A STEAMBOAT ride across the Ullswater Lake
Hi my friends it’s your favorite globe-trotting dog, Rocky the Traveller. After our amazing day at Glasgow we circled back down south and made a stop at a place that we’ve been wanting to see for a long time: The Lake District.
As usual, my human booked us a hotel at the last possible moment and discovered an accommodation described as a “garden cabin”. We didn’t really read the description and saw only some photos and reviews and we said yes.
I guess Danny had imagined a solitary cabin in the countryside and I thought that would sound pretty cool too!
The accommodation was in a town called Penrith near the small village of Pooley Bridge. We arrived while it was still daylight out and we were greeted by a huge house and a sign that said our room was in the back, in the actual garden.
When then discovered that our tiny garden cabin was in fact a converted large shed/storage room. It was nicely converted and had a heater inside and beautiful summer type decor but Danny decided it was too cold and so he called the manager and said he had misunderstood the type of property. Luckily, the manager lady said that this confusion happens often with tourists and she upgraded us to the master bedroom inside the huge house. It was cozy inside so it was perfect for us! So no doghouse for us this time, although the lady did say the garden cabin was quite popular in the summer.
Anyway, I thought I would share that little accommodation detail as our pool of potential list of last minute accommodations is always much smaller due to that dog-friendly filter.
After Danny worked in the morning and I slept in we had an entire afternoon and evening to see a bit of the Lake District. Fortunately, it was absolutely beautiful outside! The manager had suggested that we begin at Pooley Bridge Village and take the steam boat so that’s where we ended up.
It was a quaint little town with tiny shops for tourists. We wandered into a few of them and found some dog pillows but they had no bull terrier pillows. What a shame.
After wandering around the tiny town it was time to head off in search of the famous Pooley bridge.
Now I expected a much bigger bridge to walk across with my four little paws, but here’s some history about it: It traces back to the 16th century, and in 2015 a massive flood destroyed the original bridge and it was replaced by a metal bridge.
After crossing the bridge we took a small left and found ourselves a perfect view of the Ullswater Lake and just a bit ahead we found the steamer tours at the Pooley Bridge Pier. Time to board the boat!
We were told by the manager at our accommodation that dogs were allowed and when we bought the ticket I was happy to see that my ticket was free! I love being a dog!
At the pier, Danny had a coffee and I had some water while we waited for the steamboat to arrive. I couldn’t wait to see some more this beautiful place. Our steamboat would take us to Howtown, a tiny village. There were much longer tours, but since we had gotten one of the last tours, we were only left with the Howtown tour which lasted an hour each way or a much longer 3 hour tour all the way to Glendridding.
It was finally time to board the boat and guess what? I wasn’t the only dog onboard!
And just like that, around 2 pm or so we were off! I was pretty thrilled with the scenery as we cruised around Ullswater.
A little history lesson from Rocky the Traveller: If you didn’t know the The entire Lake District with all its lakes, forests and mountains, is the most visited national park in the United Kingdom. Just to give you an idea, this little steamboat
trip we went to was on a weekday afternoon and it was quite packed with people (and their dogs).
Despite the beautiful landscape we were starting to shiver so we headed to the bottom deck to see if it would be warmer there and to our surprise there were quite a few dogs inside warming up.
After a while we missed the fresh lake district air and went back outside. It wasn’t long before we docked to our stop Howtown, the tiny village. We didn’t have much time to explore Howtown before the next boat arrived.
We didn’t spend much time in Howtown as our next boat was due to arrive but we did walk along its Bridge and pier and had a glimpse of the town. Our fellow tourists who were arriving from Howtown told us that we didn’t miss much.
The little steamboat that would take us back to Pooley Bridge is called the Lady of the Lake, the oldest working passenger vessel in the world!
We spent most of our trip back indoors to take a break from the cold. But we could still the Lake District’s beauty from inside. And there were of course plenty of other dogs along for the ride!
The two plus hours on a steamboat had gone by quickly and we were now on our way back to Pooley Bridge pier. Next time, Danny promised we would take a longer ferry to Glenridding, but it would have to be much earlier in the day!
After our steamboat ride we capped off the day at…where else? The pub. We found the Pooley Bridge Inn to be a nice little relaxing place after our cold ride over Ullswater, but there were quite a few other pubs in town that were also dog friendly as we saw many other dogs hanging out with their owners.
There you have it…our first ever adventure in the Lake District, but I hope it’s not the last one! It was always a dream to visit the Lake District for us and we finally did it, with steamboat and in style!
If you ever find yourself in the Lake District with your dog, I highly recommend taking this cool little steamboat tour and you won’t be the only one with a dog there.
The next stop on our UK road trip is the Cotswolds! Stay tuned! In the meantime, watch our Lake District adventure in video blog format below! I promise it’s entertaining..or your money (treats) back!