I couldn't believe how busy the Lake District was last weekend. Traffic jams all the way into Ambleside, full car parks by Lake Windermere and the noise of motorboats echoing around the valley as we crunch-crunched through the surrounding autumnal woods. Cumbria is supposedly suffering from a tourism crisis. But there was little evidence on our trip.

But when you ask locals about the situation, it soon becomes clear that the Lake District is, despite the crowds, still suffering great financial hardship, post-foot and mouth. The place is teeming with half-term families who are too scared to fly; day- trippers from Manchester and British walkers who postponed their spring holidays until autumn because the footpaths were closed then. But the high-rolling Americans (who are also too scared to fly) and Japanese (who are too recession-hit to spend) are almost nowhere to be seen.

You can see why overseas visitors are so important. A report in a local paper described the honesty of a taxi driver who returned a wallet with £1,000 in cash to its Japanese owner after finding it in the back of his cab. The driver would have been lucky to find £20 if it had been mine. Most domestic tourists are in a different spend ing league. The Lake District receives 4.5 million staying visitors a year and 19m day-trippers. Of those who book a hotel, just 240,000 come from overseas. But this small number stay longer and spend more than other visitors.

I was still puzzled by the crowds on the lakes and was relieved to hear that this was an unusually noisy time because the Windermere Powerboat Record Attempts were going on. Thankfully vehicles will be banned from going more than 10mph on Windermere after 2005. The authorities are giving boating businesses around the lake plenty of time to find other work. If visitors want traffic, many can get it at home thanks very much.

Of course, in true British holiday fashion, it rained for half the weekend so we decided to take refuge at the year-old Rheged centre near Penrith. It's an extremely commendable tourism project - all founded by locals using local materials, craftsmanship and labour. This means that the film - central to the whole project - depicting the history of Cumbria, is therefore not made in Hollywood. The film showcases the magnificent landscape of the area using gliding helicopter shots that make you feel like you're on a fairground ride.

But the acting (American twentysomething boy tracing his history meets big-boobed Gypsy woman in velvet dress in horse-drawn caravan) and storyline (blokes in fur rugs swinging axes all over the place) verge on embarrassing. Well, if you're aged eight or over anyway.

Driving in the hire car back to Windermere, the clouds parted and the crowds disappeared. They really should encourage people to use public transport and bicycles to get around more, my husband chirped in an eco-German sort of way.

But with a packed train and massive delays back to London (eight hours, 15 minutes from Windermere to south London - the journey going took half that time), he soon, like many others I suspect, changed his tune.