ON TO EDINBURGH

This was not a good day to be Virgin.

The TransPennine Express

Our time in the Lake District ended, this was a travel day from Arnside to Edinburgh.

The plan was pretty straightforward; the execution wasn’t.

The plan was to catch the local train out of Arnside and take the twenty minute train ride to Lancaster. From there we would take Virgin Rairoad’s TransPennine Express, leaving every half hour, going directly to Edinburgh’s Waverly Station. Total time, roughly three hours.

The start went off well, even considering the quarter mile trudge from the Fighting Cocks to the Arndale train station, in the rain, dragging our rolling duffels. The 9:30 train arrived spot on time, and we headed down the tracks to Lancaster.

It was then that we learned that the tracks were closed north of Carlisle for maintenance, this being a holiday and all. As an alternative, Virgin Trains was providing buses, and a three hour bus ride from Carlisle.

At  Lancaster there was more good news from the big red V. There was also a shut down between Lancaster and Carlisle, so the Lancaster train would only go one stop, to Oxenholme.

Here’s the itinerary after Lancaster:

Train from Lancaster to Oxenholme.

Queue for bus to Carlisle

Queue for taxi to Carlisle

Ride 4 people and driver in a four person taxi (do the math) for 45 minutes to Carlisle

Queue for bus to Edinburgh.

Queue a little longer for bus to Edinburgh.

Take three hour bus ride on full bus to Edinburgh.

Arrive Edinburgh at 3:30 pm.

Say goodbye for the day to “Virgin Airlines TransPennine Express Rail Service.”

Things got a whole lot better after that. A brief taxi ride took us to the Scott House, or B&B for the next three nights. The Scott House is a big, old, well appointed, Georgian row house in a nice and convenient part of town. A four star B&B with a 5 star rating. We were met by Jemima, the owner (not the same appearance nor size as “The Aunt”, she noted), and shown to our rooms.  The rooms are both huge, and nicely furnished. We flipped, and Marty got the one with the poster bed and seating area.  I found this place on TripAdvisor, they’re also on AirBnB. If you ever come to Edinburgh, remember this one.

From the Scott House. It’s a 10 minute walk to the Royal Mile, and 20 minutes to Edinburgh Castle.

We can also say, at the end of our first evening, the Scott House is less than a block from a terrific pub, a good pub, a so-so pub, and The Olive Branch, an outstanding little bistro.

I’ll relate a couple of conversations Marty and I had with others during the day. First, on the 45 minute, close quarter cab ride, we shared the cab with a Mother and her adult daughter, off for several days in the Scottish Highlands. We all shared some of our travel experiences.  During the discussion, we learned they were from Manchester. The daughter is a teacher, and even noted that some of her students were at the concert when the terrorist bombing occurred last week. I noted how horrible that was for those students. She noted (and I swear this is true) that “it’s really good to see how the city is pulling together.” Now, I know I’m a crank, but I wanted to ask her, “pulling together?” To what end? Is there any anger? Is there any resolve to prevent this from happening again? Instead, I said, “I’m sure it is.”

The other conversation happened in the good pub I mentioned above,   

There was an elderly gentlemen sitting in a booth by himself. He was wearing a hat that said “US Army”, had an American flag on it, and several medals sewn on. He was probably a Korean War veteran, we didn’t find out for sure. We did find out that he was from New Hampshire ( pretty clear from his accent), that he was traveling with his wife, and he’d just stepped out to the pub. Before we left we were both able to shake his hand and thank him for his service. That opportunity made my Memorial Day a little more special. I hope he felt the same. 

KENDAL TO ARNSIDE

The last day of the Westmorland Way walk. And it’s cooled off. Overcast and breezy, but the forecast is for the rain to hold off.

We decided to shorten what was supposed to be a 17 mile day by taking a cab to the outskirts of Kendal and avoiding a bit of the dull part of the walk.

Our walk started along the Lancaster Canal. The canal was developed in the late 1700’s to provide a faster traveling link than coaches between Kendal and other nearby towns.  Today, it’s still navigable for part of its original length.

