as the sour plum sweets that we used to eat when we were little. But they're not. It's sweet as can be! However, there aren't many left, so we got the half riped ones. But these plums ripe pretty quickly. It's not even a week yet since we picked them and they're all very ripe already. Some people even took the time to climb up to get the riped ones on top. If there were no one, I would've done the same. haha

To the next part of the farm. Through here, are mostly raspberries. I don't really like them because they are sour. I don't like anything sour, so we just spent time here to have our lunch under the shades of the bushes. 

Further inside the farm, were a whole lot more!!

If you have the energy you can explore the whole area. We were already quite tired, plus the heat wasn't helping. So we just picked some beans on the way to the corn field.

It has been my bestie's dream to go to a corn field (weird dream). hahaha...It's not as tall as in the movies though, but close enough. They call it sweetcorn and let me tell you, they sure do uphold the name. Most of the visitors ate these things raw inside the farm (eventhough you're not supposed to do that). We tried some the next day at our friend's house and it was sweet even without adding anything.

There were loads of these fat and big ones to pick from. 

Children of the corn? My bestie won't know this reference. LOL

After sweating our way through the farm, we head back towards the exit to pay. On our way, we drop by the cherry tomatoes section.

At the counter, they'll weigh your crops and pay according to how much you take. They also sold some homemade ice cream and cold drinks to make your summer trip here wonderful. Such a nice weather for ice cream too!

It was worth coming here I think. We spent about £11 each for a month worth of fruits and veggies. 

Until next time...Go organic!