For anyone feeling less adventurous there lots of other enjoyable walks in the area including a choice of lakeside paths around Derwentwater, Bassenthwaite and Thirlmere, you can explore neighbouring valleys and secluded places, plus to the West of Keswick you will find the wonderful Whinlatter forest which offers a number of different forest trails.

Of course walking is not the only outdoor pursuit available in Keswick on Derwentwater there are opportunities for mountain climbing, mountain biking, sailing and kayaking to name a few.

Keswick on Derwentwater and the Northern Lakes covers one half of the Lake District National Park. This is the perfect area to choose for gentle relaxation or for an action packed family adventure holiday with lots of activities and attractions.

The picturesque market town of Keswick, nestled on the shores of Derwentwater, has a wide array of shops, restaurants and galleries. Explore the five major lakes, beautiful valleys and unspoilt villages.

For visitors to Keswick and North Lakes there is a range of accommodation to suit all tastes and budgets, whether you prefer a Keswick Guest House, hotels, caravan sites or Keswick cottages, the choice is yours.

When it comes to places to visit and things to do during your stay you will find Keswick has plenty to offer including Derwentwater lake cruises, Cumberland Pencil Museum, Castlerigg Stone Circle, Trotters World of Animals, Cars of the Stars Motor Museum, Mirehouse Historic House & Gardens and the Keswick Brewing Company.

When it comes to eating out in Keswick visitors will find an excellent choice of quality restaurants, pubs and hotels. Many different cuisines are catered for including traditional English bar meals with many places specialising in local ingredients. You will also find Italian restaurants, Indian restaurants and even a Mexican restaurant. Fine dining is available at some of the top hotels in the area including Armathwaite Hall, Lodore Falls Hotel and Swinside Lodge in Borrowdale.

Three rather special Ambleside cottages have been imaginatively converted from the barn and stables of our 17th century farmhouse. The Hawkshead cottages are set above a quiet country lane [National Grid Reference: 33420,49970] on the edge of Black Fell [a ‘Wainwright’ fell] close to Tarn Hows, near Hawkshead.

Each of the Hawkshead cottages has its own individual character and is centrally heated for all year round comfort. Benches outside the cottages and on the fell side, as well as the al-fresco dining area and barbecue, make an ideal location in which to absorb the peace and tranquillity of the area whilst enjoying the views and abundant wildlife.

Hardcragg Hall is the latest addition to Holidaycottagescumbria.com Cumbria portfolio of 5 individually owned luxury Lake District holiday cottages. Hardcragg Hall is the pinnacle of 5 star luxury self catering accommodation and can facilitate large groups of up to 14 guests with its 7 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. This stunning Elizabethan manor house makes an excellent choice for luxury family holidays, short breaks, celebrations, special occasions, wedding guests, parties, large groups or for a get together of family or friends.

Hardcragg Hall is steeped in history and dates back to 1563 and this grade II listed country manor house is reputed to be the oldest building in the local area. There are several spacious reception rooms that all interconnect, including the dining room, drawing room, bar area, breakfast room, library, the oak panelled entrance hall area with its roaring log fire and the snug lounge with patio doors leading out into the landscaped gardens and grounds. The recently furnished farmhouse kitchen is superbly equipped with everything you will need to cater for large groups or couples alike and boasts a four oven Aga.

This large Lake District self catering accommodation sleeps 10+ is ideally located in Grange-over-Sands on the Southern edge of the English Lake District. Grange over Sands is one of Cumbria’s secret gems and is the Lake District’s principle sea side town. This is an ideal location for scenic fell and woodland walks, together with a mile long, traffic free promenade overlooking the sands of Morecambe Bay.

Holidaycottagescumbria.com is owned, managed, and run by Simon Cleasby with the help of a team of good housekeepers, and maintenance staff. Simon is a knowledgeable local Cumbrian (nee Westmorland) with a huge passion for the Lake District and Cumbria. Simon travelled and worked his way around the different continents for a few years before coming back to live in the South Lakes to start up this luxury Lake District holiday cottages company.

Alston, Newby and Kirkby Stephen are lesser know areas in the Eden Valley. Kirkby Stephen is a market town with cobbled streets and rural scenery leading to wild uplands. Kirkby Stephen has a great atmosphere and community making it a great place for a drink or a bite to eat. It has three public houses and individually owned shops.The distinctive local stone used is very different to the slate used in structures in south Cumbria.

Newby, with its Pennine backcloth, delightful Jacobean Hall, and surrounding landscapes really have a rather special unchanging beauty. Newby, neighbouring Lake Ullswater and picturesque Appleby in Westmorland, it is a small mediaeval market town of distinction.

