On Wednesday 19th of September we woke early, showered, filled our bellies with food, filled our backpacks with more food and set off across the fields outside Coniston village. We crossed to the woods on the other side of the A593 and picked our way along the exceedingly muddy footpath to the common above. Avoiding sheep poo, large cow pats and boggy patches, we climbed slowly up the hill. We’re not sure if we did take the right track, but we ended up finding a stream and some other walkers heading out of Torver, to walk to the top of the Old Man of Coniston. By the time we reached the Goat’s Water Tarn we were getting hungry, so we found a nice rock above the lake to sit and eat our sandwiches, before the next rain shower started.
We continued the final steep slog up to Goat’s Hawse and then on up to the top. Unfortunately, just as we could finally see the peak, the black clouds came over again and a horrible stinging hail storm hit us from behind. The tiny beads of hail were bouncing off our rain jackets and really did sting if you turned and faced them. Lots of other walkers were sheltering behind the cairn on the summit but, sadly for us, there wasn’t any space for us, so we had a good laugh about how we had now definitely encountered everything the Lake District could throw at us, weatherwise, and waited for the storm to pass before heading back down.
The walk back down took us via a couple of old slate and copper quarries, past Low Water Tarn and finally back down to the car park above Coniston. I was really pleased we had made it to the top and the old knees were still holding out well. Problem now was, we had no car in the car park and still had to get back to the camp site. As we were already wet and muddy, we decided not to bother walking down the road in to Coniston, but to strike south across the fields again to get back to our campsite. As it turned out, it would have been quicker and easier to take the longer route, but we made it and by the time we got back to Eileen we had been walking for over seven hours. We were both exceedingly tired and my knees were now really aching, but we scrubbed up okay the next day, if a bit stiff in the legs.
Thursday, as expected, turned out to be another thoroughly wet day, so we left the campsite and drove south through Ulverston down to Rampside and Roa Island for lovely views across to Piel Island and the southern tip of the Isle of Walney.
Despite the rain we could just make out the coastline on the other side of Morecombe Bay, but it wasn’t worth hanging around in such awful weather. We decided to strike north and check in to our next campsite at Ravenglass on the west coast. We wanted to have a wander around the village, but the rain wouldn’t let up, so we got some washing done and then walked down to The Ratty Pub for dinner. There was nothing ratty about the pub and the meals were huge, I think I had a whole shoulder of lamb on my plate!!! We shuffled back to Eileen in the dark and rain, hoping the weather would be better tomorrow.
Which it was! Most of the rain had cleared away and after a very slow start to the day, we did go for a wander around the village and beach, up to the remains of a roman bath house and some lovely views over the estuary.
We finished the day with cottage pie and veggies and a walk down to the waterfront to watch the sunset.
And the good sunset proved to be correct, the next day was a good dry day; our first day in ages with not a drop of rain.
We strolled round to the Turntable Café for a bacon bap and then hopped on to the 10:30am departure on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Steam Railway. It is one of the oldest and longest narrow-gauge railways in the world and the trains and carriages are absolutely tiny.
We travelled across the estuary, up through woods, past fields of sheep, seven miles of 15-inch track to 210 ft above sea level at Dalegarth Station, which is between Beckfoot and Boot, a lovely forty minute ride. We wandered up to Boot and across to St Catherine’s Church then struck uphill. We hopped across streams and huge muddy puddles and found ourselves gazing across the Eskdale Valley towards the Scafell Range, England’s highest mountains. We were surrounded by peaks and rolling hills, and with the bracken turning brown and the grass so lushly green, the views were a patchwork of colour.
We found a different route back, with views of a lovely waterfall, to the Dalegarth train station. We had a bite to eat, finished off with an apple crumble flavoured ice cream for Rodney and my choice was a tiger stripe, which was chocolate, vanilla and mandarin….mmmm; both were delicious. Then we caught the 3:30pm train back down to Ravenglass; it were a grand day out……ee smashing.
For the keen steam train fans, we travelled up on the “Northern Rock” built in 1976 and travelled back on the “River Irt” built in 1894 and the oldest working 15” gauge locomotive in the world.
On Sunday morning, we left the campsite with the best showers so far; hope the next one has a bathroom just as good. We drove up to the next valley, to Wasdale, and stopped on the way to take in the beautiful views over Wastwater.
Rodney gazed up at Scafell, but decided there really wasn’t the time to walk up to the top, so we continued north through Egremont, hoping to drive across to Loweswater. Unfortunately, every right turn we took had 6’6” width restrictions and Eileen is 7’2” without counting her wing mirrors. So we drove all the way up to Cockermouth and then took the B5289 south down past Crummock Water to Buttermere. From here, we had hoped to continue on over the Honister Pass to Borrowdale, but again the width restrictions beat us, so we drove back past Crummock Water and over the slightly lower and definitely wider, Whinlatter Pass to Keswick. As time was getting on by now, we passed Keswick deciding we would save that treat for tomorrow. Instead we drove on to Hutton Moor End campsite, near Troutbeck, and gave Eileen a bit of a clean inside before settling in for the evening. The clouds were starting to build and the weather report for tomorrow sounded pretty bad, so we cooked up some smoked salmon with veggies and listened to Radio 4 on a Sunday evening (yes, Sue, that included the Archers……!) Tomorrow I may also give in and purchase some wellies…..
We woke up to a weather report which included words like, blustery, gales, a months worth of rain in four days, etc. and weatherwise, it really was a horrible day. Unfortunately, the same is forecast for tomorrow. Dang! So after cooking up black pudding and mushrooms on toast for breakfast, we holed up inside Eileen while the wind, the rain and the chilly weather blew around outside and we read yesterday’s papers. At lunch time, we drove in to Keswick for our big outing for the day, a visit to the Cumberland Pencil Museum. We heard about the place years ago and we had high expectations of grand excitement.
It turned out to be very good and very interesting and my main discovery was that there is no lead in yer pencils and never has been! I knew it was graphite nowadays, but I thought that that was a new(ish) change for health reasons, but no, it’s always been graphite. Well there ya go…. We looked at the World’s largest pencil hanging on a wall. Best place, I guess, because you wouldn’t be able to actually use it. There was also a pencil developed in World War II which had a little tissue paper map rolled up inside and a tiny compass hidden under the eraser and amazingly, in this day and age, they had great difficulty recreating one. We watched the movie “The Snowman” from the book of the same name by Raymond Briggs; all the drawings for the book were done with Cumberland Pencils. And the whole experience has inspired me to get the pencils out and get back to some drawing. Maybe if it’s going to rain again all day tomorrow, I’ll start then and as we were given two free pencils, on entry to the museum, I have no excuse……
The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around the shops in Keswick, all of which seem to be outdoor gear stores. I bought some thick socks and finally did buy some wellies. They’re not smart or stylish, but then wellies shouldn’t be and the adult ones are all too big for me anyway. So these will keep my feet and ankles warm whilst wading around in this weather, and I’m hoping that, having finally bought some, the weather will now improve. Hoping like crazy!!! “There’s a crack, there’s always a crack where the light gets in”.
