In an English Country Garden

While Kevin is at work, I’m always looking for ways to occupy my day. I tend to try and do things that he wouldn’t normally be interested in. Since he appreciates neither my love of gardening nor The Darkness, I figured a trip to Holker Hall would be a great way to spend a sunny day. Why would his lack of love for the Darkness matter? Because no trip to an English country garden would be complete without me singing one of my favorite Darkness songs, complete with Justin Hawkins falsetto.

I had heard of Holker Hall on my previous trips to Ulverston, but never realized how easy it was to get to without a car. Had I known, I would have taken Mumsy there when she was visiting last year. Holker Hall is located less than a mile from the Cark train station – for someone accustomed to walking upwards of 5 miles to get somewhere, 1 mile is nothing.

Holker Hall is a country estate sitting on land that once belonged to the Cartmel Priory. In 1536, when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, the land was put up for sale. (Everything ties back to my favorite monarch!) The land was bought by a local landowning family – The Prestons. In the early 1600’s, they built a manor on the estate. The estate has since passed through inheritence from the Preston family to the Lowther family and finally to the Cavendishes. Suffering a fire in 1871, the manor house was rebuilt, on a slightly more grand scale. The current owners of the estate, Lord and Lady Cavendish, live on the estate full time, and have opened their award winning gardens and a wing of the house to the public. The gardens themselves cover 25 acres of land and are a mixture of formal and informal, being mainly Victorian in nature. They boast a 4 season planting, so that no matter when you visit, the garden is beautiful. Being spring, the bulbs and rhododendrons were blooming, which made for a beautiful visit.

Formal Garden

The Formal Garden located just out back from the main house was a beautiful example of a formal Victorian garden. The shear number of tulip bulbs that had been planted was amazing. And the amount of work put in to perfectly space the bulbs amongst other plants was staggering. I saw three people working in this section of garden alone weeding, thinning and edging. Do you think they need an American Amateur gardener? I’d work for free!

Just out back from the formal garden is the woodland area of gardens with paths winding amongst the trees and rhododendrons. In among all the trees is a world renowned tree referred to as the Holker Lime, dating back to the early 17th century and named as one of Britain’s 50 best trees in honor of the Queen’s Golden Jubilee

As I was admiring the Great Lime in my ridiculous florescent yellow aviators and singing falsetto, I ran across an older man in ridiculous riding crop and 3 other guests who were followed by a pack of what appeared to be Irish Wolfhounds. The man turned out to be the Lord Cavendish, who stopped to say “hello” to me. I gave him a great impression of Americans as being completely ridiculous. Oh well…

Woodland Gardens

Hidden in the woods is a little sunken garden, with about 5,000 more tulip bulbs and a pergola. If I lived there, I think I would spend all my time out there.

Sunken Garden

The Hall itself is neat to see once as it has beautiful architecture and some really interesting pieces of furniture. However, while I would go back in a heartbeat to visit the gardens again, I think I would skip the house the second time around.

A Wales Tale – Part 3

 AKA – A Day of Really Old Stuff

Sunday morning brought intense pain in my legs from our super hike the day before, but it also brought with it sunshine.  We packed up our campsite, and headed into town for some breakfast .  On a side note, why must all English (or Welsh) breakfasts be entirely made up of meat?  Some of us are not excited by the idea of two different types of sausages, and bacon along with eggs, beans, mushrooms and tomatoes.

Gross!  Who wants to eat this  for breakfast?

Anyway, after breakfast, we decided to take a walk around the tarn (for you Americans, that’s a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier.) 

Our walk led us past the old slate quarry.  Closed in 1969, the quarry now is home to the Welsh National Slate Museum (free) and the Quarry Hospital Museum (free).  It’s also a popular destination for climbers who scale the slate faces.  

Not my idea of a good time, but whatever floats your boat I guess… 

In addition, the pool at the foot of the slate cliffs is popular with the diving set, although there’s not much down there to see.

Again, not my idea of a good time… 

After checking out the slate quarry, knowing that all Americans love castles, Sarka and Al took us over to see the remnants of Dolbadarn Castle.  Originally built in the early 13th century by the Princes of Gwynedd, not much remains of the castle besides one circular tower.  While I pretended to be unimpressed (mostly due to the fact that I had to walk my poor aching legs up a hill to see it), I still had a good time checking the castle remains out. 

After we visited the boring, tiny castle, we drove out to Anglesey to check out the seriously awesome Beaumaris Castle.  Anglesey is an Isle located in the north-west of Wales, just a short drive from the Snowdonia area.  It can be reached  by either the newer Britannia Bridge, or the extremely impressive Menai Bridge.  One of the first suspension bridges, Menai Bridge was built back in 1826, and still spans the divide between Anglesey and the mainland today. 

Snowdonia as seen from the coast of Anglesey 

While I love all castles, both great and small, Beaumaris Castle for two reasons.  1) The brochure referred to it as the most “technically perfect” castle in Wales and 2) it has a real moat.  I was intrigued by the fact that the castle was considered “technically perfect”, and my sister Mini-Deal is obsessed with moats, so I figured that Beaumaris Castle would be a great castle to visit.  (BTW, when I told Mini-Deal of the moat, she was disappointed that toothed creatures were not in there to eat invaders.  Guess you can’t please everyone)

I stole this aerial so readers could get a sense of the overall layout of the castle.

