Day 6 -- Kendal to Windermere, 9 miles

Kendal is home of the world famous Kendal Mint Cakes – not nearly as famous as my PB&J sandwich, but respectably famous nonetheless. Why, I suspect there are dozens of my readers who’ve never heard of Kendal Mint Cakes, but everyone’s heard of PB&J. I thought I might consult with the mint cake manufacturers and assist them in developing a peanut butter variety. But I realized that I will be in a better bargaining position if they contact me rather than if I contact them. So I’ll just wait until they contact me – shouldn’t be long now.

Shortly after leaving Kendal, I entered the Lake District National Park. National parks in Britain are quite different from those in the U.S. In the U.S., the government owns everything in a National Park (although sometimes there are pockets of private land that existed before the park was designated). In Britain, the government does not typically own the land. I presume that the major impact of national park designation is more onerous development regulations. I reach that conclusion because of an brand new gate I saw today. The homeowner apparently wants easy access to the property, but instead ended up with easy access to a 100-year-old stone wall. Go figure.

 

 

A heavy cloud cover was present the entire day, making the day perfect for walking. The clouds filtered out the sun, resulting in a low UV index. More importantly, the clouds kept the weather cool (upper 50s to low 60s F.), especially important since the humidity was 80% or more.

I met Ingrid, from Australia, several days ago in Ilkley during breakfast. She started walking after I did, passed me, and I never saw her again that day. Several days later, she started at a village about 3 miles behind where I started, and she quickly made up the distance and swept past me again. In Kendal, we stayed at the same B&B, and made arrangement to share a taxi to Burneside in order to avoid repeating several miles of road walking. I decided to keep up with her this time – and I did for at least 25 yards. Then she turned on the after-burners and quickly left me in the dust – or rather mud, because there is no dust on these trails. From a ridgeline I could see that in 10 minutes she had gained almost a half mile on me. I think she’s a “destination” person.

Ingrid waving goodbye

With nobody to talk with, I decided to take a picture of myself in the countryside. Why not, the countryside is magnificent. With all humility, I’ll withhold comment on myself.