I'm having my parents' holiday

Lake Windermere, where they enjoy boats

Somewhere in between cruising Lake Windermere and wandering around quaint shops in the Lake District on the third day of my UK Contiki tour, the thought struck me: I was having the kind of holiday my parents would dream of.

I'd been on more cruises and boats in the past few weeks than in the past few years - something my Dad would love. I'd pottered around cute little shops and quaint little stores selling cute and quaint and country-ish things - something my Mum thoroughly enjoys. The countryside was always green, the roads were often winding and fairly quiet, the pace of the trip was gentle and steady, and the weather was neither hot nor humid.

It struck me while I was sitting in a boat on the middle of Lake Windermere that this particular cruise couldn't be further from those I'd experienced in Europe. In Amsterdam and Lucerne there were free drinks, upbeat music, plenty of opportunity to mingle and socialise with everyone else, and fascinating sights as the boat made its way through the water.

In England, we all sat down quietly in our seats and watched misty green hills drift past the windows while our captain kept up a running factual commentary of the locations we were passing. The drinks included coffee and tea - and the coffee was dreadful.

When we arrived back on shore in Bowness-on-Windermere, I expressed a desire to have a traditional English afternoon tea involving scones. Thankfully there were a few others who shared this desire, and the very British Lake District (where we also visited the official Peter Rabbit / Beatrix Potter shop) seemed like a good place for indulging. Four of us found a small cafe and ordered our food.

And then we waited.

And waited.

We watched as the time crept ever closer to when we had to be back on the coach.

We waited, and began to stress.

At last, with ten minutes until departure time, our plates arrived: two pieces of cake, an enormous scone with jam and cream on the side, a sandwich cut into small triangles, and a pot of tea or coffee. We launched ourselves into the food without abandon. There was no elegance or class, just the rapid consumption of as much as we could shovel down in five minutes. We requested paper bags and took the remainder with us, frantically munching scones and cakes as we rushed back to the coach, which we made with only a minute or two to spare.

Our next stop was the town of Keswick, further north in the Lake District. Some of the group went to do a high ropes course, but as I stared at the rain dripping steadily from the sky and felt the chill of the outdoors, I felt glad I'd opted out of what promised to be a wet and muddy couple of hours. Instead, us sensible types were taken into town and left to wander for several hours.

It was during this time that I finally obtained gumboots (or Wellingtons, as they're called in the UK). A nice black pair with purple soles and a smattering of polka dots all over the outsides. I knew that they also shouted "TOURIST!" louder than my Aussie accent as I walked through the town, but I didn't care. My feet were dry and the boots were only 20 pounds.

It seemed like good food was the theme of the day, as we found a cozy cafe selling strawberry kebabs dipped in melted Belgian chocolate. It was amazing, and I was also heartened to experience the best coffee I'd had so far in the country. Afterwards we all met at a pub (of course) with some who had done the high ropes course, where we had dinner before being taken to our accommodation for the night in a place called Shap: a hotel situated, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere. In the centre of a field. With sheep. In the surrounding field.

Quiet, secluded accommodation in the middle of nowhere? That's another tick in the Parents' Holiday box.