"Catkins Lake ..." a Lake District National Park Travel Page by catkin

As I live on the edge of the Lake District, I thought it about time I created a Lakes page.
Rather than to create lots of different pages for all the individual places in the Lakes, I thought I would just put everything on this page.
I live and work in Ulverston, which is a small market town. One thing that you cannot miss as you approach Ulverston is Hoad monument which stands on the top of Oubas Hill. The monument is actually a replica of the Eddystone light house and it looks down toward Ulverston Canal which is the shortest stretch of canal in England. There are some great views of Morecambe bay and the Lakeland Fells from here also. The picture above is the view I wake up to every morning looking towards Hoad.
As I said on my homepage, Ulverston also boasts the only Laurel and Hardy museum in the UK!
The Lake District is a great place, its easliy accessible from the M6 motorway and only around a hour or so from Manchester.
Each of the Lakes has its own special qualities and I hope that I can give you an insight to this beautiful area.

The Lakes area has over the years produced some literary greats!

Mrs. Tiggywinkle, Jeremy Fisher, Jemima Puddleduck and Peter Rabbit, stories which have enchanted children for countless years, were written by Beatrix Potter in her Lakeland farm at Sawrey. A personal favourite of mine from my own childhood is The Tale of two bad mice.

The Lakes poets Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas de Quincey and poet laureate Robert Southey all spent time in the company of Dorothy and William Wordsworth in their Grasmere home Rydal Mount.
One of the most famous English poems The Daffodils was written by William Wordsworth and inspired by a visit to Ullswater.
John Ruskin, Arthur Ransome, Hugh Walpole and Matthew Arnold all made the Lake District their home and many other distinguished names visited. More recently, many of Melvyn Braggs novels have been set in the area and best selling author Richard Adams novel the Plague Dogs was set in the Duddon Valley.

The Daffodils
I wander’d lonely as cloud,
That floats on high oer vales and hills
And all at once I saw a crowd
A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way
They stretch’d in never ending line
Along the margin of a bay.
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee
A poet could not but be gay
In such jocund company!
I gazed and gazed but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft when on my couch I lie.
In vacant or in pensive mood.
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

Many visitors to the Lakes come solely for the purpose of walking the fells and people can be seen every day of the year striding out.
Although not a fell walker myself, I can understand the pull of the fells with their magnificent views. I suppose some of the most famous are those of Striding Edge, Helvellyn, Coniston old Man the Langdale pikes and the highest point in England Scafell Pike.
Deer, red squirrels, badgers, otters, stoats, slow worms and adders are creatures which are all at home on the Lakeland fells and woodlands.
Kestrels and other birds of prey are regularly seen as are tree creepers, nuthatches, woodpeckers and kingfishers.
In the Lakes themselves, perch, pike and trout are abundant. One fish peculiar to the Lake District is the char, a deepwater trout and found only in the Lakeland waters.
Another rare white fish, the vendace, is found only in Bassenthwaite and Derwent water