Begun in 1295 for Edward I’s campaign to conquer Wales, it was never finished as Edward I, being a typical English King, lost interest in Wales and turned his attention elsewhere instead (Scotland).  Regardless, it remains an excellent example of concentric castle building.  It really is an interesting example of castle architecture.  Upon doing some research, I found out that the castle gate features meurtrières (murder-holes), which are totally cool.  If I had realized they were there, or thought to look up, I would have taken a few photos.  For those of you not obsessed with castles like me, murder-holes are almost exactly what they sound like – holes in the ceiling through which to murder invaders.  In the case of castle defense, boiling oil was often poured through the holes to discourage the breaking down of the castle gates.

At this point, a great number of readers are probably suffering from exactly what the folks at Beaumaris Castle warned of: Warning: History Overload

They were also kind enough to warn of the following:

If you try and abduct a child, you will break your ankle, fall down the stairs and be attacked by killer seagulls.

  This sign was placed with the knowledge that Allister would be visiting

While Al climbed the walls (literally) and he and Kevin ran around in all the secret tunnels, I took the time to take a few pictures:

  

After the castle, we headed to our new campground, but not before stopping at a neolithic burial chamber on the way that Allister had heard of, Bryn Celli Ddu.  It consists of a mound at the center of a henge.  Not only is it a burial mound, but its also an ancient observatory that has been hypothesized to mark the summer solstice.  The coolest part for me was the carving on the center henge stone. 

 

We made our way to our campsite, had a barbeque, consisting entirely of meat.  Apparently the spicy pork steaks and spicy sausages were lovely, but I stuck to the burgers.  After dinner, we drove down to the beach and walked around a bit. Naturally, Sarka and I took photos while Kev and Al acted like monkeys in the sand dunes and took ridiculous photos.

That night, I froze my butt off even more than usual.  Come to find out, it had snowed overnight.  No wonder I was so cold…

    

Overall, I had a fantastic time in Wales.  I’d love to go back again and see more of the beautiful country.  I highly recommend a trip to anyone in that corner of the world.

A Wales Tale – Part 2

AKA What Happens When You Hike With Seasoned Climbers

Saturday morning started with relatively sunny skies and no rain, which was perfect in keeping with our plan of hiking Snowdon. While it may not have been raining, it was freezing, so we all geared up for the cold.  I, being the person who is always the most cold, decided to wear thermals underneath my clothing along with a microfleece and jacket while Kevin, Sarka and Allister stuck with regular hiking clothes and a jacket.  After a breakfast of sausage buns (or a bagel in my case), we set off on our 20K roundtrip hike.  Right away, I had to start removing layers, having been overzealous with my layers.  By the time we reached the actual trail, I had removed all the layers I possibly could (with the exception of my Tuukka Rask Bruins shirt.  I couldn’t let the fact that I was in Wales hiking interfere with my donning of at least one Bruins item a day during the playoffs.  The last two times I didn’t wear something  both resulted in Bruins losses the next day!)  However, I was still wearing a pair of thermals under my jeans, which was a seriously bad idea since it caused me to almost die of heat exhaustion.  Needless to say, we had just started the actual hike and not only was I the only one pouring sweat, but I was already lagging behind.

Wait for me!

We decided to take the tourist route up the mountain as we didn’t want to try and take Floss on the bus.  The tourist route is the longest route, but it is pretty much a graded path, so it is much less difficult than the other routes.  It pretty much follows the train tracks up the mountain, which can be quite discouraging when you are gasping for air and a train full of fatties passes you.

                                                                        Cheater Train

However, taking the tourist path turned out to be a wise decision due to the fact that I am a snail compared to Sarka, Allister and Floss.  Kevin usually isn’t that much faster than me, unless he is with the hiking superstars, and in that case, he leaves me in the dust.

Everyone’s waiting for me - again

Snowdon is the highest peak in Wales, and the highest peak in the UK outside of Scotland.  It stands at 1,085 meters (3,560 ft for you Americans), which makes it the same absolute height as another mountain I have climbed – Table Mountain in Cape Town, South Africa.  (Come to think of it, I was lagging and sweating bullets on this hike too.  Maybe it’s just me?)  Because of its height, it should come as no surprise that the mountain has some of the wettest (and coldest) weather in the UK.  In fact, there was still remnants of snow on some of the peaks as we climbed.

Floss is glad she is wearing a fur coat up here

The other incredible thing about Snowdon is the fog. In the span of 5 minutes, it went from clear to so foggy you could barely see the path.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The time between the first and the third pictures was only 5 minutes!

We had a contest walking up revolving around who could guess the number of people at the summit.  I guessed last and guessed 167 at which point everyone laughed at me for picking such a high number.  When we finally got to the top – it was insane. I won by far, and I even underestimated the number of people.

A fantastic photo by Sarka.  No, those aren’t pointy rocks – those are people waiting to reach the summit!

Even though I absolutely detest crowds – I managed to get up to the top to get the obligatory photo.

Go Bruins!

Notice how I look like I just died and Kev and Al look fine

         View from atop

After a quick rest and food break, we decided to get the heck off the summit and away from the annoying crowds, once again with me carrying the rear.  While it was good to be able to say “I hiked the highest peak in Wales”, I think I’ll stick to the slightly smaller peaks next time – if only to avoid the annoying crowds.