We woke early again this morning, keen to get moving on the next step of our journey. We walked over to the car park, luggage and all and loaded up the car.

Getting out of Manchester was reasonably easy, there wasn't much traffic about. The first stop on our trip was Bolton, a small town north of Manchester. Lovely old buildings in the main street including Bolton Town Hall, Art Gallery, Library, Museum, Law Courts and the Albert Halls.

We drove past Rebock Stadium in Horwich (just outside Bolton) and then headed onto the Motorway to find the route that was used for the 2002 Manchester Commonwealth Games cycling road race. We followed it around as best we could, but at about the half way point we missed a turnoff and ended up somewhere else :) There is some amazing scenery along that route, we could almost imagine the cyclists riding around us and I swear I could hear the faint sounds of spectators cheering, blowing whistles and honking their air horns as we drove through some of the turns.

We crossed a lovely old bridge across a weir or dam, giving way to the main source of traffic on these roads (horses) while we were at it.

We finally found our way out of the woods (as it were) and made our way to Rishton near Blackburn in Lancashire to drop off a parcel from our friend Bethy to the Wickets Hotel, owned by Peter and Hazel Sleep.

Peter is an ex member of the Australian Cricket Team which toured Pakistan back in 1982 and also played Test Cricket in the 70's 80's and 90's along with Alan Border.

Peter came over to England in 1990 as Rishton Cricket Club's overseas Professional and in 1991 he broke the all-time Lancashire League batting record with an aggregate of 1,621 runs. He is currently Lancashire County Cricket Club's 2nd XI captain and coach.

Peter's cricketing achievements are legendary:

Achievement/Team	Australia	South Australia
Appearances	14	146
Runs scored	483	6997
Batting average	24.15	35.17
Wickets taken	31	302
Bowling average	45.06	38.40

Peter and Hazel met in 1990, married in 1992 and set up home in Rishton, the village where Hazel had grown up - they now (together with their two children) run the Wickets Hotel in the heart of Lancashire.

Back on the road again, we headed for Blackpool, England's biggest and brashest resort town. The smallest set of roadworks I've seen was the cause of an amazing traffic jam on the M55 heading into Blackpool - four lanes of traffic went from 70mph down to 10mph in a matter of seconds, and stayed that way for almost an hour.

The centre of all the action in Blackpool is Pleasure Beach, the UK's most visited outdoor attraction, a 16 hectare funfair packed with rides, sideshows and even an indoor circus at Blackpool Tower.

The beach was empty, apart from a few mad poms and a man offering people donkey rides, but you can just imagine how packed this place gets during the summer months.

We stopped for lunch at Pablo's Fish and Chippery and had the famous fish, chips, peas, bread and butter special. The fish was OK, but the batter and peas were a tad bland.

We bought some postcards and a spoon at the local shop and headed off up the coast towards Lancaster. We jumped onto the M6 and headed north to Windermere.

No traffic problems this time - we pulled off into the township of Windermere and meandered down the hill into Bowness, where our accommodation for the next 7 days was.

Stopped at the Bowness TIC on the promenade to get some directions and then drove up around the corner to the Burnside Park Owners Club. Our cottage was ready so we went straight in and unpacked the car.

All the cottages at the club are two or three storey buildings with apartment style fitouts, all finished with classic shingle style roofs and Coniston slate finished exterior walls - an amazing sight for such modern buildings!

Windermere was originally the name of England's largest lake - 10.5 miles long and varying in width from north to south, it becomes obvious that it is glacial in origin.

The town of Windermere itself is a reasonably modern development following on the heels of railway in 1847 and is now the Lake District's largest tourist centre.

The promenade runs from Winderemere station to Bowness Pier and is where boats can be hired and cruises taken on the lake.

I've dreamed of coming to Lake Windermere since I was 12 years old - the family was living in Jakarta at the time and my father gave me a book to read called Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome. It was the first book that I remember ever getting really into, and I ended up reading every single Arthur Ransome book in the Swallows and Amazons series, and a few others as well.

For those that don't know, Swallows and Amazons was set in the 1930's and tells the story of a group of children and their adventures on holidays in the Lake District, in particular it is set on an imaginary lake inspired by Conniston and Windermere. That's pretty much why we're here :)

We finished off the day by getting some groceries at Booths supermarket and headed back to the cottage for a sandwich, TV and sleep.