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The Morning

So the first full day of our week in Grasmere. Time to go and investigate the hotel breakfast. It consisted of fairly typical hotel options. There was a table full of cereals and fruit, and from the kitchen, they supplied cooked breakfasts with copious amounts of toast and coffee. It was good except, as we discovered on subsequent days, taking one or two things off the full breakfast didn’t mean you got more of the other things. Anyway, it was a “tester” session, so we tested.

We’d decided the previous day to split up in the morning. Ami wanted to walk up a hill. Izzy didn’t. Not a big one, anyway. So Kas took Ami in one direction and I took Izzy in another. Some human Brownian motion, in fact.

Stone Arthur

The closest hill of note to the hotel was Stone Arthur. It seems debatable whether it is or isn’t a different hill to its parent, Great Rigg. But for this purpose we shall concur with Alfred Wainwright, even though that means two of us have completed a Wainwright that the other two haven’t.

Obviously, not having been there myself, I don’t have a lot to say. Kas reported that Ami was off like a proverbial rat up a drainpipe, at least for the first stretch. Their walk took them up an initial straight slope and then around more of a gradual slope around a “noggin” to reach the fairly well-disguised summit point.

By the look of the photo here, the view from the top was acceptably good.

Rydal Hall

Izzy and me chose to visit Rydal. There were a couple of physical caches and a set of Adventure Labs that we could do whilst having a pleasant walk around. It was uphill from where we parked (just off the main road) but not as far uphill as a proper hill walk.

I squeezed into Pelter Bridge Car Park, which nestles in the valley where the River Rothay flows from Rydal Water on its way down to Windermere. From here we had a short walk through woods and over the main road before climbing up on the road towards Rydal Hall and Rydal Mount. We were doing a geocache whilst walking up, collecting clues from around the church and up the road.

Rydal Hall has a big house that’s not accessible to Joe Public, as well as free-to-access gardens. It also has quite a lot of camping space, much of which was full. It was quite late in the morning but people in the campsite still seemed to be very much in “breakfast” mode. I thought campers got up early.

Back at the plot, we walked around the gardens finishing off Adventure Labs and finding caches for an hour or so and then I got hit by the need to make a comfort break. So we retreated over to the nearby Rydal Mount to see what was what.

Rydal Mount

Rydal Mount is the former home of William Wordsworth. You know, the bloke who wandered around this area finding and writing poems about daffodils. The building and gardens are still owned by his descendants and they make a meagre few groats by charging people to look around. They make a few more groats by charging people for coffee, cake and ice cream, so we allowed them to extract some money for that before anything else.

Our food and drinks were delivered to a cast-iron circular table on the patio at the front of the building. It was pretty decent weather so we were happy enough. We also allowed them to take enough money off us to cover two entry tickets for tours of the house. Well, we might as well.

The house was maybe a little disappointing. Much of the upstairs is inaccessible because members of the family still live there. Indeed they use the downstairs during the day too. But upstairs you could see one small bedroom and an attic room that was being set up for an art display. Downstairs we were given a fairly long talk covering the two main rooms at the front of the house. First was the original (and only) living room of what was a very small cottage. Second was the somewhat grander living room of the extension. Is it still an extension if it’s three times the size of the original?

I think Izzy enjoyed it more than I did, even though it was tricky because, somewhere, she’d dropped her facemask. I only had one, so I couldn’t help unless we did the tour separately. For me, the tour was a bit dull, to be honest. Maybe that is because it was about a subject that doesn’t interest me very much. I maybe also wasn’t in the right frame of mind. I’m glad I went though.

On the way back to the car we stopped in a couple of places to see if we could find Izzy’s facemask. Eventually we found it at the side of the road about 100m from the car.

Ambleside

Back at the car, we’d got a message from Kas to say they were on their way back down. So we drove back to Grasmere to meet them and discuss lunch.

