Miss Potter

Do you remember Peter Rabbit? With the cute little blue jacket? I loved those stories--you know, according to Wikipedia Peter Rabbit sold over 45 million copies, making it one of the best-selling books of all time; yeah, pretty dang awesome!---so I decided to take an afternoon to live the stories myself! Of course, much easier said than done.

"Let's go to Miss Potter's house."

"We're exhausted and so not in the mood for hiking, so this better be short. How do we get there?"

"Oh don't worry! It's just like a short stroll through the park. Take the big ferry, then switch to the little ferry, then just around the corner is Hill Top House."

Sounds easy enough, right? I thought so too--I have a new understanding of the "scenic route," especially when it's the only route--but it was breathtakingly beautiful!

View from the first ferry ride

The first ferry was great--wonderful view, awesome tour, all pumped to start our literary adventure. Then we got off to switch to the smaller ferry... but the great question was, where the heck is the small ferry??? Yeah, not exactly a hop, skip, and a jump away... and the next ferry trip was most reassuring...

Huh, not sure how to take that--but at least we made it the first time around. So now just around the corner, right? Well, up the hill we go.

Beautiful, of course.

Random ruins of some sort--not sure why, but for a few moments I felt like I was in Lord of the Rings as I stood here. How I went from Rabbits to Hobbits I'm not quite sure, but certainly not complaining. I like variety.

Okay, already it's been much more than "right around the corner," but at least the scenery is was worth the trip, and it appears that we're going in the right direction.

Up, up, up the hill we go.

At this point I was feeling pretty lost, not gonna lie--we had been hiking (not exactly the nice stroll I had planned for) for far too long, even if it was really pretty--and this guy wasn't making me feel any better.

But the adorable country church was comforting--one of my favorite scenes of the day--just peaceful and beautiful.

and we walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked, and walked,

Of course the ominous rain clouds weren't helping either.

I did enjoy the random fields of flowers though.

And seriously, have you ever seen anything this green? It's ridiculously beautiful.

The sheepees! :) I loved loved LOVED the sheep--don't ask why, but seriously, look at them--how could you not love them? I was living out my childhood James Harriet dreams, right here in the awe-inspiring English countryside. I could live here forever.

Hey, some civilization--that's a good sign, right?

Oh my word we made it! Several hours later, tired, and not quite sure how we were going to get home for dinner, but we made it--and saw the entire countryside first hand to boot. Can't beat that. Hill Top House was pretty cute too--very lovely and quaint--we finally got to take our "stroll" even--through the gardens of Peter Rabbit! :)

Any sign of Flopsy, Mopsy, or Cottontail? For reals--there were bunnies in this garden! So cool! It totally had to be Peter and his family.

Watch out for Mr. McGregor!

And here it is--the long awaited Hill Top House. Yup, that's me--standing in the doorway of Miss Potter's Peter Rabbit world. Dang straight.

The best part of the whole adventure?--besides the amazing adventureness of it all of course--we discovered a bus that drove from the ferry to the house and back. It was a five minute bus ride, no joke. Now THAT made my day. :P