The Lake District has been roughly 30,000 years in the making. (Image: Getty)
Things of beauty take time to create. Michelangelo was at it with the Dulux for more than four years sprucing-up the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Gaudi’s masterpiece La Sagrada Familia was started in 1882 – and with a bit of luck it might get finished in 2026. Brahms spent 21 years bashing out his first symphony, Tolstoy six years to scribble down War and Peace.
You get the idea, beauty takes time.
But for my money the world champion example of this ‘beauty vs time’ equation is our very own jaw-droppingly gorgeous Lake District … which has been roughly 30,000 years in the making.
Give or take.
Walking, or even better cycling, around the Lakes two thing strike me:
1. God it’s beautiful;
2. How mind-melting it is to think there used to be a slab of ice one mile thick above my head.
SNP members will be delighted to know this was proper Scottish ice too, invading England right down to about Watford Gap services – indeed it is known as the Highland Icefield.
But god bless that Caledonian ice flow because it was entirely responsible for creating those dramatic peaks and troughs of Cumbria, which for some reason fill the human heart with joy.
Oh and the myriad lakes obvs.
Those who got a 9 in their geography GCSE will be able to spot real-life finger lakes, ribbon lakes, drumlins, terminal moraines, and boulder clays as soon as they set foot in the Lakes… like their geog text book just came to life.
The rest of us will just stare, slack-jawed, at the sheer soul-restoring beauty on offer.
Hiking between Arnside and Silverdale (Image: Getty)
To be fair I’m a Lancastrian, so I already knew how astonishing this place is.
But my southern kids – whose usual idea of soul-restoring beauty is getting likes on Insta-Tok or whatever – had never been to the Lakes.
So I took them.
And, for any despairing parent reduced to communicating with their little darlings by text, here’s the good news: There are places in the Lakes you can barely get a signal on your mobile phone.
Which means they can barely get a signal on their mobile phones.
Which means they have to engage in good old-fashioned family activities, no questions asked!
And of course they will.
When you remove their electronic crack cocaine for a while you discover they very quickly revert to being the kids you thought you’d lost forever.
I took a bit of advice from Pete Marshall at Cumbria Tourism – telling him I fancied an old-fashioned “days out” holiday – and he steered me well.
First off we stayed at Holgates Holiday Park between Silverdale and Arnside in the South Lakes.
Not gonna lie (as I’ve learned to say from too much reality TV), when he suggested a “holiday park” my heart sank, having last experienced one in the 1970s which was basically an Army barracks which now stocked Kendal Mint Cake.
People, this was not that.
Rainbow in Bowness-on-Windermere on Lake Windermere (Image: Getty)
It was lovely. Beautifully well-kept (the grass looked like it had been manicured with eyebrow tweezers), Holgates provides mobile homes which are rural enough to make you feel you’ve really left the rat-race behind, but luxurious enough to cook decent meals, and veg-out in front of the telly after a hard-days fun-having.
And fun was indeed had.
We kicked off at Zip World Windermere, which is definitely best approached by catching one of the Windermere Lake Cruises boats from Bowness or Ambleside – if only to lull you into a false sense of security with their laid-back chugging of engines and understated charm bespeaking of another age.
Apart from the obvious zip-line of the title the attraction offers the charmingly-named Tree Top Trek.
But all you competitive dads who hate being outdone by their obviously more nimble and agile kids, a word of warning… prepare yourself for a humiliating day.
My two hopped and skipped from branch to branch like forest sprites born to the task.
Me? I looked like someone had accidentally left an hippopotamus up a tree.
Fifty years ago, in the blissful pre-health and safety age, nine-year-old me would happily have scrambled the 100ft to the tops of these trees with barely a pause for breath. Now I was reduced to clinging on for dear life .. actually only about 10 feet above ground. If you fell (which is utterly impossible of course thanks to the military grade safety harness) you’d probably graze a knee at best.
Cycling through the Lake District is a breeze (Image: Getty)
All I’m saying dads is it’s top fun… but don’t place any bets on yourself.
The next day we decided to hire bikes from Easeeride in Arnside – cue much moaning from the kids. “Biiiiiiikes!? Why can’t we just drive?!” was the bleating. And in truth, not being a natural for two-wheeled hill-climbing myself, I secretly empathised.
But my man Pete said: “trust me you’ll like it.”
And he said that because he knew there was a twist – these were electric bikes.
And, for those who’ve never ridden one, comparing an electric bike to your bog-standard five-speed drop-handle is like comparing a corporation bus to an F-16 Tomcat.
They’re brilliant. They let you pedal away thinking you’re Bradley Wiggins until there is the merest whiff of arduous, at which point, mysteriously and miraculously, the motor kicks in and gives you a massive power boost and suddenly you actually are Bradley Wiggins.
The beauty of cycling is of course you can stop wherever you want. We stopped to jump in a river – just because it was a blisteringly hot day and, well, we could.
Word of warning though it was an amazing experience and insanely beautiful, I rather suspect the Highland Icefield was still feeding that river… it was bl**dy freezing!
But, and it’s a serious but, my kids loved it.
They weren’t filming it, they were doing it. They weren’t selfie-ing it, they were living it.
And, you know what, so was I.
And for what it’s worth I recommend you do too – go see the Lakes, it’s like an MOT for the soul.