Tuesday July 04, 2006

Lake District diary ( Part one )

So our first week in the Lake District for several years. This National Park in the North West of the UK gets busy during school holidays which we were avoiding. Our first stop was at a pub called the Three Shires . It is in Little Langdale near Ambleside. It was built in 1872 and is near the meeting point of some old counties of the UK only one still exists that is Lancashire. The other two Cumberland and Westmoorland have been swallowed up by Cumbria. The area gets lots of rain so the grass is nice and green and the hedgerows lush. Many pretty flowers were out Foxglove, Dog Rose and Honeysuckle. It has some lovely lowland walks around its lakes and more strenuous walks up mountains for those who want to try them out for size.

Our first walk was from the pretty village of Hawkshead which nestles in a valley with only its church easily spotted from a distance.

Wordworth was sent her to school from 1779-1787. We past the pretty church and then entered a field with very long grass and by the time we left the field our trousers were wet past our knees from the damp grass. We went through Hawkshead Hill a pretty hamlet and then toward the lake of Tarn Hows. In the distance was the horizontal profile of the Old man of Consiton part of a mountain. Tarn Hows is a partially man made lake which was created by combining other Hows into this one. The conifer trees around it are not normally seen in this area but make an attractive addition to the landscape. We followed a lakeside path and then were lost. Luckily a finger post showed us an alternative way back to Hawkshead which we took without further incident. A good seven mile walk.

In the afternoon we visited a house called Hill Top owned by Beatrice Potter who wrote the illustrated childrens books. The house was purchased by her after her first book was published. As we walked around I noticed a lot of the guide signs were written in Japanese. A third of all the visitors to the house are from Japan we were told. Her books are very popular over there and they have built a replica Hill Top over there.

The second day we did a walk from Elterwater a small village nearby. This was to be a round six miler. The village name comes from a Norse name Elptar that means swan. Whooper swans from Siberia visit this area. We crossed an old bridge over Great Langdale beck and at a hotel turned off into open country. We past through several farms and into Colwith Woods. Soon the first of two waterfalls presented itself, this one a drop of 40ft, called Colwith Force. We continued and then had a stop at a cafe at Skelwith Bridge. The way back to Elterwater was by way of a fairly level path passing Skelwith Force .

Our walk along the river was very pleasant with a view of Langdale pikes in the distance. More tomorrow..