Wednesday July 05, 2006

Lake District diary ( Part two )

The next two nights we stayed at the The Pheasant On Bassenthwaite Lake . On the way there we did two shorter walks - the first being around Thirlmere lake. As we left the parking place my wife spotted two other people bundling Foxglove plants into their car having dug them up. For many reasons this is a selfish act of vandalism - and if the plants survived I will be amazed. Our outward leg of the journey had us walk beside the lake a reservoir built in 1892 by the Manchester Corporation.

A lot of the time the lake was obscured by trees and soon we took a gentle path uphill then down onto the opposite side of the valley which gave us excellent views. However rain had started to fall and we elected to drop down to the road earlier than the walk suggested to visit a pub for lunch. We then left the pub and it soon started raining again. But we were less than a mile from the car and soon got back to it to dry off. After reaching the Pheasant and changing clothes we did our second walk on nearby Bassenthwaite Lake. Before we got to the lake we had a long uphill section through conifer woods. After reaching the top we then dropped down to a road by a hotel. We then crossed a series of fields until we could see St Bega's church.

Behind us we could see the thickly forested hill we had climbed where the conifer trees grew halfway up the mountain after which they clearly could not grow. The church was the orginal parish church built many miles away from the village. It was built in the 12/13th centuries and restored in Victorian times. St Bega was the daughter of an Irish chief who fled to England at St Bees Head named after her. We then past the unattractive home of the Spedding family Mire House where a lot of literay giants visited the family over the years. We then returned to the car park and the pub for dinner. On Wednesday we took off to Borrowdale said to be the lovliest valley in England. Today with a lot of low cloud we were robbed of excellent views. We started at a small village called Seatoller and climbed very steeply with the peak of Kings How and Castle Crag on either side of the valley. We crossed a series of footbridges over babbling brooks tumbling to the bottom of the valley. These streams or brooks are called Gills here. We then began a long descent towards an idillic spot called Bowder dub the name dub another common descriptive name here. We then followed wooded areas and meadows until we reached the halfway spot - a village called Grange.

The name comes from Granary one having been here years ago part of Furness Abbey which once owned a lot of the land here. We returned along the river again passing Bowder Dub.

The clouds had now lifted revealing blue patches in the sky - a sign of better weather to come in the latter part of the week. We then followed the River Derewent for a while then leaving it to climb up into thick woodland. After rejoining it once more and going past a Youth hostel. Just before here a herd of cows were wandering in the river drinking its cool water and munching the grass on its banks. Our path then had us go into Johnny Wood which is all native Oak trees which once covered this lakeland valley. Soon we were back in Seatoller enjoying a well deserved refreshment after seven miles in this lovely countryside.