Ambling about Ambleside

The winning hound crosses the finish line

Three nights in Ambleside just wasn't enough: we will be back.

• We were delighted by the combination of weathered and lush verdant beauty of the landscape. An sometimes-austere place covered with stone paddock fences that contain sheep cheerfully bleating away across the echoing hillsides. Marvelous little right-of-way footpaths leading up away from villages, following streams and winding around tarns.
• The annual Ambleside Sports day was on while we were there. A big paddock transformed into a grassy athletics; cycling track; insane fell-runners tackling extreme cross country tracks; traditional local wrestling between all sizes and shapes (dressed in the traditional garb); hound trail racing. This last treated us to cute (and skinny) hounds following an aniseed/paraffin trail across the fells for five to eight miles, culminating in a madcap bolt down the side of a hill towards the finishing line where their owners exhorted them with all manner of whistle, yells and what can only be described as "noises". Out on a walk later in the afternoon we were fortunate to have the hounds cross our trail twice, and we got a clear idea of why some finish so much further ahead than others - the frontrunners never seem to lose the scent, but the backmarkers get confused and romp all over the place. Amazing to see them tackle stone fences as much as 7-foot tall!



Leapin' lemurs Batman!



We cross paths with the hounds



For once, getting eye-to-eye with a giraffe isn't so hard



A troll seems to have taken up residence under Old Sweden Bridge



Traditional wrestling outfits (somewhat like a homemade superhero outfit, but with more velvet embroidery)

• An impressive, conservation-oriented animal park at Dalton-in-Furness, where Tracey got to handfeed a giraffe. A great moment. The fact that there were also lemurs wandering throughout the park, baboons with their babies playing, spectacled bears and donkeys ("everything can be improved with a donkey") didn't hurt. Others were more impress by the exotic kangaroos and wallabies than we were....go figure.