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Day 1: Along Ullswater to Place Fell Day 2: Scout Scar and Sizergh Castle Day 3: The Old Man of Coniston Day 4: High Spy Day 5: Grizedale Forest Day 6: Langdale Pikes

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Sunday 15th March 2009

 

The Day Before

As journeys go, it was a fairly standard one with only two bits of slow traffic and two idiots who drove extremely close at 70mph to bully me out of their way (who should be given a month's ban on driving for doing that as a first offence - harsh but fair!) We left Pontardawe in Swansea at 8:50am and arrived at Heaves Estate in Cumbria at 3:50pm. We stopped for lunch and coffee north of Birmingham and then a short time later at Ikea in Warrington near Manchester. I needed to buy some spotlights that would clamp onto my craft fair display and Ikea had a good selection. I had checked on the internet which said they had eleven in stock of the one I wanted, so I was rather disappointed to find they only had one on the shelf. But, as often happens, I ended up buying a far better one (well, four!) - an LED spotlight that is nice, compact and bright. The self-catering cottage (Grooms Cottage on the Heaves Country Estate near Kendal) we'd booked turned out to be very nice, just a short distance from the Lake District National Park and therefore much cheaper than staying in the park itself.

 

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It was inevitable

Willow had slept all day on the journey, so we were very happy that she slept all night too! Pretty good seeing as she was in a strange cot in a strange bedroom in a strange house in a strange county and indeed a strange country! Paula went downstairs with her at 5:30am when she woke for the day and I had a rare lie-in until 7am! I got up when Willow suddenly cried very hard - she had tripped, head-butted the stone hearth and given herself a nice bump on the head. She soon recovered (within a minute) as she always does. After breakfast she was a little teasy but we were getting ready, so didn’t pick her up. She then went to the fire place, bent down and carefully touched her head to the stone hearth, sat up and looked at us to pick her up as she'd just "banged her head". She's getting crafty in her old age!

 

We were originally planning to have a short walk from Kendal, but the weather was clear so we changed it to a walk from Patterdale along the shore of Ullswater and back across the top of Place Fell. We left in good time and after thirty minutes drive arrived in Patterdale. We paid the rather steep £3.50 parking charge (we're used to free parking in Pontardawe and Swansea), kitted up and left. The weather was warm, humid and slightly close and we both had a headache. The first part of the walk was up a farm track, through a farm yard and between farm buildings. Normally I avoid walks that go through farms as I hate walking through people's property like that and, more importantly, farms normally have savage dogs waiting to brutally sink their teeth into innocent walkers' arms and legs. However, I had camped at Side Farm a few years ago and knew it was OK, as indeed it was. We were soon onto the bridle path that runs along Ullswater from Patterdale to Beckside and Sandwick. The sun was shining lightly and the lake looked rather picturesque with Glenridding in the distance, so I took the first photo of the holiday.

We couldn't quite see Helvellyn, but when we did we could see the side we'd climbed still had quite a lot of snow on it. The people who were behind us had caught us up and started to have a chat. They lived in Kentmere, the next valley over, and were walking to "Heck Beck" to survey a site that might be an Iron Age settlement and ford. It wasn't documented, but the location and some stones looked about right. Paula has a degree in archaeology, so they were able to talk the same language. I did what I'm happy to do, which is listen to other people talk rather than join in. The conversation went on for a kilometre or so until I wanted to take a photo from an outcrop and they wanted to press on to their site. They bid farewell and were soon in the distance.

The walk along the lake shore is one of those walks which seems to go on and on. After a while we came to a short uphill stretch at the top of which we stopped for a snack of bananas. We woke Willow, who had dozed off shortly after we started, and ate. Willow seemed to be particularly hungry, as she devoured her banana and half of Paula's and they were rather large too! Mind you, she did seem to shove as much as she could into her mouth in one go!

Heavy baby!

I took over carrying Willow; I could immediately tell why Paula had been slow on the hill - Willow was heavy! However, the recent trips to the gym and swimming pool paid off and I carried her for the rest of the day. Willow decided to stay awake this time. The path carried on along the lake for a while before starting to head inland by Scalehow Wood. After a footbridge over Scalehow Beck, we turned up hill. It was a steep climb, cutting off a longer walk along the actual path, although we didn't realise it at the time as it was obviously a much used shortcut. As so often happens, the sun came out just when we didn’t want it to, as we were walking uphill into the sun. I waited for Paula to catch up and took a photo (she was carrying the bag with my camera in it).

Lunch Quarry

Willow was rather teasy whilst I was taking the photo and it was nearly lunch time, so we checked the map and saw there was a quarry in approximately a kilometre. It was uphill all the way, but we soon reached it and it turned out to be the perfect place for some lunch as it was completely sheltered with a nice view. Willow was happy to be out of the rucksack and to be eating again.

She enjoyed the freedom and looking at the small waterfall at the end of the quarry, but it was soon time to move again. She screamed when we put her in the rucksack, but as soon as I put her on my shoulders, she fell asleep! She normally has a sleep at or just after lunch, so it wasn't unexpected. As we started walking, still uphill, I was suffering from the after-lunch-whilst-on-a-walk-malaise and my legs struggled for a while. But that soon passed and we turned a corner and then saw the steep section and a lot more people. As we started to ascend, the hill in the other valley suddenly appeared to have another valley between us and it.

Stopping to admire the view and take a photo is a great excuse to stop climbing and have a rest, so I did just that! We were the only ones going up; everyone else was going down.

Place Fell

It started to get colder and windier the higher we went and I was glad of the woolly hat I'd bought. Willow, had she been awake, would have been glad we'd put her rain/wind cover over her when we left the lunch quarry. The sun came out again, so I took advantage of it (and the opportunity to have a rest) and took a photo of a small puddle below Hart Crag.

The summit of Place Fell was in reach now, although unlike most other people, we took the path just under the summit rather than climb to the summit itself. We're not really into peak-bagging and are probably among the select few who didn't go to the summit. We didn’t hang around as it was rather breezy, although when the sun peaked out, I took a photo of the summit.

We walked across Place Fell, passing under the summit of Round How, and started our descent. The path had been recently repaired and was made of rough gravel; it should probably have been steps because it was so steep it was almost impossible to walk on! But we managed it and made it to Boredale Hause, where the path started to descend into Patterdale, offering us lovely views of the valley below where the car was.

Back to Patterdale

My legs were starting to feel the exertion I'd put them through, but it wasn't long before we were walking along the Side Farm track and back to the car. Willow finally woke up when we took her out of the rucksack and sat her in the boot (well, it's safer than letting her walk around the busy car park!) so she could have an afternoon snack of naturally-sweetened-with-grape-juice biscuits. We drove back towards Windermere following a couple of cars who were going 35-40mph in the 60mph limit (annoying) and then were doing 35-40mph in the 30mph limit (silly). Coming out of Windermere, we got caught up in the traffic going home and were stop-start driving for a few miles. It must be a complete nightmare in the summer, this being only March!

 

Back at the cottage, we had a tea of baked potato with baked beans and tuna mayo, watched Time Team, bathed Willow and went to bed.

 

<< Previous

Day 1: Along Ullswater to Place Fell Day 2: Scout Scar and Sizergh Castle Day 3: The Old Man of Coniston Day 4: High Spy Day 5: Grizedale Forest Day 6: Langdale Pikes

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