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.