The agreed approach for lunch was to go to Ambleside, and we were ready to go more or less immediately. That meant trying to find somewhere to park, which proved troublesome and time-consuming. Lunch was provided by a branch of a chain coffee shop. The one that rhymes with Hosta and roster. There was a bit of an issue because the payment transaction failed and it wasn’t clear whether we’d been charged or not. When the system came back we paid again and we were invited to check or banking app in the week and go back if we’d been charged twice.

After lunch we did a bit of walking around. I was trying to work on another set of Adventure Labs and Izzy wanted to buy some rocks. There’s a specialist rock shop, so that was her happy for a while. I was less than happy because I could get a stable signal. Every time I was in the right zone to answer a question I lost signal and couldn’t answer it. So I had to do a series of repetitive shuffles around the town to try to find signal. Annoying. A 10-minute exercise took over half an hour.

After all this I requested that we walk up to Stockghyll Force to finsih the Ad Labs series. We’d been up there on our previous holiday in the Lakes (in 2019). On that day it was a brief couple of hours of dry weather on a day when otherwise it rained all day. Today was a bit drier. Again I couldn’t do the Adventure Lab stage as I had no phone signal, so I was in a bit of a grump. This became a running theme for the holiday. I’d already got the coordinates for the bonus cache so that was OK, and as it turned out, phone signal returned halfway down the hill and once you’ve been into the right zone with the app running you can answer later. So I was able to complete the series.

It was getting late in the afternoon by the time we’d done all this, so we jumped in the car and went back to the hotel.

Dinner in Grasmere

We’d decided to walk into Grasmere for dinner to see what was what.

We found Harley’s, a nice little bistro in a converted church building. They were able to accommodate us without booking but were closing quite early. That’s a thing in Grasmere apparently. People turn up on busses during the day to wander around the church and a Wordsworth museum. They have a coffee in the afternoon, then they get back on the bus and go home. So Grasmere has little nightlife. Even the people staying in the village tend to stay in their hotel to eat. Back at the plot, they did beer which was cold and wet. And they did a range of pizzas, pastas, salads and other stuff. Everything we had was good, so that was a bit of a result.

The walk back to the hotel involved putting one foot in front of the other. That can be complex and strenuous, so we sat in the bar for a while and had a drink before going to bed. It had been a fairly full day.

A Slow Morning

We’d booked an early afternoon session at Go Ape over in Grizedale, so we were in no particular hurry. We took a leisurely breakfast in the hotel again.

The drive around to Grizedale was fairly painless. It’s a bit of a twisty road and, much as happened in 2019 when we came here, we got lost. The sat nav was all but useless, mainly because the postcode for the site covers a large area and the sat nav takes you to the wrong part. We had a flash of recognition at one point and knew we were more or less there, but not before we’d driven 5-6 miles along tiny roads in the wrong direction. To be honest, I don’t think there are any “good” roads into the place.

Apeing Around

This time around I’d booked tickets for all four of us to go around. I thought I’d give it a go, and soon regretted it.

Back at the plot, we waited for a while before our slot so we took a service break had a drink.

When it was time, we were ushered through quickly and joined the group at the base of the first step for our induction / training. They were running a bit late, but it wasn’t really a problem.

All four of us went around the beginner’s loop. It was rather slow because a group of quite small children has got in front of us and they were going rather slowly. We all got round this fairly easily, but I have to say I didn’t enjoy it at all. I didn’t like the sensation of things moving beneath my feet as I was walking. Obviously I was fastened on so I couldn’t fall, but balance isn’t a strong point of mine. I just didn’t feel secure at all.

After the first loop we started up the second one and I spied some parts I really didn’t fancy. At about the same moment Izzy expressed some concern about going on the larger one too. So she and I decided not to bother going further. If you’re going back, decide so at the start. So we back-tracked out and left Kas and Izzy to do it. Izzy fancied another go around the smaller circuit, so off she went while I sat at the bottom. Maybe next time I’ll remember and just not buy myself a ticket.

A Quiet Evening

Driving back was fine, but we couldn’t be bothered with much in the evening, so we went back to the hotel.

