Luca and I set off on a sunny Thursday morning for a 3 or 4 day trek through the Lakes. I had a rough idea of a route, but the intention to play it by ear. Sleeping arrangements were to wild camp, but I was a bit concerned that I wasn't sure where we'd be each night and so where we'd sleep...
We parked the car in a campsite near Coniston and set off round the northern edge of Coniston Lake. We had some food with us, but intended to get a lot from cafes and pubs on the way. We stopped fairly quickly at a shop to get some local fudge and shortly after to get some lunch - I couldn't believe how busy everywhere was (the traffic had been pretty horrific too), but before long we were walking through Grizedale forest and the crowds had disappeared.
We wound our way through the forest. I thought it would be a fun to take an off beat route over the top and we ended up following a very old, but overgrown route. It was muddy but fun. It came to a beautiful open marshy plateau which was unlike anything I'd seen before. The light was amazing - I guess because of the reflections from the water in the grass. It looked something from the American prairies (I think). The way was marked by ancient looking stones.
But the way was very boggy and much to Luca's amusement (and somewhat to mine), I took a couple of miss-steps and ended up knee deep in boggy marsh. We were about 3 hours in to the trip and I was already filthy and wet.
We ended up a bit lost, but soon found our way again and wound our way back down. We stopped at a pub (I fought the temptation to have a pint and had sparkling water instead - which turned out to be far more refreshing). Eventually we made our way to the ferry which would take us across Windermere to Bowness.
In Bowness we re-met the crowds, but enjoyed some fish and chips. We now needed to find somewhere to pitch our tents. I'd figured that if we walked up to the east of Bowness and along the Cumbria way a bit we'd be able to find a suitable spot. We ascended the hill and I just hoped that I was right. Luckily, I was and we found a spot where we were reasonably comfortable that we would be undisturbed (and undisturbing), till the following morning.
My mood was somewhat sullied by my cold, damp feet, but a change of socks sorted me out.
We took a bit of a wander round after putting our tent up. The moon was full and the views from the top of the hill were wonderful. The night was topped off by the view of an owl in flight.
No comments:
Post a Comment