Blowing into Bowness

APPARENTLY caravanning is becoming trendy.

For me, all that means is that a few half-baked "celebrities" desperate to jump on to the latest bandwagon have had glossy magazine pictures taken in a caravan.

Trips away with the caravan have been the favoured holiday for millions of people for decades, so how it can be trendy now escapes me.

Fallbarrow Park, on the shores of Lake Windermere, is a thriving example of how long Britons have enjoyed coupling up the caravan and getting away from it all.

Way back in 1956, Fallbarrow was the fantastically named Bowness Health and Holiday Camp. The fact that health was put before holiday sounds worrying to me, and conjours up images of lines of long-shorted caravanners carrying out compulsory exercises every morning before breakfast at 5.30am.

Norman Whiteley, a man way ahead of his time, must have sensed the way UK residents would take to caravanning and snapped the park up, making it one of the country's first caravan parks.

One superb Fallbarrow fact is that in 1976 an apprentice mechanic decided to launch a revolutionary new boat repair service, which would have seen him wade across the lake to stricken craft using huge polystyrene boots.

Needless to say the business wasn't a success and there is probably still a broken boat owner sitting out in the Windermere mist, waiting.

The park remained in private hands for many years, and while the park and caravans are top of the range and kitted out with all the mod cons one could need, there is still the slight air of a time past about some parts of the place.

A section in the entertaining user guide, for example, spoke of "giving mum a break from the cooking". That one prompted a smirk from me and raised eyebrows from my girlfriend Louise.

The tinge of times past doesn't affect what the park has to offer and the fact it lives in its own little bubble adds to the tranquillity.

The owners, now South Lakeland Caravans, take care to ensure the park's greenery is well maintained, making it a haven for birds and giving the impression that the vans are parked up in a small wood.

In fact, it's right in Bowness-on-Windermere. The park itself has everything one could need, a pub that serves food, a hot food take-away and a well-stocked shop.

But if you want to venture out, Bowness is packed with pubs and restaurants.

Beware though, the town's tourist-central location means publicans and restaurateurs are charging premium prices - not dissimilar to some parts of York.

This means you can't rely on the "£10 should mean a decent main course" rule; you'll need to add on a few quid.

After promising me "roast leg of lamb", the Bowness restaurant we ate at served up a badly cooked frozen TV dinner.

Back to the good bits. Saturday began with a downpour suggesting it was never going to stop raining, ever. We'd decided to head off the beaten track though and drove towards Morecambe Bay to visit the coastal village of Bardsea, where there are the remains of ancient settlements.

We couldn't find them. What we did find was a long stretch of beach and mudflats, packed with sea and wading birds, with Sea Wood at the western end of the beach.

The wood used to belong to Lady Jane Grey, Queen of England for nine days before she was executed.

Thankfully, there was no sign of a bewildered looking ghost with no head, and the enjoyable wood walk temporarily sheltered us from the incredibly strong winds.

From there we headed off to Rampside, a real coastal outpost. After driving past a boat graveyard the road ends abruptly with views of the intriguing looking Piel Castle, out on Piel Island, which looked a bit like Craggy Island from Channel 4's Father Ted.

The ferries were out of season but they would have probably been cancelled anyway, it was that windy.

As I walked out on to the beach to take photographs, a cockle appeared in the muddy sand, reminding me of the Morecambe Bay tragedy, when 19 Chinese cockle-pickers were cut off by the tide and drowned.

It's easy to see how it happened. The tide moves quickly and the sand sticks to your boots like cement. I didn't hang about long.

Louise and I next planned to take a ride on a traditional steam train, but didn't hold out much hope. Whenever we visit an old-school railway the place is shut or just closing.

Anyway, we picked a breathtaking cross-country route to the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway. The route is little more than a track but worth finding; it is like being in some wild land of the past.

After finding we had missed the last train by about 30 seconds it was time to head back across to Windermere and The Hardknott Pass.

The previous route was challenging driving, this was something else. Needle-thin old Roman roads with incredible hairpin bends, this isn't driving for the faint-hearted.

Once you are is used to the conditions though it's enjoyable. It's not every day you to drive in conditions like that. At the top is the site of a Roman fort, built to police the area's hostile locals. Northerners always have been feisty.

The views for the 500 Roman soldiers there must have been spectacular, but what they did with their leisure time is a mystery to me.

There was just time for another ill-fated steam railway attempt, this time the Lakeside and Haverthwaite, closed at the time we tried, before our stay in the Lakes was over. On the way home we stopped at Sedburgh for a walk in the hills. High up, I looked out at the astounding view as the rain drove into my face.

"I love this place," I thought.

Updated: 08:33 Saturday, June 19, 2004