Bowness on Lake Windermere, 1981

Wednesday 3 June 1981. A trip out to Bowness-on-Windermere in the Lake District.

Lake Windermere is England's largest lake, by length and surface area and volume. It is 11 miles long (18 kilometres) and 1 mile (1.6 kilometres) wide at its widest point. It reaches a depth of 210 feet (64 metres) and yet is dwarfed by some Scottish lochs and Northern Irish loughs.

Finding a car parking space even in 1981 was difficult enough, at time of writing in 2023 it is nigh on impossible unless you get there really early in the morning or are willing and able to walk a long way!

Bowness is just over halfway up the lake from south to north and the line of the lake takes a gentle curve to the west at Bowness. This has formed an area of shingle beach from which a pier and several jetties allow access to various steamer services and pleasure craft.

Looking roughly nor nor west up the lake. Despite the name it is more a lake than a mere, which is defined as being broad in relation to its depth, not the case at Windermere. There is a town also called Windermere one and a half miles (2 kilometres) north of Bowness so the term "Lake Windermere" doesn't so much describe it twice, but serves to distinguish the lake from the town.

Lake cruiser Teal setting out from Bowness. At the time there were four large cruisers on the lake: Tern (1881), Swift (1900), Teal (1936), and Swan (1938). Swift was broken up in 1998, 17 years after this visit.

The beach and moorings at Bowness. In addition to the large "steamers" (they were all converted to diesel engines in the 1950s), there are numerous smaller pleasure boats from small row boats and self-drive motor boats to mid-sized cruisers, some of which visit stops at the head (north) of the lake and/or the foot (south) of the lake and many which take you for a boat ride around a few islands, the largest being Belle Isle, which is 0.62 miles (one kilomettre) in length, oriented southwest to northeast opposite Bowness.

The slender beach, as with the one at Waterhead at the top of the lake, is a favourite haunt of many of the lake's waterfowl and ducks and swans often expect to share some of your picnic with you! Which does lead them to eating far too much bread than is good for them and can even be dangerous as when wet it expands and can cause blockages to their windpipes.

A line of rowboats pulled up onto the shingle with a couple of mid-sized launches waiting to go out on sight-seeing cruises. Nearest us is Muriel II, built by Borwicks in the nearby town of Windermere in 1935-6. With open air bench seating in the bows she has a single enclosed deck behind.

Another shot of Muriel II later in the afternoon, returning from a sightseeing cruise. This photograph was for many years my only successful magazine front cover shot.

It was published in the July issue of the following year of the magazine Lakescene, a brilliant surprise and achievement of a long cherished milestone made even better when I flipped the page to see another of my shots taking the entirety of the magazine's page 3. Ah yes - a Page 3 photographer...! I would achieve another couple of cover shots in later years in other magazines, but as they say: you always remember your first!

Not that I was the only photographer active that day! These three ladies were taking joint interest in getting the very best from their Kodak 110 Instamatic camera. These took a negative about the size of your ring finger's fingernail.

A brief foray into Bowness itself away from the lakeside. The parish church of St Martin dates from an earlier church which was on this site as early as the year 1203. This burned down in 1480 and the current church was built and consecrated in 1483.

The main shopping street of Bowness is found on the steep rise from the lakeside leading towards the town of Windermere. Thus it can be very busy with traffic whilst often being crowded by tourists.

There are a few side streets but Bowness could hardly be called a large town. Towards the outskirts there are more tranquil scenes to be found.

Back at the lake. The three ladies from before have finished their film in the Instamtic camera. "Have you taken all 12?" comes an indignant voice, "Eeh, I'm going to have to buy another film now ready for Christmas!"

Return to Lake District and Cumbria Index

Paignton Harbour

Thursday 12 August 1993. We drove from Sidmouth to Paignton. We had been in 1990 but just about the only thing I could remember about it was drawing the harbour from near the public toilets. Yes folks, it's all glamour on one of our holidays...

Anyway the harbour is a lovely place to start so let's have a look round here before we wander off.

There are plenty of boats tied up here, from commercial small boats offering fishing trips to visitors. The visitors come with visions of huge big game sailfins and probably arrive back from a trip with a few herring. "But you should have seen the one that got away...!"

The ends of the two harbour walls are labelled IN and OUT to ensure that no landlubbers crash into each other going in opposite directions on the same side of the opening out to sea.

Fishing trips are bookable on the harbour side, with each boat having its own small kiosk. There are ferries to Brixham and Torquay, River Dart cruises and one kiosk offering both mackerel and wreck fishing. I imagine that means fishing for fish over the site of a wreck rather than any amateur salvage operation. Hook onto any sunken U-Boat and you'd soon be joining it...

Once we have laughed derisorily at the tiny fish some would-be shark killer has brought back, we leave the delights of the harbour and out to see what else Paignton has to offer. There's this bit of thatch that catches my eye and I amble around it before coming across an old red telephone box and an anchor. Apparently it used to sail off when it got fed up of people shouting "Hello? Can you hear me?"

There is a very attractive and probably ancient green sward along Esplanade Road. Not many towns can boast a space large enough or with architechture of a quality fit for calling an Esplanade. I was born in such a town which had a long wide thoroughfare fronting the town hall which was famous the world over apparently. In fact my grandfather, stationed out in Burma during World War II sent a letter back to the local newspaper in Rochdale saying how everyone, on being told where he was from, answered "Isn't that the town with a grand centre?"

In appreciation of Paignton's foresight and continuing good sense in keeping it, I plonked myself down to enjoy it whilst reading a book. It was The Silence of the Lambs in fact. And in truth I heard not a solitary bleat the whole time I was there...

Return to Sidmouth and Devon Holiday 1993 Index Page

Cassis Harbour

Wednesday 29 August 2007. After our unexpected walk in Marseilles, the coach drops us off in Cassis where we have to take a small road train from the coach park to the town.

As we walk from the road train we start to chill out and our hearts lift at the sight of the harbour. We have free time here in Cassis to wander round on our own and enjoy the sights and sounds.

We find that there are three distict areas of the town: the harbour, the beach under the cliffs beyond the harbour, and the town itself. We'll have a look at each but for now we set off to look round the harbour.

Standing between the beach and looking back towards the town presents a scene of pastel coloured buildings and neat rows of small boats.

You can't get fish more fresh than this! The fish were being brought straight from the boats to stalls along the harbour's edge and were chopped up on the spot and dropped into plastic bags for eager locals. There seemed to be an equal number of buyers and interested and curious onlookers at each stall.

It was still quite early, the cafes were busy bringing out tables and chairs to set them up on the pavement in front of their doors. There was much shouting of greetings as locals passed each other. Altogether a pleasing place to be - unless you were a fish...

Return to Mediterranean Explorer Cruise, 2007 Index