Today was a short day-9 miles! Left Thorney How Youth Hostel after a proper English breakfast, walked along the road about a 1/2 mile before turning up the bridleway. We chose the less steep route along Tongue Gill to Grisedale Tarn (lake) where we could choose to ridge-walk along two spectacular crags -either Helvellyn or St. Sunday. Either would have been worth the view had we not walked too far along a ridge yesterday. We chose to take the long descent along Grisedale valley ending in Patterdale, the town we're staying in tonight. We stopped for a pint and dinner at the White Lion Inn before calling our B&B for a ride from town. Our B&B is in a 17th century farmhouse that is now a working sheep farm-3000 acres with 3000 head of sheep and 9 working Australian Kelpie dogs. The lady of the house also breeds dogs so it's busy out here!
Our walk was very pleasant today; made all the more pleasant by the perfect weather (very unusual here in the Lake District which experiences the most rainfall of any place in England) and the friends we've made along the way. The Australians - a husband & wife and her father, a mother and adult son from England, a woman from London (who's ending in 2 days), a man from the Manchester area who is following Wainwright's original diary, a man from Oxford who has walked most every path in England more than once, and 2 women from England who haven't walked together for 3 years. We've kept track of each other throughout the trip and were quite impressed to learn they were all worried about us yesterday when they didn't see us (because we took that expletive deleted upper path). It's also been good to share the different reference materials we've all brought; some provided by the tour operator and some purchased personally. Between us we've been able to stay on the path and get to our destination each day.
In Patterdale today we stopped at the Post Office/general store and bought a more detailed book and we each bought a copy of the Wainwright guide. We're being obnoxious Americans and having each of our new walking buddies sign the Guide as a souvenir of our time together. We'll post picures on our layover day next week. More tomorrow after our last mountain climb and 16 miles to Shap.
Been hot here might take water to the garden, sounds like a lot of fun being had by all, yes the experiences have been great and I cannot wait to hear the whole story yes page 2
ReplyDeleteYou three are amazing!
ReplyDeleteWould have loved to stay on the sheep farm....
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