I'm back after my two week staycation and fully rejuvenated. In the first week I spent a few days in Plymouth with my mum - there'll be more in my Sentence a Day post to be published on 6 October. For the second week, we drove the long distance to the Lake District, in the north of England.
This is a national park spanning 2,362 km² with a huge variety of terrain. There are 214 Wainwrights, fells or small mountains named after Alfred Wainwright who painstakingly documented and drew all of them in his famous guide books which many walkers still use.
We stayed first at a lovely hotel we've been visiting since 2012, the Borrowdale Gates. Many of the staff have been there for years and it's a very friendly, quiet and professionally run hotel with delicious food. Here's an example of one of my dinners (I rarely eat puddings). We choose from the menu over a drink and nuts in the bar, and then get shown to our table. Many of the tables overlook the charming garden.
There's no need to drive around once you're at the Borrowdale Gates. Many walks are accessible straight from the door. Our first walk was fairly strenuous, a fast ascent of Catbells and then along the ridge to High Spy and Maiden Moor. It was very windy at the top of Catbells. You can see how windy it was from the state of my hair.
Once we got out of the wind, it was quite pleasant. I'm still wearing my waterproof windcheater jacket though!
From Monday to Saturday, the weather was superb - sunny, around 22 degrees, which is perfect for walking, with endless blue skies. I was glad I had convertible trousers which turn into shorts.
One of my favourite walks, which we've done a few times is Haystacks, and Inominate Tarn, below, where Wainwright's ashes were scattered at his request.
There are wonderful views of the Buttermere Valley.
On this occasion we added Fleetwith Pike and it took a while to get to the summit because we meandered off the path. The descent made my heart sink a little - it was quite steep with rocky steps that twisted and turned. I had to use my famous "ass scrambling" technique occasionally.
Once we got to the bottom, we noticed a huge white cross on the side of the fell. This is in memory of a young woman called Fanny Mercer who fell to her death on the descent in 1887. A sobering moment of reflection.
We followed the long strenuous walks with a shorter one the next day, including a walk to Keswick along Derwentwater lake (top picture, where I posed like the Copenhagen mermaid) and an enjoyable scramble up small fells Latrigg and Walla Crag.
Another ridge walk that I loved bagged us four Wainwrights, Longside, Carlside, Ulloch Pike and Dodd, with a descent that was initially a bit sheer but levelled out after Dodd into a pine tree filled forest. Here I am coming up Longside, which was a long ascent, as its name suggests.
On Thursday we moved to a different hotel, the Glen Rothay at Rydal, near Ambleside (below). It has a pub attached to it called the Badger Bar, and badgers are fed every evening (and shown on their webcam).
Our room was very big with a four poster bed. The food was pub grub, nowhere near the standard of the previous hotel, and gave me a bit of a dilemma as I try to avoid bad carbs and pub fare like fish and chips and hamburgers. But in the end I just had to go with the flow, and I still managed to lose two pounds after the holiday which restored me to my pre-Covid weight.
One thing I wasn't happy about was the number of people who came into the Badger Bar from the beer garden to use the lavatories, without wearing face coverings. At the previous hotel the rules were very strict: you wore masks everywhere in the hotel except at your table (and in your room obviously), and the staff wore visors when serving us. The fact that everyone abandoned their masks in the second place gave me an idea of why some of the north of England has had to go into "special measures" for the last few weeks.
On the last day, I had a rest day and explored Grasmere and Windermere. John did a very challenging walk that bagged him eight Wainwrights, the Fairfield Horseshoe. He was down by 3.15 but had I been with him, we probably would have needed an extra hour or two.
All in all, a fantastic break, and how lucky were we with the weather!
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It's back! The #WowOnWednesday link up featuring posts on fashion, beauty, travel and fitness.
The most clicked posts in the last link-up were from Anna from Looking Fabulous@ Fifty and Iris from La Mousmous.
Anna's post An Ode to Pink celebrated one of my favourite colours. Here's Anna in a fab pink coat.
Iris's post "
5 Reasons Why I Love My Adidas Supernova Running Shoes" also inspired you. I've recently bought two pairs of training shoes, otherwise I would be looking to acquire the pretty pair that Iris features, below.
As much as I love Sussex, I think we really should visit the lake district once. It looks amazing! And scallops!!!! Love them. The first hotel really sounds like a good place.
ReplyDeleteYour holiday sounds truly amazing: yummy food, beautiful hikes... glad you were able to do this!
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