Words & photos - John Lymer

What a stunning location!!! We stayed at Waterside House (aka Waterside Farm) campsite, Pooley Bridge. The site is right on the shore of Ullswater and just a one mile walk along a lakeside path to the village. Everything you need is on the site anyway though - a cafe doing fish and chips on Friday, pizza another couple of nights and all sorts of food anytime. There's also an on-site watersports hire centre - Wake and Surf - for canoes/kayaks and paddleboards. We'd never heard of wake surfing. It's like wakeboarding, but they can let the line go slack. Advanced wakesurfers can even let go of the tow rope and continue surfing in the boat wake. Norbert can tell you all about it, having had a one hour lesson!

Some wind would have been nice for our weekend away. Alas, that was the only thing missing! It was just Force 2 from Friday to Sunday. Don't those conditions normally come with warm weather and sun? Maybe, except in the Lakes! We had to be satisfied with cloudy, 15C on Friday, then cooler over the weekend with a bit of very light rain. In mid-July?! Dave took a raceboard and a club wind-SUP, Brian a sit-on kayak, Norbert some big windsurf kit and John ... a mountain bike. The photos below include the site, activities available from it, dinghy sailing from the adjacent club and some views from a mountain bike ride between High Street and Ullswater. One photo shows a Duotone inflatable windsurf rig with no boom or mast. That's probably a great, lightweight option for beginners ... and very portable too!

Click on a picture to see larger images then use the arrows or swipe to scroll through them