Steam Train Ride in the Lake District, with Scotland the Brave

Welcome back to the adventures of Scotland The Brave in the UK of Great Britain. With his Guardians, Scotty explored London, Stonehenge and Bath, Exeter and Plymouth, Glastonbury, Cardiff and Ludlow, and Chester. Next, they mounted their trusty Tour Bus and travelled due north from Liverpool to the Lake District in Cumbria.

CUMBRIA. The Lake District is a major part of Cumbria. This is a land of big lakes called Waters and tiny lakes called Tarns and streams called Becks. The huge steep hills are known here as Fells, Crags and Pikes.

Poets and painters have immortalised it. Beatrix Potter loved it so much she bought land and bequeathed 4,000 acres to the National Trust. Scotty would have loved to have climbed every Fell and dipped a paw in every Tarn but there wasn’t time. Maybe one day. But he did get to travel a short way by train, and it was a steam train too.

The Lakeside and Haverthwaite Steam Train runs a five kilometres (or ‘3 miles’ as they say in England) to Lakeside Station at the southern end of Lake Windermere. Scotty waited at Haverswaithe Station with great anticipation.

He checked out the luggage sorting arrangements and approved of the scones being served with jam and cream. He was also partial to the scones being served with cream and jam. Scones with butter also met his approval.

It is a neat and pretty little station. Everyone took lots of selfies. They admired how even the serious bits of the steam train business, like the water tanks and the coal bins, were tidy and clean. There were lots of little flower beds to add colour.

And then came the steam train returning from Lake Windermere. Oh, what a sight. It glistened and click-click-clanged and whoooooshed and blew a long whistle and steam rose up and smoke streamed. Scotty was delighted. It was all very satisfactory.

Then there was a lot of ‘shunting’ as the locomotive got moved from one end of the carriages to the other for the return journey to the Lake. All aboard! Their ride on Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway started with with the excitement of chugging through a dark tunnel. You can just see it in the picture above, on the right top corner.

Then the little train ran through woods and past fields and over little bridges and past hills with names like High Brow Edge and Canny Hill. Over in the distance we could see villages with names like Backbarrow. Some stretches of the line were steep and the train chugged along very carefully while we looked down at the River Leven below, which flows from Lake Windermere down to the sea.

They passed by Newby Bridge and arrived at Lakeside Station where they all got out of the train and moved on the the pier to board a vessel to cruise on Lake Windermere.

PLAGUE DOGS Country: When young, Guardian Mark read the Plague Dogs by Richard Adams. The story follows the desperate plight of the dogs Snitter and Rowf. They escape an animal research facility and are pursued by humans across the high country of Cumbria. Guardian Mark wondered if this Lakeside Steam train was the same one Rowf and Snitter had climbed aboard in the last days of the chase.

But no. In fact, Rowf and Snitter rode down to the sea on another heritage train, the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway. As you can see on this map that Ravenglass, over to the west by the sea, is some distance from Windermere Lake. The action in the novel begins at Coniston Water. If you loved the book, then I recommend you look at the blog Lakeland Walking Tales. The author follows the path taken by the dogs. Superb photos there of the Fells.

In the next episode, Scotty takes a cruise on Lake Windermere. Don’t miss that one! (Click on the FOLLOW buttons so as to not miss anything.

BOOKS with Scotland in them (our Scotty, that is)

Scotty is the star of a very special book called When A Brave Bear Fights Cancer: A Get Well Soon Gift by Carola Schmidt. In the book, Scotty a little bear who gets a bad sickness called cancer. He’s worried and often scared because cancer is scary.  But the doctors and nurses and other patients help him. The book is to help kids feel much more brave when they are getting treatment. It’s available in paperback and Kindle. Look for the brave little bear wearing trews on the cover.

You can also see Scotty in all the books by Mawson. One is called It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In (in that one he delivers the post) and another is She Ran Away From Love (he delivers the post again.) In Dreamy Days and Random Naps you can see him being a king and also a superb guitarist. Don’t miss that one! This is what the books look like:

Mawson’s Guardian says: You can find Mawson’s books on this Link here, and on his Writer-Bear Page on Amazon.

You have wandered into Mawson Bear’s web-den. Mawson is a Ponderer of Baffling Things (between naps) and the Writer-Bear of It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost In  and She Ran Away From Love.

‘This little story made me well up. A lovely, poignant story with delightful illustrations.’ Jackie Law, Amazon Top 500 reviewer, about It’s A Bright World To Feel Lost in.

The book brings back such nostalagic memories that it made it comforting, like a  old security blanket.’  FNM Book reviews about Bright World.