Day 3 in the Lakes

Having had a sudden surge in visitors (thanks to www.outdoorbloggers.com and walkaboutuk.blogspot.com) I was today reading back through what I’ve written before. What I noticed was that when I started this I managed to be really disciplined with brevity. Somehow lately I’ve slipped back to waffle. I must make a bigger effort.

So, back to last week; last Monday to be precise. The day dawned cold, wet and windy (with a big emphasis on wet). Our plan had been to backpack over to Wasdale, and had we not had a big tent and a car at our disposal, we would have gone ahead with that plan without batting much of an eyelid at the weather. However, this was our summer holiday, we had luxuries with us and thus we declared the day to be a lazy one and postponed our trip to Wasdale until Tuesday.

So, Monday became a day that was filled with reading, lazing and a trip into Ambleside to drool at the gearshops. With remarkable restraint, we left Ambleside without any purchases having been made and went for a drive over to Patterdale (‘going for a drive’ – that’s something that we don’t do; it was quite a novelty).

Tuesday was a fine day, but Husband’s knee was not fine. The walk over to Wasdale was reluctantly abandoned, so instead we packed everything away and headed over Wrynose and Hardknott Passes to reach Wasdale by road.

We have intended to visit Wasdale Head repeatedly over the last 4 years. Somehow, we’ve never quite made it. So, can you believe that on the day we finally got around to it, the road was closed for resurfacing? We arrived at 11am to be told that the road would re-open at 3.30pm for half an hour. Four and a half hours to kill without the ability to walk up hills (although to be precise the poorly knee was just fine going up hills, it’s the downhill that causes the problem).

Of course, we did manage to fill the time, split between a walk in the valley and a sojourn in a pub.

Having surveyed the options, we opted for the NT campsite, and what a fine view of Scafell Pike we had. Indeed, in the settled weather, we had a fine view of all of the tops.

The day was rounded off with the short stroll up to the Inn, which turned out to be what I expect such an Inn to be.

With the midges biting by the time we returned to the tent, we soon battened down the hatches looking forward to the good weather to continue on Wednesday, as forecast.

It’s a pity that forecasts are so often wrong, isn’t it?

To be continued…