A Tourist’s Paradise
An account of my visit to Lake District, a popular holiday destination in the British Isles
As one advances in years his mind goes back to the days of his youth. A born naturalist, when I read the novel ‘Goodbye Mr. Chips’ by James Hilton I liked two things about it. Firstly what attracted me the most in this novel was the fact that it was written in the backdrop of a fictional public school at Brookfield in the suburban England and I myself having experienced the life at a public school could vividly recall the memories of the good old days? Going through the book I always felt myself as being a living character from the public school around which the story in the said novel revolved around. Secondly its central character Arthur Chippings, popularly known as Mr. Chips, a withdrawn educator at the school, who was leading a bachelor’s life while already on the wrong side of his forties, visited Lake District in North West England where he met an accident that brought him close to Katherine, a young damsel. I had already visited the famous Lake District as a student in the UK and was bewitched by its beauty. The passionate description of Mr. Chip’s affair with the flashy showgirl added a touch of romance to the enchanting surroundings. No wonder William Wordsworth wrote his poems about Nature in that very area.
The Lake District, also known as The Lakes or Lakeland, in North West England is a popular holiday destination in the British Isles. The area which was made up of oak woodlands and pine plantations thousands of years ago was given the status of a national park in 1951 for environmental protection from excessive commercial and industrial exploration. The Lake District National Park is an area of outstanding natural beauty which offers a unique panorama of mountains, dales and lakes encompassing some of the finest scenery in Britain which casts its magical spell over visitors. These lakes and dales are home to a diversity of fauna and flora. Lake District is central and the most visited part of the National Park. Consisting of over sixteen lakes it is the dampest part of England with rainfall ranging from 80 up to 200 inches per annum. I have visited the area twice, with a gap of nearly twenty years, in the months of July and September respectively and on both occasions we experienced moderate to heavy showers with short bursts of bright sunshine. The place is usually windy in the summer season with gales in certain valleys during the winters. Average sunshine per day comes to about two and half hours. The weather pundits inform us that there are twenty days of snow falling, two hundred days of wet spell and one hundred forty-five dry days in the area. What a calculation?
“A lovely lake marina, short and long distance boat cruises and long walking trails running through the idyllic surroundings make it a tourist’s paradise.”
A train service to Windermere in Lake District was started way back in 1847 and now M 6 motorway is another popular access way to the place. As mentioned earlier we visited the place twice and missed the motorway exit to the Lake District on both the occasions. First time it was a boring detour as we returned to the correct exit after over an hour of extra drive but on the second occasion it was a lucky miss as we entered the Lake District on the northern most end and then drove all the way back with the lakes on our right and the woodlands and green fields on our left. During this long drive along the lakes we witnessed all shades of Nature lurking at the height of mountains to the silver lace of the glimmering lake water. One who possesses a tender heart has no choice but to fall in love with the Lake District. Sheep farming is a big business in the area and these animals grazing in the pastures present a captivating view. It has always been a phenomenal sight to see the live stock grazing on the mountain slopes.
Lake District is closely associated with English literature of 18th and 19th centuries. A number of poets hailed from the area writing about Nature and were popularly known as the Lake Poets. Some critics classify their compositions as a reflection of the Lake School of Poetry. William Wordsworth is one of those poets who, after having fallen in love with Nature, looked after her beauty through their writings. His famous poem ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ inspired by the sight of daffodils on the shores of Ullswater remains one of the most famous in English language. Born in the Lake District the famous poet spent sixty of his eighty years life in the Lake District. The enchanting landscape of lakes and mountains became his personal playground — both imaginative and real and the pull of the lakes proved too difficult to resist after he finished his studies in Cambridge. Inspired by the magnificence of the surroundings Wordsworth never left the area again. Doves’ cottage, his inspirational childhood home in Grasmere is a big tourist attraction in the area. Nature lovers come from far and wide to visit Wordsworth cottage and pay homage to the great poet. Wordsworth very rightly claims that ‘Nature never betrays the heart that loves her’.
“Nature is what one can feel and discover. It is all about falling in love again and again.”
While at the boarding school up in the mountains I wrote to my father asking for a camera. In fact I asked him to send his camera that he was not using any more. He was kind enough to send me the camera but not without a pinch of salt. He delivered a long sermon telling me that words could paint a better picture than a camera could possibly take. I was certainly quite unhappy over this lecture; religiously believing in Jim Groce’s famous saying that ‘a picture paints a thousand words’. It was only when I read poets like William Wordsworth that I started enjoying reading and writing about Nature. Nature is what one can feel and discover. It is all about falling in love again and again. Nature is more than any explanation of the word ‘beauty’. It not only encompasses men but all living creatures. Nature inspires human eye and human heart alike. Nature is spring’s poetry.
Lake District is an exciting mix of mountains and lakes. Scenery is picture post card specific in summers and fall. A lovely lake marina, short and long distance boat cruises and long walking trails running through the idyllic surroundings make it a tourist’s paradise. A number of public and private residential quarters nestled in the thick jungles speak volumes about the aesthetic sense of its managers. The only grey area that I noticed on my second visit to the Lake District was lack of cleanliness. It was not as good as two decades ago or may be I was comparing it with Loc Lomond in Scotland which I had visited a year earlier and found immaculately clean. The comparison may be unfair as Scotland on the whole is far cleaner than the rest of Britain. It is more close to Nature. In spite of all this the Lake District still remains a place to visit and revere.
Written by Dr. Shahid Qayyum