One of the other hotels in Grasmere had suffered a COVID outbreak amongst its kitchen staff, apparently. As a result, everyone was wandering around trying to find tables for dinner. Our hotel had allocated a few but had also decided that they were going to keep aside enough tables for all residents to have dinner if they wanted to. So that’s what we did. The food was functional and substantial again. I think the girls had more or less the same thing every night we ate there.

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The Morning

Another fairly easy-paced morning involving some breakfast in the hotel. The weather was a bit grey, but not too bad. Our plan for the day was to go to Borrowdale to attempt the “Fairy Walk.” I’m not sure why it’s called that, but it’s worth a go. Izzy didn’t fancy any massive walks but a shortish walk on the flat was deemed acceptable.

So after breakfast we saddled up and made our way around through Keswick and into Borrowdale, supposedly the wettest place in England. The walk required us to park in Rosthwaite, where there’s a handy National Trust Car Park. And of course, we can park in those free of charge.

Fairy Walk

We’d read beforehand a brief description of a walk up the Stonethwaite Beck and past Galleny Force to some rock pools where the Langstrath Beck joins. It was only a mile and a half or so. The walk was mainly flat and there was a handful of geocaches on the way to keep me occupied while the ladies walked. At the rock pools there was a particularly troublesome cache that I decided wasn’t there. I started preparing a replacement and messaging the owner to check, and just as I was about to place it I spotted the real cache. D’oh!

All the while I’d been doing this, the ladies had made their way down to the water and started paddling. I joined them eventually and got my boots off for a quick dip. There was a nice and relatively shallow bit with decent rocks that we could sit on, so we sat there for a while, plodged, and generally soaked up the atmosphere. It was a lovely spot, even if the weather was a bit average.

The walk back, down the other side of the beck, seemed to take much longer. Maybe we’d had enough of walking. Anyway, the car park also had a cafe nearby. So we availed ourselves of some drinks and lunch while we were there.

We hadn’t really planned anything for the afternoon and Izzy was done, so we went back to the hotel.

Legging It

A general lack of enthusiasm for more exercise amongst the ladies lead to a decision by them to just chill at the hotel.

I wasn’t quite so tired, so I stole away to walk my way around Grasmere, picking up a few caches on the way.

I started by walking down the main road towards Ambleside. At Town End I went off the main road and onto the local road around White Moss. This eventually bought me out quite close to Rydal Water and I walked back through the woods and along the little river that drains Grasmere into Rydal Water.

I crossed the river onto the far side and walked my way around the west side of Grasmere and back into the village. I was getting a bit parched so I grabbed a drink from the Co-Op on the way past.

By the time I got back to the hotel I’d walked just over 8km and I’d been outside for an hour and three-quarters.

A Night on the Town

The girls had saved enough energy to go out in the evening rather than stay at the hotel. So when I got back from the walk I had a quick shower and we headed to Ambleside. We’d seen a few decent-looking places when we were there two days earlier. Our favourite-looking one was a brew-pub right next to the car park. They had a bit of a queue and said it might take about half an hour before we’d a table. So the girls went and sat on a wall by the river while Kas and me stood in the queue.

It eventually took a little under half an hour, partly because some people just walked away.

Once we got inside we were treated to some nice, fresh beer (well, I was) and a menu that had a bit of everything. I think we ordered a lot of pizzas, amongst other things. It was really busy, which was rare for this holiday. The hotel restaurant had been quiet every night we’d eaten there and the one night we went out we were in a quiet restaurant too. This place was busy. All the tables were full and the wait-staff were running around like blue-arsed flies, only more efficient.

Back at the hotel Kas and me retired to the bar for a swift half while the girls went up to sleep. It had been the busiest day so far.

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The Morning

The morning was characterised by some doing of not-very-much. Kas went for a run, I think, and took a few photos of Grasmere while she was doing it. The plan was to make a trip up to the far end of Bassenthwaite Lake, but before that we had some breakfasting to do.

Kas got back from her run in time for us to all have breakfast together. And then we jumped into the car to head off.

What’s at Bassenthwaite?

