It’s raining... we must be in the Lake District

Day 3 and I’m getting the hang of this walking lark. The routine is repetitive but reassuring - get up, repack, eat as much as you can for breakfast, set off....

Today saw the return of the Lake District weather that we all know and love: persistent drizzle, interspersed with the odd heavier shower. This meant that after a very steep ascent (if you have to use your hands, you’re climbing, right?), the decision to take the low road along the valley floor rather than walk along the ridge in the cloud was easily made. We continued to walk with Brian, Inge and Seung today and are becoming an easily recognisable little grouping as we make our way along the tracks and pathways.

We arrived into Grasmere around 1:30pm, soggy both inside and outside our wet weather gear. Fortunately Emma’s Dell came to the rescue with the offer of excellent coffee and crepes. 

After checking into my hostel up the hill and having a much needed shower, the rest of the afternoon was ours to enjoy. Although it did involve a very determined (on my part anyway) yet ultimately futile mission to find Mark a reasonably priced bed somewhere in town. Defeated, I had to come to terms with the fact that he would be spending the night out on the hillside - a fact that didn’t bother him in the slightest I hasten to add.

The arrival of Susannah, later than planned but still in time to join us for a delicious evening meal, served as a welcome distraction and meant that he avoided too many more entreaties from me to take extra care.

Mark set off into the dusk around 10 and Zan and I settled into our cosy room for the night. At least he humoured me by texting to say he was safe and hadn’t been eaten by dinosaurs! 

Tomorrow it’s Patterdale...

Day 3:
Walked: 33,862 steps (8 miles)
Stayed: Thorney How, Grasmere

Ate: Emma’s Dell (lunch) and Lancrigg Hotel (dinner)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Post watershed

Day 7 and, after a hug and a point in the right direction from Mark, I was on my way again - this time solo. This must have been exactly how Christopher Columbus felt when he set out to discover new worlds! I wonder if it was raining quite as much on him.  Dressing for a long walk when the forecast for the day is mixed is no mean feat and it’s probably no bad thing that no one else had to see me as I stripped off my wet weather gear later in the day only to find that you could still wring me out underneath it all! The big focus for today’s walk was to reach the Nine Standards Rigg which marks the point at which you cross the watershed of England and any rain that falls drains eastward to the North Sea instead of westward to the Irish Sea. Fortunately, I could just about make out the nine giant cairns through the mist but, as far as I could tell, the rain was still going nowhere other than running down my face and dripping off the end of my nose!  I struggled...
Read more

The ocean at the end of the lane

The three or four people reading this blog already know that I successfully completed the Coast to Coast Walk yesterday afternoon at around 1:40pm. Either because they were there to cheer me in and buy me the obligatory pint (thanks Mum and Dad) or because they have since been sent copious amounts of photo evidence. I dipped my boots in the North Sea, which must have added an extra 200 yards to my walk as the tide was fully out, and made a wish as I cast our pebbles carried from St. Bee’s beach into the water. How do I feel now that I’ve done it? I think it’s too soon to say. Perhaps more on that in a day or two. As Terry Marsh, the writer of the excellent guide that has accompanied me on this journey puts it: “success, in the final analysis, is a very personal thing. Few people will know of your triumph and most of those will think you are mad.” He also says, “There will have been bad days, almost certainly, when spirits were low, or feet and shoulders ached, or the p...
Read more

Lightning strikes

I spoke too soon about the brilliance of my friend rota. My friends, of course, remain brilliant but the rota is in tatters. A few bolts of lightning struck the East Coast mainline during Thursday night’s storm and the kind of transport chaos that only the UK specialises in predictably ensued. Poor Dan spent several hours at King Cross trying to move north but to no avail. So, I will be doing the last 6 days (instead of 5) on my own. But every (storm) cloud has a silver lining and the delays and cancellations also disrupted Liz’s journey home to Newcastle  meaning that we could spend more of my day off together. We walked the castle walls, ate ice cream down by the river and drank coffee on the market square. We also had the perfect start to the day visiting the stunning Millgate House garden. We were the only ones there and the overnight downpour had left everything smelling fresh and sparkling with raindrops.  Having seen Liz off on the bus back to Darlington, t...
Read more