We followed the canal for several miles; it’s a wonderful hiking path. It’s a quiet waterway with wildlife in and around it, frequently passing under 200 year old stone bridges. This morning, we pretty much had it to ourselves.

Our trail left the canal at the village of Holme, and turned across farms and fields to Beetham. Beetham is a small village with stone buildings that looks like it hasn’t changed much since the 18^th century. We stopped for a break on a bench next to a set of stocks that meets that same criteria ; still there from 200 years ago.

From Beetham, we turned up a mountain, through the Fairy Steps (a crack in a limestone wall that requires taking your pack off and squeezing through, and on into Arnside.

Arnside is a coastal town, where the River Kent empties into Morecambe Bay. The waterfront is a large tidal plain, so it’s a wide, flat, glassy surface when the tide is in, sand and mud at low tide. It feels like a small resort town at the waterfront, and an upscale community up the hill behind that. We walked in on a cool, sunny, Sunday afternoon, passing a cricket match and families picnicking in the parks, and the restaurant and pubs hopping down on the water. Pretty pleasant.

The promenade at Arnside is also the end of the Westmorland Way.  The ending is a counterpoint to the little village of Great Strickland and the lakes and mountains we started in at the beginning of the week.         

We’re staying tonight at a great little pub/B&B named Ye Olde Fighting Cocks.  A nice pub with a good kitchen, a patio looking over the waterfront, and a warm welcome.

It also has the smallest rooms we’ve ever encountered. By comparison, I’m sure I could lay crossways in my closet at home. Not so sure if I could do that in what was grandly named the “Arnside Knott” room. But the bed was comfortable and everything was there for a decent sleep after a good dinner and some experimenting with local gins.

SIZERGH CASTLE

Sizergh Castle, four miles south of Kendal, has been the home for Strickland’s since 1239, when Sir William de Strickland, my 21^st great-grandfather married Elizabeth Deincourt. Today was mine and Marty’s much needed day off from walking, and we spent part of it visiting the Strickland ancestral home.

We left for the 20 minute ride to Sizergh in the middle of the morning in a cab. Mareks, a young man from Latvia was our driver. We all enjoyed the 20 minute drive, talking about the Latvian players in the US NBA and NHL, the Latvian hockey team, how things were like in Latvia “in the Soviet period”, and how  Mareks is working to make life better for his children and their mother, here with him in the UK. As it turned out, Mareks was also the driver to pick us up from Sizergh, and we continued the conversation. There are always unexpected pleasures in these trips. Meeting Mareks was one of them. Mareks is now Facebook friends with Marty and me. His Facebook post of Vladimir Putin with a top knot is special.

I wasn’t sure want to expect at Sizergh. I was really impressed. It’s a large castle on beautiful grounds. This being a Saturday on a holiday weekend, things were busy. Sizergh is a big tourist draw. Rightfully.

Like many of the historic estates in England, Sizergh was deeded to the National Trust in the 1950’s, when the family couldn’t afford to maintain it. (Downton Abbey, anyone?). The National Trust has done a great job of keeping it up and making it available to the public.  The Strickland family continues to maintain quarters in part of the house not open to the public.

The first area we entered was the oldest part of the castle. It consisted of a very large room and a pele tower. This was the fortified part. The tower served multiple defensive purposes. First, it was tall enough to allow signal fires to be seen from other towers in the area, an early warning system for the region. Seond, it was fortified enough and strong enough to hold off raiders and passing armies warring back and forth in this region. Northern England was the center of conflict between the Scottish and English armies for centuries.  The original castle was large enough to protect the Strickland family and the families from the surrounding village, who would gather in the castle when the signal fires burned.

The interior of the castle is also impressive; 3 floors of rooms all fully furnished, largely with orginal items. Walls not covered with tapestries are covered oil paintings of Strickland’s through the centuries.

I’d like to go back to Sizergh and spend more time, with my children.

I learned a few things about my family tree at Sizergh, and left with a few things I need to confirm.

My family tree and the tree of the Strickland’s who continued to live in the castle diverged after Walter Strickland, who married Alice Hamorton in 1536. Their eldest son, Thomas, and his successors are the line that are still in Sizergh. Another of their sons, William, is my progenitor, and his great-great grandson, Matthew, emigrated to Virginia. I need to know more about these generations.