We had a couple of things planned to do, both of which were at the far end of Bassenthwaite. Well, if we’re honest, they were at the same place and one only exists because of the other.

The first place we were visiting was the Lakes Distillery, which is a very rare thing indeed. It’s rare because it’s a whiskey distillery, in England. The location at Bassenthwaite is apparently ideal, with just the right kind of water nearby. It’s in a pretty spot next to the River Derwent at it’s northern outflow from Bassenthwaite Lake.

We’d organised a tour round the distillery, which I found quite interesting but I don’t think the kids were especially bothered. It looked and smelled like a distillery, which was encouraging, I guess. Anyway, as it’s a new place, they currently only sell a few fairly early (young) types of whisky and have yet to start marketing their “proper” aged single malts. They are addressing the cashflow issue this causes by selling gin and vodka instead. Well, if you insist. It would be rude not to.

The Afternoon

There’s an alpaca farm more or less attached to the side of the distillery. It turns out that one of the major waste products from the distillery (the spent grain) is an ideal foodstuff for alpacas. So there you go.

It’s possible to arrange visits go feed the alpacas. I’m sure it’s primarily a tourist thing rather than “actual” feeding, but anyhow, it allows you to get close up to the creatures and discover quite how soft their fur is. It’s really, really soft. I mean they are fluffy. It’s like touching a cloud, only warmer. And without the obvious “falling to the ground afterwards” issues.

On to Keswick

After the alpacas we had a bunch of time left, so we decided to head into Keswick to see what we could see. Kas kindly drove us down to the lakeside so I could attempt some lab caches, and then we parked up in the town centre to go for a wander around. I was trying to find a few other caches of various types but I struggled with all the labs, essentially because I had no phone signal. That was kind of disappointing, but at least I managed to find a couple of traditional caches. I seem to remember also that it started raining, which kind of put a damper on things in general.

And that was about it for the day. I’m pretty sure we just ate in the hotel’s restaurant again.

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The Morning

Another morning in Grasmere. On the plan today was a trip to Honister to have a go at their Via Ferrata. We were booked for late morning so we had plenty of time to indulge in a serious breakfast beforehand.

We allowed a shade over an hour for the drive, what with it involving a loop all the way to Keswick and then down Borrowdale and up the Honister Pass.

Preparations

At the top, we got ourselves parked up and went inside to see what was what. We had a few minutes spare before needing to assemble for our Via Ferrata, so we had a quick service break and a coffee before joining the rest of our party.

We’d all previously done a Via Ferrata in the Pyrenees but this one was our first in the UK. There’s only a handful in the UK anyway, three, I think, but nevertheless this was our first.

We were all dressed in our raincoats, because the weather didn’t look great for the morning. It was a bit suspect, to be honest, so the coats were a wise choice. Anyway, back at the plot, our instructor / leader arrived and gave all of us some instruction in how to wear the equipment and how to use it. These things are quite important when you’re hanging off the side of a mountain, so we all gave it our best attention.

We were in a group of about a dozen. There was a family of four from somewhere in Lancashire and a group of youngish women (younger than me, anyway). We arranged ourselves in roughly family order and started the relatively lightwieght route up to the Via Ferrata. Lightweight means it was essentially a test of our nerve before going on the steeper bit. There were a couple of dodgy little bridges over steep drops, and a few bits of (basically) steep path with ropes to fasten yourself too.

The Via Ferrata

Unbeknownst to me, one of our number was not enjoying herself. When we got to the official top of the steeper bit of Via Ferrata, the truth came out. I think it was around the time when people started disappearing over the edge of a vertical drop suspended a couple of hundred metres above the road below. To be honest, I started at it and thought twice. Daughterus Minimus thought about it, went over the edge, and decided she wasnt keen. So she came back again. We had a quick discussion with the leader and she said basically they could stay put and be escorted back down to the rope-assisted path. Kas very kindly volunteered to stay with Minimus while me and Maximus did the proverbial ironwork.