Alston is the highest market town in the UK at 1000 metres above sea level. The road leading to Alston is a motor biker’s paradise, the A686 up Hartside Fell. The road climbs steeply and bends almost at right angles and has been voted by The AA as one of their “Ten Great Drives”. The views down into the Eden Valley are views to savour with the craggy Lake District fells to one side and the pennies to the other. Passing right through the Eden Valley is the Coast to Coast route which runs from St Bees on the West Cumbrian coast across to Whitley Bay so this area is very popular with cyclists.

The Eden Valley will surprise with its wide range of activities – strenuous mountain walks to gentle riverside strolls, watersports, golf and even activity centres where paintball shooting, archery and quad biking can be experienced. For such an activity packed holiday, Lake District cottages and Cumbrian cottages are a good choice of accommodation type. They give greater room for equipment, for cyclists especially, and are located in settings where a hotel or bed and breakfast would never be.

There are a number of plus points that make a self catering holiday attractive. Here are some examples:
1.    Of course, top of the list, kitchen facilities, allowing cooking to be done yourself. A huge money exercise especially for families. When in a group, the cooking can be shared and the it can actually be quite a fun event.
2.    Storage facilities and space. If having an activity holiday or a family holiday where there are bikes, walking gear or sailing equipment, most self catering properties have the space to store this equipment and space for drying is necessary.
3.    Lake District cottages are often set amongst fantastic scenery and tranquil locations, allowing a complete “get away from it all” holiday. A complete change from the hustle and bustle of a city and a chance to spend time in a property completely different from home.
4.    The ability to come and go when you please unlike a hotel when rooms need to be cleaned and door are locked at a certain time.
5.    Children can play with other family’s children and parents can take it in turn to babysit so that each set of parents can have a night to themselves.
6.    The more the merrier for fun and money saving. Clubbing together between 2 or 3 families, a group of friends or couples saves a huge amount of money. There is greater interaction compared with staying in separate hotel rooms.

Recent years have seen a tremendous rise in the number of self catering properties to choose from. No longer is a self catering holiday spent within a dingy flat. Lake District self catering cottages can be found for 2 persons right up to 16 and from the basic small house to luxury cottages complete with flat screen TV’s, wood burners and luxury interiors with all the modern conveniences of washing machines, dryers and dish washers.

Self catering holidays benefit the environment too. The carbon footprint of a self catering holiday is significantly less than a hotel based holiday. Many factors contribute to this, the amount of lights, sheets and towels washed and spa and swimming pool facilities. Some self catering property owners and developers are creating a more eco friendly property, for example, installing solar panels, wind turbines and worming and composting facilities.

What better location for a self catering holiday than a farm.  More and more self catering accommodations are situated on working farms or properties that were once working farms providing a great opportunity to help farmers who are diversifying into tourism in order to subsidise incomes.

Cark-in-Cartmel and Allithwaite are both located at the southern end of the Cartmel Valley and are classic ‘working’ Lakeland villages. This area is beautifully quiet without being remote and has a gentle pace of life. With its location so close to Morecambe Bay this area brings a milder climate than the rest of the Lake District.

The medieval village of Cartmel lies just 1½ miles north and is the oldest and most picturesque village in South Lakeland. The 12th century priory escaped destruction during the Dissolution of Henry VIII and remains one of the finest ecclesiastical buildings in the north of England. The ancient village square is home to two good pubs and is a lovely place to sit and enjoy a drink and watch the world go by. There are another two good pubs just around the corner to visit when staying in Cumbrian cottages.

Cartmel Valley is a gentle, undulating landscape of lush green fields, rolling hills, leafy lanes and tranquil forests. The woodlands are an ideal base for easy access of the whole of the Lake District, Morecambe Bay, the rolling sand dunes of the Cumbrian coast, the Forrest of Bowland and the Yorkshire Dales National Park.

Walkers can put away their car keys as there are dozens of walks from their Lake District self catering cottage. The ancient Cistercian Way pass through Cark village and links up to all major walking routes in the Lake District. The Cumbrian Coastal Way also goes through both Cark and Allithwaite and provides spectacular coastal and fell walking for mile after mile. Morecambe Bay, with its vast areas of sand and marshes is a popular haunt for bird watchers, as is nearby Leighton Moss bird sanctuary. The Bay and the Cumbrian coast are great for windsurfing, with clear winds from the south.

If walking is not on the agenda when staying in one of these Lake District cottages then a visit to Holker Hall is a must. Holker Hall is Cumbria’s premier stately home, the home of Lord & Lady Cavendish. Residents and visitors of the village are granted permission to walk freely around the extensive parklands stocked with herds of deer and rare breed cattle and sheep. They also have a farm shop on site where produce from the estate can be purchased.

And finally, for families, a 10 minute drive north leads you to the nostalgic Haverthwaite to Lakeside Steam Railway. This connects to the awaiting Lake Windermere steamers and cruise boats that travel the full length of England’s longest lake where stops can be made at Waterhead (for Ambleside) or Bowness-in-Windermere.

