JUST a week ago today I was standing in a rainforest and thinking that we in Cumbria had missed a huge marketing opportunity.

It was claimed to be a forest wilderness, but it was teeming with people who had all paid a fistful of Australian dollars to walk its pathways and study hundreds of interpretive boards.

It was also bathed in sunshine and blazing hot.

"Rainforest?" I thought.

"They should see Grizedale - now that's a rainforest - the downpour hardly ever stops!"

It seems to me that Grizedale could equally be marketed as a Visit the rainforest experience and why not echo the Australian example of avoiding traffic in the pristine wilderness by installing a cable car access to the heart of the forest?

An initial exhilarating climb would whisk gondolas of tourists straight from Bowness Bay, up and over Claife Heights then across the hinterland to Grizedale, with stations to allow the curious to alight at Hill Top, the Beatrix Potter museum, and at Hawkshead for a quick tour of the gift shops.

It also seems strange to me that the Lake District National Park Authority has not copied the example of the Australian national parks people, who have a toll booth on just about every road into a park.

After all, if you have to pay for a pass to go into parks where any unwise step into the bushes is likely to bring you into conflict with a deadly snake or highly-poisonous spider, there would surely be little of objection from British tourists to paying a fee to go into the Lake District where the most serious danger is little more than the prospect of being bitten by a ravenous duck.

The Australians are also jealous of their flora and fauna, to such an extent that on incoming planes the passengers have to be sprayed with disinfectant to lessen the risk of insects or seeds spoiling the integrity of the local plants.

Rather two-faced I thought, as in the airport shop they were happily selling packets of Australian seeds for visitors to take back home and try in their own gardens.