I posted an image of the Strickland family crest earlier. It’s three scallop shells on a black field.  I knew that the scallop shell was also the symbol of the religious pilgrimage to Santigo de Compostella in Spain. What I didn’t realize was that the significance of the scallop in the family crest is that the family made that pilgrimage, on the Camino de Santiago. I made that walk, along with Marty, three years ago.

The castle contains the Strickland archives, but they’re not generally available. The guides suggested that I write to Henry, the current Strickland in residence, and he’d likely make them available to me. Should have done that. Next time.

Finally, a generation back, the Strickland family did not have a male heir. The daughter married Henry Hornyold, and he and their offspring have assumed the hyphenated name Hornyold-Strickland.

I’ve thus confirmed on this visit that I am not a Hornyold-Strickland. Genealogically speaking.

Where's Waldo?

GRASMERE TO TROUTBECK/WINDERMERE AND ON TO KENDAL

This post covers two days of hiking. Two hard days, but days where we saw some great scenery, some neat villages, got a lot of sun, and had the best meal of the trip so far.

I implied earlier that 70 degree temperatures and sunny is perfect hiking weather. Well, it ain’t so. You’ve probably gathered that our walking up high is across open moor like areas. Much of our walking down low is across fields. The weather for the past  two days has been completely clear, no clouds in the sky, and temperatures in the mid to upper 70’s. The natives here are loving it, but doing long uphills in it is draining.

The day between Grasmere and Troutbeck promised three long uphills, and corresponding downhills, as we crossed between three different valleys. The first climb started after a short walk past Grasmere’s four star hotels, and started innocently enough up a paved driveway.  That shortly changed into a rocky path following a stone wall for a ways, then across the moors, finally to a saddle at the top. In the saddle we stopped at a trail crossroads to enjoy the view, catch our breath, and to sort out the path ahead.

All of our guidance tools (map, guidebook, GPS), said the way forward from the little crossroads was straight ahead. But that looked like a problem. The path straight ahead dropped steeply downhill and seemed to dead end at a cliff’s edge. The path left went uphill and In the wrong direction. But the path to the right went up about a hundred feet over a rise, disappeared, and beyond that could have curved around to meet the trail we could see on the far side of a large gorge. That trail on the far side of the gorge was where we wanted to be.  But we didn’t want to do another hundred feet of uphill just find out we’d been wrong.

So, after our break, I went carefully down  the trail ahead to where it dead ended at the top of the gully. From there, I could see what looked like a cut in the wall on the right. When I looked around the cut, sure enough, there was the trail. But it traversed a hundred yards of a steep shoulder, and was just wide enough for a pair of boots.  Really not a place for acrophobes. Once across  that, it was a long slog down a steep, rough path into Waithwaite.

We took a break at Waithwaite.

After that, it was several miles of easy walking on a path along River Rothay. We followed that into Skelwith Bridge.

Outside of Skelwith Bridge the next uphill started, in earnest. This climb took us up  onto the high shoulders of Loughrigh Fell. Awesome views from here, and we circled around Loughrigh , then down into the town of Ambleside.

It was now early afternoon, in the mid 70’s, and we were feeling the heat.

Ambleside is the largest town we’ve been in since the start of the walk. Way past time for a break, so we dropped in to Ambleside Tavern, “purveyor of real ales.” They purveyed us a couple of their real ones, and after some discussion, Marty and I decided we’d pass on the third uphill of the day that would have taken us to Troutbeck. We called the cab that was to meet us at Troutbeck, had them meet us there at the tavern and then take us to our B&B, The Haven, in the great little town of Windermere.

Windermere is one of the larger and more popular towns in the Lake District, on the shores of a large lake of the same name. The Haven was our nicest B&B yet, in an old restored Georgian house on the edge of downtown. Marty and I will both be giving this one five stars on TripAdvisor.  The lady that runs the place, all 90 pounds of her, had even taken our 45-50 pound duffels up to our rooms. We were impressed, in addition to the fact that no one had done that before. Hauling these bags up and down the stairs of our B&B is one of the less happy of our daily tasks. Rare to non-existent is a B&B with an elevator.

