Listen for booming bitterns from the reedbed hides in spring

Look for bearded tits on the grit trays in autumn

Watch marsh harriers quartering the reeds

Walk over to the saltmarsh hides on the bay side

Leighton Moss, behind Morecambe Bay, is an RSPB reserve known for its breeding bitterns, marsh harriers and bearded tits, with otters and red deer in the reeds; six booming male bitterns were counted in 2021. The RSPB also protects a stretch of Morecambe Bay saltmarsh here where avocets feed. In spring the booming carries across the reedbed, a sound like blowing over the top of a bottle.

Leighton Moss: Bitterns in the Biggest Reedbed in the North-West

Morecambe Bay and Leighton Moss

Liverpool

Nine nights in a loop from Liverpool: the bitterns of Leighton Moss, Windermere, Coniston and Hill Top, Catbells above Derwentwater, the Ullswater steamers, then Wensleydale cheese and Malham Cove in the Dales.

The Lakes and the Dales from Liverpool

Holyhead

Thirteen nights in a loop from Holyhead: walled Conwy, then Hill Top, the Ullswater steamers and Catbells in the Lakes, Malham Cove and Ribblehead in the Dales, and Castleton's caverns in the Peak.

The Lakes, the Dales and the Peak from Holyhead

Walk across Morecambe Bay from Arnside to Kents Bank with the King's Guide to the Sands

Watch the tide come in at the Arnside Viaduct, where the bore runs up the Kent

Crossing the sands of Morecambe Bay is an ancient and dangerous route, and a royally appointed guide leads people over: the King's Guide to the Sands, Queen's Guide in a queen's reign. Cedric Robinson held the post from 1963 to 2019, and Michael Wilson, a local fisherman, succeeded him; the guide is paid £20 a year and has the use of the Guide's Cottage at Kents Bank. Walks go about once a fortnight from spring to autumn, usually from Arnside over to Kents Bank, fording the River Kent on the way. At Arnside the railway crosses the Kent on its viaduct of 1857, where the tidal bore comes up the estuary.

Morecambe Bay: Walking the Sands With the King's Guide

Strike the Eric Morecambe pose beside his statue on the prom

Walk the Stone Jetty and find the Time and Tide Bell beside it, which rings around high tide

See the Winter Gardens, the old Victoria Pavilion

Morecambe grew out of the fishing village of Poulton-le-Sands after the Morecambe Harbour and Railway Company was formed in 1846 to build a harbour and railway there, and the seafront still has the shape of a Victorian resort with the whole Lakeland skyline across the water. Graham Ibbeson's bronze of Eric Morecambe, born here in 1926, was unveiled by the Queen in July 1999 and stands looking out over the bay. Beside the Stone Jetty, a Time and Tide Bell by Marcus Vergette was installed in 2019 and is rung by the sea itself.

Morecambe: Eric, the Winter Gardens and the Time and Tide Bell

Tour Lancaster Castle, where the Pendle witches were tried in 1612, and its Georgian Crown Court

Climb to the Ashton Memorial in Williamson Park

Walk Morecambe promenade and find the Eric Morecambe statue

Look across Morecambe Bay to the Lakeland fells

Lancaster Castle was first used as a prison in 1196 and was a prison again as recently as 2011, which is why so little of it has ever been dug: the Pendle witches were tried here in 1612 and hanged on the moor above. On the hill behind, the Ashton Memorial stands over Williamson Park, and Morecambe looks out across the bay to the Lakeland fells with Eric Morecambe in bronze on the promenade.

Lancaster and Morecambe: The Witch Trials and the Bay

Walk up to the ruins of Kendal Castle above the Kent

Buy a bar of Kendal Mint Cake in the town that invented it

Kendal's grey limestone buildings gave it the name the Auld Grey Town, and its high street still has the narrow yards running off it that were laid out for a chartered market town. The castle on the drumlin above, built in the 13th century and later owned by the Parr family, is now a ruin, and the town is the home of Kendal Mint Cake, carried up mountains ever since.

Kendal: The Auld Grey Town, Its Castle and Its Mint Cake

Go through Hill Top at Near Sawrey, kept as Beatrix Potter left it

Browse Tabitha Twitchit's Bookshop in William Heelis's old solicitor's office in Hawkshead

Walk the alleys of Hawkshead and see the grammar school Wordsworth attended

Walk round Esthwaite Water between the two villages

Beatrix Potter owned the 17th-century farmhouse of Hill Top at Near Sawrey and left it to the National Trust; it is shown as she herself would have known it, with the garden kept in the style of her illustrations. Two miles north, Hawkshead is a village of whitewashed alleys where Wordsworth went to grammar school, and her husband William Heelis's old solicitor's office, the Beatrix Potter Gallery until 2022, is now Tabitha Twitchit's Bookshop.

Hawkshead and Hill Top: Beatrix Potter's Farm

Take a cruise on Windermere, the largest lake in England

Kayak or paddleboard on the lake from Bowness

Climb Orrest Head above Windermere, the first fell Wainwright ever climbed, for the view that started him

Work out why Windermere is not really a mere, despite its name

Windermere is the largest lake in England by length, area and volume — 10.5 miles from Lakeside, 11.23 if you count from Newby Bridge, a mile across at its widest and 64 metres deep. It was Winander Mere until at least the 19th century, and despite the 'mere' it is not one: a mere is broad and shallow, and Windermere is deep enough to have a thermocline. Above the town of Windermere is Orrest Head, the first fell Alfred Wainwright ever climbed — 'our first ascent in Lakeland, our first sight of mountains in tumultuous array across glittering waters, our awakening to beauty.'

Windermere: England's Longest Lake

Take the boat from Poole Quay or Sandbanks to the island

Walk the woods and find the red squirrels

Watch avocets and terns on the lagoon from the hide

Find the stone marking Baden-Powell's 1907 camp

Brownsea is the largest island in Poole Harbour and one of the few places in southern England with red squirrels, kept safe by the water. Robert Baden-Powell ran his experimental camp here in 1907, the start of Scouting, and the lagoon on the north shore holds avocets and terns.

Brownsea Island: Red Squirrels and the First Scout Camp

Watch the seal pups from the viewing fence in November

Listen to the bulls calling across the dunes

Grey seals come ashore at Donna Nook between October and December to give birth on the sand and in the dunes, within a few metres of a fenced public viewing area — more than 2,000 pups are born there each year. The Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust asks visitors to stay behind the fence, because disturbance kills pups.