Coniston Water, Lake District

The trip took place last Saturday and after a very hectic and busy start of the year (I've never had a more tiring January in my entire life but then again, I'm only 22), I thought the trip would be a nice weekend getaway.

Coniston Water located in Cumbria is the third largest lake in Lake District, the largest being Windermere. One of the thing an uncle of mine said before I first flew to the UK was to make sure that I'd visit Windermere (I'm thinking of doing that for my Easter break now). A ribbon lake (shaped like a finger or a strip of ribbon rather than the usual circular shape one would think a lake would be like), Coniston Water measures 8 km long, 800 m wide, a maximum depth of 56 m, and covers an area of 4.9 km square.

It took roughly 3 hours to reach from Newcastle so we left early at about 7:30 am. The journey itself was uneventful except when people started to get nausea and car sick due to the winding road when we were about to arrive.

baking carrot cake in the middle of the night for the picnic...the frosting was made like at 5 in the morning!

Java posing next to the bus at a stop where she bought Costa, the new monkey

view out of the window as we appoached Coniston...

people sleeping in the bus...

Upon arrval, my friends and I started to walk around the village on our own while the rest of the society (the trip was organised by the university Malaysian Society) went to visit the Ruskin Museum. We thought it was such a lovely and sunny day (albeit still a lil' too cold at 1-2 degree Celcius) to be wasted spending the time in a building reading about a dead man's contribution. And people who went into the museum said there was nothing interesting in the museum. We walked around until we came by a stream so we decided to have our picnic and eat the food we brought.

the main street in the village...

gotta love this one...would be amazing to live in a house with a verandah overseeing a flowing small stream...

moi and Pina with Costa in the middle...

the gang...

this house was called 'Old Man's Rest'...very cute =p

Surein and Java...

the food we packed for our picnic lunch...Costa looked sooo cute =)

the small stream we decided to have our picnic by...

nope, he's not doing what you guys think he's doing!

Java and Costa playing hide and seek...

Pina taking photos as we waited for our lunch...

cute!



Java pinching my fedora...



After lunch, we met up with the rest to go on the boat cruise along Coniston Water before going on the nature trail around the village. Unfotunately, my phone ran out of battery and since I didn't bring my camera (stupid, I know!), I missed out on the chance to capture the pretty scenery around the lake. Coniston Water is famous for several waterspeed record especially involving father and son, Malcolm and Donald Campbell. I'm not quite sure what motivated these two to intentionally speed up along the water when everything could go wrong but Donald Campbell managed to break his father's and his own records five or six times over before meeting his death in 1967, when he lost control of his Bluebird K7, speeding at 515 km/h, to cause it to summersault, crash and sink down under. Both his an his boat bodies were recovered later in 2001. Along the lake, we could also see the Old Man of Coniston standing at 803 m. According to the boat tour guide, it was the highest fell (they use the world 'fell'  (Old Norse) rather than 'mountain' to refer to 'an area of uncultivated high ground used as common grazing') but the fact has been disputed several times. Not that I realy care to be honest!

the stream opened up to the lake...

the lake with duck and swans...

The rest of the photos down below were taken by Pina. Thanks, sexy =P!

Costa hanging onto my shoulder...I got lotsa weird stare from all around!!

we're a bit crazeee...

I wanna eat them all!!!

the Old Man (I think!)

it would be beyond amazing to be spending some time with you other half by the lake...

errrmm, I'm not quite sure what happened here...

Java, Pina nad Surein a lil' hyper after the Lambrini...tsk tsk tsk...

this part of the trail reminded me of 'The Lord of The Rings'

After walking around for a lil' over an hour and getting lost several times, we managed to find our way back to the main street. After people bought some souveniers and went to relieve themselves, we boarded the bus back to Newcastle. I really had a great time (despite the IBS no thanks to the spicy Nasi Lemak I had the night before) and I'm so going to visit the other parts of Lake District. Farewell, Coniston!

group photo by the lake