{"id":1078,"date":"2012-09-25T12:05:47","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T11:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/?p=1078"},"modified":"2025-11-23T06:32:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T06:32:55","slug":"the-old-man-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/2012\/09\/25\/the-old-man-and-more\/","title":{"rendered":"The Old Man and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Wednesday 19th<\/sup> 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Avoiding sheep poo, large cow pats and boggy patches, we climbed slowly up the hill.\u00a0 We\u2019re 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.\u00a0 By the time we reached the Goat\u2019s Water Tarn we were getting hungry, so we found a nice rock above\u00a0the lake\u00a0to sit and eat our sandwiches, before the next rain shower started.<\/p>\n

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Contemplating the walk ahead<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Heading up the Old Man of Coniston<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We continued the final steep slog up to Goat\u2019s Hawse and then on up to the top.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The tiny beads of hail were bouncing off our rain jackets and really did sting if you turned and faced them.\u00a0 Lots of other walkers were sheltering behind the cairn on the summit\u00a0but, sadly for us, there\u00a0wasn\u2019t any\u00a0space 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.<\/p>\n

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Goat’s Water Tarn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Near the top of the Old Man of Coniston<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 I was really pleased we had made it to the top and the old knees were still holding out well.\u00a0 Problem now was, we had no car in the car park and still had to get back to the camp site.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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\u00a0over seven\u00a0hours.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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Low Water Tarn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Old mine on the walk back down towards Coniston<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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Piel Island from Roa Island, Cumbria<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Despite the rain we could just make out the coastline on the other side of Morecombe Bay, but it wasn\u2019t worth hanging around in such awful weather.\u00a0 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\u2019t let up, so we got some washing done and then walked down to The Ratty Pub for dinner.\u00a0 There was nothing ratty about the pub and the meals were huge, I think I had a whole shoulder of lamb on my plate!!!\u00a0 We shuffled back to Eileen in the dark and rain, hoping the weather would be better tomorrow.<\/p>\n

Which it was!\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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Ravenglass Estuary<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Washing lines and old anchor on Ravenglass beach<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We finished the day with cottage pie and veggies and a walk down to the waterfront to watch the sunset.<\/p>\n

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Sunset at Ravenglass<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We strolled round to the Turntable Caf\u00e9 for a bacon bap and then hopped on to the 10:30am departure on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Steam Railway.\u00a0 It is one of the oldest and longest narrow-gauge railways in the world and the trains and carriages are absolutely tiny.<\/p>\n

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The Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We travelled across the estuary, up through woods, past fields of sheep,\u00a0seven miles of 15-inch track to 210 ft above sea level\u00a0at Dalegarth Station, which is between Beckfoot and Boot, a lovely\u00a0forty minute ride.\u00a0 We wandered up to Boot and across to St Catherine\u2019s Church then struck uphill.\u00a0 We hopped across streams and huge muddy puddles and found ourselves gazing across the Eskdale Valley towards the Scafell Range, England\u2019s highest mountains.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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Towards Scafell<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

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Eskdale<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We found a different route back, with views of a lovely waterfall, to the Dalegarth train station.\u00a0 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\u2026.mmmm; both were delicious. \u00a0Then we caught the 3:30pm train back down to Ravenglass; it were a grand day out\u2026\u2026ee smashing.<\/p>\n

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Laura squished into a tiny carriage on the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

For the keen steam train fans, we travelled up on the \u201cNorthern Rock\u201d built in 1976 and travelled back on the \u201cRiver Irt\u201d built in 1894 and the oldest working 15\u201d gauge locomotive in the world.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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The Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

On Sunday morning, we left the campsite with the best showers so far; hope the next one has a bathroom just as good.\u00a0 We drove up to the next valley, to Wasdale, and stopped on the way to take in the beautiful views over Wastwater.<\/p>\n

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Eileen at Wastwater<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rodney gazed up at Scafell, but decided there really wasn\u2019t the time to walk up to the top, so we continued north through Egremont, hoping to drive across to Loweswater.\u00a0 Unfortunately, every right turn we took had 6\u20196\u201d width restrictions and Eileen is 7\u20192\u201d without counting her wing mirrors.\u00a0 So we drove all the way up to Cockermouth and then took the B5289 south down past Crummock Water to Buttermere.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 As time was getting on by now, we passed Keswick deciding we would save that treat for tomorrow.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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\u2026\u2026!)\u00a0 Tomorrow I may also give in and purchase some wellies…..<\/p>\n

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Buttermere<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

We woke up to a weather report which included words like, blustery, gales, a months worth of rain in\u00a0four days, etc. and weatherwise, it really was a horrible day. Unfortunately, the same is forecast for tomorrow. Dang!\u00a0 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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!\u00a0 I knew it was graphite nowadays, but I thought that that was a new(ish) change for health reasons, but no, it\u2019s always been graphite.\u00a0 Well there ya go\u2026.\u00a0 We looked at the World\u2019s largest pencil hanging on a wall.\u00a0 Best place, I guess, because you wouldn\u2019t be able to actually use it. \u00a0There 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.\u00a0 We watched the movie \u201cThe Snowman\u201d from the book of the same name by Raymond Briggs; all the drawings for the book were done with Cumberland Pencils.\u00a0 And the whole experience has inspired me to get the pencils out and get back to some drawing. Maybe if it\u2019s going to rain again all day tomorrow, I\u2019ll start then and as we were given two free pencils, on entry to the museum, I have no excuse\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around the shops in Keswick, all of which seem to be outdoor gear stores.\u00a0 I bought some thick socks and finally did buy some wellies.\u00a0 They\u2019re not smart or stylish, but then wellies shouldn\u2019t be and the adult ones are all too big for me anyway.\u00a0 So these will keep my feet and ankles warm whilst wading around in this weather, and I\u2019m hoping that, having finally bought some, the weather will now improve.\u00a0 Hoping like crazy!!!\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThere\u2019s a crack, there\u2019s always a crack where the light gets in\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The new wellies and Cumberland pencils …..!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Avoiding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-the-road-in-great-britain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8188,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1078\/revisions\/8188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.petersphotogallery.com\/rodneyandlaura\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}