To be honest, it wasn’t a very long thing anyway. We were out of the top end in under 20 minutes, I think. We walked a bit further until we came out somewhere in the top of Fleetwith Pike, but not quite at the summit. From here we walked in a group all the way back down the old slate mine access routes back to the activity centre.

Splitting Up

Once back at the activity centre, Izzy said she was feeling like she’d not really got the best out of the day, so she asked Kas if they could go for a walk back up the mountain for a while. That was OK with me, because it meant I could go and grab a handful of geocaches at the top. It was also OK with Ami, because she was busily chatting to the daughter of the family from Lancashire. When she was done with that, she was busy having lunch.

My geocaches took me first down the slope a bit to the Youth Hostel, and then over the road to the path going up Dove Crag.

By the time I went back, Ami was getting bored, but Kas and Izzy were visible on their way back down, so the timing was all fine.

That just left us to jump back into the car and drive down into Borrowdale again.

Coffee and Cakes

Rosthwaite in Borrowdale is home to a National Trust car park. Many places round here have one of those. The one at Rosthwaite also has quite a pleasant little cafe where you can sit outside and admire the view northwards along Borrowdale. If you can get out of the wind (and regualr rain) it’s a beautiful spot. It had dried up a bit by this time anyway, so all was well with the world.

So we sat and drank some hot drinks and ate some cakes.

Andesite Lava Boulders, Batman!

Que? Very much as it says on the tin, the Bowder Stone is a big lump of andesite lava that fell off the Bowder Crag in Borrowdale between 10 and 13 thousand years ago.

We decided to pop along and have a look. There were a couple of geocaches, which always draws me in. There were a number of rock climbers there who were trying to free climb it. They had padded mats at the bottom to avoid any serious injury.

We took the wimp’s option, and climbed it using the ladder. On top, there was just about enough room for a couple of us to park our butts and have a photo taken. Not quite enough for everyone at the same time.

It was an entertaining diversion for an hour or so, but by this time we were ready for home. Getting home obviously took us the rough end of 40 minutes.

The Evening

In the evening we fancied a change from eating in the hotel, so we took a walk into Grasmere Village to see what we could see. It turned out though, that most of what we could see was restaurants with no free tables. The problem with this whole global pandemic thing was that not everywhere was open. As a result, everywhere that was open was full. To make things worse, one of the larger lodgings in Grasmere had a problem with the kitchen staff getting COVID, so their kitchen was shut. All their residents had to go elsewhere.

As it was chocker everywhere, our hotel adopted a policy of no evening wlak-ins and priority for anyone who was staying there. That proved very useful after we walked all the way around town and ended up back at the hotel. So we ate in the hotel again. It was fine. And there was some beer involved.

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The Sketch

Today’s plan was, for me and Ami at least, to walk our way up to Easedale Tarn. On paper that looked relatively easy. It’s just a shame that the geology of the Lake District doesn’t include any significant deposits of paper.

The Morning

The day began with a substantial breakfast and a lot of staring out of the window at the less-than-pleasant weather. The forecast had been for some rain, and they were right. It was the kind of weather where you wouldn’t want to climb any high mountains. Thankfully we weren’t planning to do that, so all was good.

After breakfast we stuffed our bags and put on as many waterproof clothes as we could manage. Our plan was to walk all the way, so that Kas could take the car. That meant the first bit was downhill into Grasmere village. It also meant we could stop at the Co-Op on the way past to get some drinks and calorie-laden snacks to stuff in the bags. Calorie-laden snacks that come in waterproof packets. It was going to be a soggy walk.

The walk up to the tarn begins by following Easedale Road out of Grasmere. There’s a couple of bits where the path is the other side of a hedge from the road. And then you reach the part where you leave the roadside and traverse a small bridge onto the fields. There’s about 3 fields to cross whilst still in the bottom of Easedale before you come out into the common land and start to climb.

The climb up to Easedale Tarn is a shade over 150m from the valley floor, so it’s not far, but sadly it was raining quite a lot, so the footing was a bit treacherous in places. We were in good spirits though.