The new cottages are in four different locations all offering different forms and sizes of accommodation. The first, Rosegarth Cottage at Newby in the Eden Valley. The second Lake District cottage is Edenfold Cottage, Bolton near Appleby. The third cottage is Pheasant Cottage in the Eden Valley and the fourth of the Lake District cottages is Stonegarth also in Newby.

These cottages are the latest additions to their already 35 strong cottage portfolio. This amount of cottages lead to the need for a new website which was put live last year and which enables the visitor to check the live availability of each cottage. It also gives clear information on each particular property with either “available”, “booked” or “a please phone” status. If one of the cottages is “available”, indicated under the availability status is the price for that week. This enables the visitor to know instantly the cost and eliminates the need to telephone or email for a price.

Goosemire Cottages are a small family run agency offering holiday cottage accommodation in the Lake District, UK (with just a few exceptions) an all-inclusive rental price. Their limited overheads mean low prices and they pride themselves on their value for money approach. There are open all year round and offer out of season or last minute breaks. To help you relax, Goosemire Cottages adopts a “nothing is too much trouble” approach, ensuring a welcoming, informed and personal service. On arrival you will find your cottage carefully prepared, to give your holiday a perfect start. In fact from the point of your initial enquiry onwards they guarantee they will give both you and your holiday the warm friendly attention deserved.

Goosemire Cottages have available over 39 traditional self-catering holiday homes for discerning visitors (Ranging from 1 to 7 bedrooms, sleeping up to 10). Most are rustic 17th or 18th Century Lake District self catering cottages or lovely barn conversions, where antiquity and modern comforts have been beautifully combined. The atmosphere and idiosyncrasies of each Lake District cottage property are reflected on our website, and while some maybe more luxuriously appointed than others, all are carefully prepared and maintained.

They offer Cumbrian self catering holiday cottages in the following locations – Bowness on Windermere (largest lake), Lake Ullswater,( the Lake Districts second largest lake), Haweswater, the Eden Valley, Bassenthwaite, Grasmere, Kendal, Ambleside in the central lakes, the South Lakes peninsulas, and Wastwater. If you are feeling energetic you can go fell walking, climbing or even mountain biking. Other activities include sailing, wind surfing, fishing or bird watching.

For further information on the areas, availability and prices of all 39 cottages visit www.goosemirecottages.co.uk or telephone 01539 731 801.

Ambleside is mostly a Victorian town, although there has been a settlement there since pre-Roman times.  Galava, a fort located beside Borrans Park in Ambleside was built by the Romans and was used to house around 500 soldiers. The fort was built to defend the lower fells of South Lakeland from invasion by the Picts and Scots, and also to guard the road to the Roman Port at Ravenglass which is accessible from Hard Knott Pass.

Many well known characters have been connected with Ambleside, including William Wordsworth, John Ruskin and Beatrix Potter.  The Armitt Museum in Ambleside provides more information about each of these famous characters and within easy reach of Ambleside visitors will be able to experience the World of Beatrix Potter in Bowness, Rydal Mount in Rydal which was the home of the Wordsworth family from 1813 and Dove Cottage in Grasmere, which is where William Wordsworth wrote most of his greatest poetry.

Waterhead pier is only a mile south of Ambleside town centre and this ferry terminal allows visitors to experience scenic ferry trips on Lake Windermere.  The ferries run regularly throughout the day between Waterhead, Bowness-on-Windermere and Lakeside at Newby Bridge.

A short walk from the centre of the Ambleside leads up to Stock Ghyll Force, a highly picturesque waterfall, which can be reached through Stock Ghyll Woods. This spectacular seventy foot drop to a bowl shaped pool can be viewed safely from a hand railed vantage point.  The ghyll once powered twelve watermills. The scenery around Stock Ghyll is truly magnificent and for any visitors wishing to stay in a rural location, but with the convenience of a town close by there are some excellent Cumbrian Cottages available for rent in the area.

Having worked with many tourism, leisure and hospitality businesses to help improve their profitability, I thought it was high time that I pulled together a website highlighting the ones I really enjoyed working with. The result is www.headsinbeds.co.uk.

The site is far from an exhaustive list, neither is it only a list of the ‘finest quality’, as Gary believes that ‘value’ is something important to everyone whether staying at a bunkhouse or penthouse. Value is simply the relationship between what we pay and the type of experience we have and Gary feels all of the businesses listed on www.headsinbeds.co.uk site offer good value to their customers.

Why not consider using this site when looking for a short break or holiday in the North and East of England, where the majority of Gary’s work has taken place. The areas covered include Northumberland, Yorkshire including the North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales and North Yorkshire, East Anglia including Norfolk and Suffolk, Lancashire including Forest of Bowland, Blackpool and Cumbria – The Lake District.

The site includes different types of accommodation including hotels, bed and breakfasts, guest houses, inns, farm b&bs, cottages, self catering agencies, caravan sites, camp sites and hostels, as well as a few restaurants and places to visit.