Lakes Aquarium and Queen Adelaide’s Hill – Joel’s Journeys & Jaunts

At the end of this morning, I left you after I turned around at Haverthwaite, England, and immediately took the same steam train back to Lakeside, and ate a mundane lunch in the latter. Picking up the story, after lunch, I visited the only other attraction I’m aware of in Lakeside… wait for it, dear reader… are you sitting down… yes… as suggested by the title of this post, the Lakes Aquarium.

Even from across the ocean, I can see a smile breaking out on the face of one particular reader upon seeing that I visited an aquarium.

But, first, a brief note. Like this morning’s post, this one will be short. Not only that, but I suspect that all of my posts from Windermere will be similarly short. My time here is not about trying to cram as many tourist attractions into my stay as possible, as I sometimes do. It’s about enjoying the beauty of the lake and its surroundings, along with the charm of the town. There’s only so much a literary philistine such as myself can say about that, thoroughly enjoyable though I might be.

OK. Note done. On to the aquarium.

Lakes Aquarium

The Lakes Aquarium, in Lakeside, beside Windermere Lake, focuses on creatures of the South Pacific Ocean. No, of course not.

It focuses on land-dwelling turtles, mice, geckos, ants, and snakes. That was less of a joke. The Lakes Aquarium doesn’t focus on those animals, but it does include terrariums with each of them. However, the emphasis is indeed on lake-based fish.

Oh, and about that sea-creatures-focus joke above, it’s still not entirely a joke. The Lakes Aquarium does have a few colourful, sea-based tropical fish, like clownfish, among others.

Maybe the aquarium should call itself “Lakeside Aquarium,” after the village it’s in, rather than “Lakes Aquarium.” Not that there is anything wrong with the establishment and its collection of creatures. It’s perfectly fine, respectable, and enjoyable for an aquarium of its size. But it’s not strictly a lakes aquarium. Truth in advertising and all that rot, you know.

The so-called Lakes Aquarium is not huge, but it manages to cram a lot of small and medium-sized aquariums and terrariums, and one larger aquarium into the space. In addition to all of the above-mentioned creatures, it, as the name implies, has several tanks containing a variety of lake-dwelling fish from a variety of parts of the world.

There are too many species at the aquarium to discuss them all, particularly because I took pictures of only a small fraction of them and have even fewer pictures of the signs associated with them. So, my memory doesn’t allow me to say much more.

There was one fish that is native to the UK and has bright orange fins that make it stand out. It’s called the golden rudd and is the breeding form of the common rudd, whatever that means. According to the description provided by the Lakes Aquarium, in addition to its hardiness and ability to adapt to various water conditions, “the Golden Rudd is a calm, peaceful and sociable fish.” Calm, peaceful and sociable fish. Sounds like a perfect role model not just for fish, but for humanity—all of humanity, please. You know what they say, always follow the golden rudd.

Beside a tank of small, colourful sea-based tropical fish, there’s another tank with a single species that looks like that sort of fish, but is a freshwater tropical fish. Electric yellow chichlids are small, bright, almost fluorescent yellow fish. At the aquarium, their tank was jam-packed with them.

The Lakes Aquarium also has some axolotls. I first learned about axolotl during my visit to the Mälmo Museum, which includes an aquarium, during my immediately previous trip, which was to Sweden.

Axolotls are rather amazing creatures. They are amphibians that can reach adulthood without going through metamorphosis. So they retain their gills and remain aquatic. And, despite remaining aquatic, they have cute little feet. But even more impressive, according to the sign at the aquarium, “They can regenerate lost or damaged limbs, gills, repair organs and parts of their brain, making them of interest in scientific research.”

I can see how they’d be of interest to scientists. There are parts of my brain that are probably in need of repair. The same is, no doubt, true for some other people.

In Mälmo, their couple of axolotls were shy. I caught only a glimpse of the tail of one when it went into a cave and never came out while I was there. In Lakeside, they were out in the open in the tank, and I got a good look at them.

There is a largish tank at the Lakes Aquarium that includes a walk-through tunnel under the water. The tank contains a wide variety of fish. I found one, in particular, fascinating. It had a patterned skin that looked like a swimming work of art. I’ve seen abstract modern art hanging in major galleries that I thought were less artistic.

In the tunnel, there’s a video display screen that shows pictures of and information about each of the species in the tank. It shows two at a time and cycles through them slowly. I had to wait a while before I learned what it was.

It’s a mirror carp. They descended from common carp, but were bred by monks in the 12th century to virtually eliminate their scales, making them easier to prepare for consumption.

I mentioned that the Lakes Aquarium has ants. They are in a display with thick ropes strung horizontally. The red ants clamber across the ropes.

A sign by the ants was titled, “Fun Fact! – ‘Zombie’ Ants!” It explained that, “Ophiocordyceps is a genus of fungi within the family Ophiocordycipitacee. It contains around 140 species that grows mainly on insects, One species (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis) is known for its parasitism on ants, in which it alters the behaviour of the ants in such a way as to propagate itself more effectively, killing the ant and then growing its fruiting bodies from the ant’s head and releasing its spores.”

Well, isn’t that just lovely?

The Lakes Aquarium also has some otters in an enclosure. I didn’t include them in my riff on the Lakes Aquarium not being strictly a lakes aquarium because the species of otters there are a freshwater variety.

All-in-all, the Lakes Aquarium is a very fine, although not particularly large, institution.

Queen Adelaide’s Hill

After I finished with the Lakes Aquarium, I took the boat back to Bowness/Windermere.

(Aside: Every time I type “Bowness” I want to make a joke about the town getting its name from the fact that people there walk around constantly bowed at the waist. Bowness is a little-known word for the state of being bowed at the waist, hence the town’s name. But that’s too inane a joke for even me, so I won’t make it.)

Back in Bowness/Windermere, I took a walk to a vista point I read about, Queen Adelaide’s Hill. It’s on the far side of Windermere from Bowness-on-Windermere.

I used Apple Maps to direct me there. After walking a while along normal town streets, lined with buildings of various sorts, it took me to a road marked “private.” I assumed the sign was directed at cars, not pedestrians. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. There were several estates with gated driveways off the road. In most cases, the houses, probably mansions, weren’t visible from the road as they were behind dense tree cover.

At one point, I checked Apple Maps again. It told me I’d walked a little farther along the road than the point where I was supposed to turn off. I hadn’t seen any cross streets, just the gated driveways. I walked back to where it said I was supposed to turn. There was no road.

By coincidence, a man walking a dog passed me there. I asked him if he knew how to get to Queen Adelaide’s Hill. He hadn’t heard of it, but, trying to help, asked me where it was. I showed him on the map, but he didn’t know how to get there. I thanked him and continued looking.

Then I spotted a very narrow, barely beaten path at the exact location where Apple Maps told me to turn. It led in the direction it told me to head. I walked along the path for a bit and checked Apple Maps again. It showed that I had indeed advanced along the route it wanted me to take. After a while, the path widened slightly and took me to a road going to Queen Adelaide’s Hill.

The hill is in a larger park with fields and a playground. Climbing up the hill took me to panoramic views of the surrounding mountains, trees and lake. It was gorgeous. And, only being able to accept limited quantities of beauty for fear that it might dull my curmudgeony edge, after taking in the views for a while, both standing and while sitting on a bench up there, I headed back to my hotel to end my day.