Soggy Lunch

We stopped for a rather soggy lunch at the tarn so we could get our breathe back and refuel a little. I’d found one geocache on the way up and there was another on the far side of the tarn from where we were, so we went for that one after lunch. After that though, there was little to do other than go back again. The weather wasn’t fit for lingering and we didn’t have the time or energy to go any further up. So back home we went.

Back in Grasmere Village we decided that we’d be best served by going back to the hotel rather than sitting in a coffee shop dripping water everywhere. That gave us the chance to get warm and dry.

Meanwhile, in Ambleside

Kas and Izzy had decided (mainly Izzy, I think) to head for Ambleside for some industrial grade relaxing. Full details are unavailable, but I believe it involved some period of time visiting the rock shop (geology, not confectionary) so Izzy could sit in their display of small rocks and collect a few to pay for and take home. After that, they went to a cafe for coffee and cakes. That was Daisy’s Cafe on Rydal Road. This is a totally useless piece of informaiton though, as the establishment appears to have closed.

Afternoon

We had some unhealthy snacks at the hotel and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and packing our bags. We’d got an appointment with the road system the following day, so we needed to get ourselves sorted out.

In the evening we returned to Ambleside to go again to the brewery tap place we’d visited earlier in the week. It was good again.

The Morning

The bad news is that this was the day of our departure from the Lakes. The good news is that we weren’t going home just yet. We were driving to the North-East to see family for a few days. But before all that, we had an appointment at a maize maze.

Before any of that, though, we had one final hotel breakfast before retiring to our rooms to finish off the packing.

What’s a Maize Maze?

As the name suggests, a farmer plants maize in a field, but does so in such a manner that there’s a maze to walk around between the heads of maize. I guess it vastly improves the financial return on a field whilst still notionally producing some useful crops.

The one we chose was at Lakeland Maze Farm Park, a fairly substantially-sized affair to the south of Kendal. The parking there was, interesting, to say the least. I wasn’t over happy about dumping my massively-long close-to-the-ground vehicle in what was basically a field. Especially not as it looked like rain. They also had some quite interesting angles and slopes on the parking area, to make it more entertaining.

The place itself is designed mainly as a day out for families with younger children, and so it’s full of families with younger children. That means lots of random running around, shouting and crying. It also means somewhere that sells very unhealthy food. The last time we did a maize maze was away back in 2006 on Lindisfarne. That one was just a field. There were no other services present. I was kind of expecting this one to be the same, but it wasn’t.

Getting Lost

The Maize Maze was, to be honest, very big and impressive. It had overhead bridges for crossing various bits. And it had a game to play where you had to find a dozen or so signs within the maze. They were sneakily hidden in all the dead ends. I can’t remember if there was a prize for completing it, but in any case, one of our kids was more enthusiastic than the other about walking at high speed along every avenue trying to find the signs. That caused a bit of fraction (partly wth me) but I think in general we all had a sense of not wanting to be there. The place wasn’t really in the Lakes, and nor was it with family in the North-East. And it was designed for much younger children.

So basically we got round as quickly as we could, had a swift snack and drink, and jumped back in the car.

Which Way?

As we were in Kendal, we could have picked a number of routes to get across to Sunderland, but the most obvious was the short journey down to the M6 and then up the “good bit” where the motorway cuts through the mountains just south of Tebay.

I think we stopped at Tebay Services for something better to eat and to fill up with fuel. From there we crossed the Pennines through Kirby Stephen and onto the A66, up the A1M and into Sunderland. We were on our way to Sunderland to check into a hotel because family members were temporarily unable to host four of us. This was partly caused by COVID and partly caused by a pending move of house. Anyway, we were booked into the Hilton Garden Inn, which is on the site of the Stadium of Light. The rooms were very nice.

The Evening

After a fairly long day out we didn’t have the energy for much more than having a shower and going to Kas’s mum’s for dinner. Another long day, and a sad day because we left the Lakes, but a happy day because we’d still got three whole days left and were spending them with family.

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The Morning

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The Morning