At our landlady’s suggestion, we (Marty) called and made a reservation at Francine’s, a French Bistro near us. We’ been existing on pub food, and after this tough day, a good meal sounded like a great change.

And it was a great change. At Francine’s, I eschewed my usual steak and ale pie, or fish and chips, for an appetizer of: Francine’s home cured gravalax salmon, cured with sea salt and dill weed, thinly sliced and served with mustard dressing and horseradish cream.  Then came the Ballotine of whiting, encased in Parma ham, roasted and served with mussels and brown shrimp. This started with an amuse-bouche, and was punctuated by bread, olives, and lots of fine French Chardonnay. In spite of what you hear about the portions in French bistros, these were large enough portions that I had to pass on the mulled red wine poached pear with stilton mousse and baby brioche. Maybe next time. And from what I heard from across the table, Marty’s dinner was as good as mine.

From there, we went on to the Crafty Baa, a hole in the wall bar where most of one wall is taken up with numbered descriptions of the beers and ales they had available. Another great place. We had a nightcap, and returned to the Haven.

The next morning was a walk to Kendal. It started with a taxi ride out of town to the trailhead, just by the Wild Boar Hotel. Early on, this was a beautiful walk on a cool morning, through rolling farmland,  crossing fields full of flowers.

Up until this point, much of our route, The Westmorland Way, was shared with the Coast to Coast Path. The Coast to Coast is a very popular walking route in England going West to East across the country, with a lot of the way being in the Lake District. Most of the walkers we talked to wee doing the Coast to Coast, and taking 14 to 18 days to do it.

Today, our route left the Coast to Coast, and we were the first ones to walk through some of these fields in quite a while. The grass and flowers in some cases were knee high. We didn’t see any other walkers the whole day.

After several hours, and a little wasted time with navigation problems, we got to the Black Laborador Inn in Underbarrow, and took a break. From there, we took to the road (little traffic) to work our way up and over  Scar Foot, a long tall range. From the top, we could see Kendal several miles away down below. We followed the road into Kendal,  turned left on Stricklandgate (the main street), and found the Premier Inn, our lodging for the night.

PATTERDALE TO GRASMERE

This was the biggest walk so far; a major uphill to start the day, and a long downhill to end it. But in return for the effort, we got to see some beautiful, remote, country with beautiful, beautiful views.

Leaving Ullswater Behind

The first four hours of the day were spent going up the Grisedale valley. We followed Grisedale Beck from close to where it flows into Ullswater, up to its source at Grisedale Tarn at the top of the valley. The walk started gradually uphill in a wide valley surrounded by successive peaks on both sides, then got steeper as the valley narrowed.  Above Grisedal Tarn, it was over the top at Hause Gap and then steeply down the next valley. On this stretch we were walking high above the tumbling Tongue Gill, following it down for the next two hours.  Today’s photos recount that climb and descent.

Today’s walk ended in Grasmere. Before we got to our Bed and Breakfast on the edge of Grasmere, we stopped at the Traveller’s Rest, a well known 16^th century coaching inn.  As it’s been doing for centuries, the inn provided pints to yet two more weary travelers today.

Grasmere is a popular Lake Country stop. William Wordsworth lived here for many years, and he and his family, including his sister Dorothy are buried here. Samuel Taylor Coleridge wrote Rime of the Ancient Mariner will visiting Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage. Other writers and poets were part of Wordsworth’s community and spent time here as well. All of them said they were inspired by the beauty of the area and its mountains.

Grasmere is a pretty little village, but feels a little too pretentious. The hotels, B&B’s, and restaurants are all 4 or 5 star rated from various sources. And they're expensive. Our B&B is on the edge of the village proper and is nice, but doesn’t feel as stuffy as the “downtown” village places. For dinner we went back to the Traveller’s Rest and had dinner and follow-up pints while sitting outside on their patio and watching the lambs play in the field next to us.  Great end to a hard day.     

Back down the valley we just came up

Grisedale Tarn

At the pass, looking down the next valley