Day 10 -- Patterdale to Shap; 8 miles by steamer, 10 on foot

I’m not one to normally listen in to other people’s conversations, but when you are on a walking trip and the weather is ugly, eavesdropping can be more fun than walking. So this morning, with the wind blowing the rain sideways onto the breakfast room windows, I listened attentively as one of the guests discussed the Ullswater Steamer with the innkeeper.

Sara and her friends were headed to Shap, just as I was. I leaned my ear towards her to better hear the conversation.

The innkeeper said there were two alternatives: one was to slog along the traditional route for 17 miles over a high, wet, windy and muddy ridge; the second was to ride the steamboat 8 miles to Pooley Bridge, and then walk an easy trail 10 miles to Shap. Steamboats are a close second to steam trains on my fun scale. I leaned a little closer.

The innkeeper said that Alfred Wainwright, the guru of walking in England, often took the steamboat on his treks. I idolize Wainwright almost as much as I idolize Shackleton, so if a steamboat was good enough for Wainwright, it would be good enough for me. It didn’t much matter that the boats are now powered by diesel, they are still called steamers, so that should count for something. By this time my ear was closing in on Sara’s cereal bowl.

“Would there happen to be room for one more person on the steamer?” I asked non-chalantly.

“The steamer holds 200 passengers, so there will be ample room on today’s sailing,” replied the innkeeper. Just then, two Canadians sitting at an adjacent table looked at each other with a silent nod of mutual understanding. I wasn’t the only eavesdropper. “Leave here by 9:00, and you can get to the pier by 9:25 and catch the 9:45 sailing.”

The room’s air pressure dropped noticeably as a half-dozen guests raced for the door.

 

Despite the winds, the one-hour cruise to Pooley Bridge was smooth and comfortable. As the scenery unfolded, we chatted with one another and with other passengers. Tracy wasn’t hiking today, but rather reminiscing about having recently swum the length of Ullswater, 14 kilometers in 5 hours. She is training to swim the English channel, and is in the process of swimming all the lakes in the Lake District. The longest, Windermere, at 17 kilometers, is next on her agenda. We all wish her luck in her endeavor.

Tracy

 

At Pooley Bridge, I disembarked along with Leo and Lynn, from Yukon, David and Sara, from Washington D.C., and Dennis from Austin. (I may have gotten some of that mixed up, but since we’re all walking the same route over the next few days, I’m sure they’ll correct me.) Because the steamer route was a last minute itinerary change, I was the only one with a map. (Dennis conjured up a map on his smartphone, but Wainwright wouldn’t approve, so that doesn’t count.)



Leo, Dave, Sara, Lynn, and Dennis

 

Our route took us through the hamlet of Bampton and past Shap Abbey, dating from 1199, but destroyed by Henry VIII in 1540 when he split with the pope. Perhaps he thought the monks were eavesdropping on him.

.

 

A moor bigh as art

 

 

Church in Bampton

 

Shap Abbey

.

Day 9, Grasmere to Patterdale, 9 miles

This was a 5-hour trek covering 9 miles in heavy rain and wind. The weather spoiled my plans to climb Helvellyn, the highest peak in the area, and to descend via striding edge, a narrow arête. The peak, itself, would be bad enough in poor weather; striding edge would be unsafe in wet conditions..

The alternative route involves a steadyclimb of 1500 feet alongside Little Tongue Gill to Grisedale Tarn, followed by a steady 1200 feet descent to Ullswater following the course of Grisedale Beck, on the other side of the saddle. The trails on both sides of the tarn were flowing streams. Notwithstanding the conditions, there were several dozen hikers on the trails.

The rain let up only several times, allowing me to remove my camera from its protective plastic bag and take only a few pictures.

Coast to Coast Walk

The Coast to Coast walk is a 190 mile route from St. Bees on England’s west coast to Robin Hood’s Bay on England’s east coast. The walk passes through three of England’s best national parks: Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, and North York Moors.

For the second leg of this summer’s walk, I’ll join the Coast to Coast path at mile 38 in Grasmere. Although I’ll miss the first 38 miles, I’ll be walking through much of that area (and more) when I return to the Lake District in a few weeks.

I previously walked the Coast to Coast in 1999 -- my first long distance walk, and my first walk in the U.K. I enjoyed it so much that I have returned to the U.K. several times. As of now, I have walked more than 2,500 miles in England, Scotland and Wales, and if all goes well, by the end of the summer the total will exceed 3,000. I can’t say I’ve enjoyed every mile as much as I enjoyed the Coast to Coast, but I’ve enjoyed enough miles to keep on returning. 

Day 8 -- Grasmere

Today I hired a guide Guide, Ian Carter,  to lead me on a hike in the fells (hills) around Grasmere. He took me on a loop walk over the high ridges, approximately a thousand miles and a million feet elevation gain. I have a poor connection right now, so will add more to the post along with fantastic images soon.

Now that I've got a Wi-Fi connection I can continue this post.  Perhaps the irst paragraph was a little exaggerated. The images aren't all that fantastic, but here they are.

 Guide Ian Carter at Helm Crag

G

Day 7 -- Grasmere

My arrival at Windermere marked the end of the Dales Way and completion of the first leg of my walk. The second leg begins Saturday with the Coast to Coast walk, a walk I did 17 years ago. Back then, I didn’t have any time to spend at Grasmere, a pretty little tourist village in a beautiful part of the Lake District. This time I allowed time to walk around the village today by taking a bus from Windermere to Grasmere. I’ll hike the nearby hills (or “fells”) around Grasmere tomorrow.

Although Grasmere village and most of its infrastructure are many centuries old, there are a few modern conveniences. Take this lovely car, for instance. I wanted to, but it was closely guarded.

 

 

One learns a lot walking around tourist villages. For one thing, where there are tourists, there must be toilets, and money is to be had by providing them.

 

Out in the countryside, there are lots of trees, so toilets aren’t actually necessary. But what I realized today is that you still have to pay to use a tree. That explains the money tree I saw a few days ago. I’ll need to buy a hammer at the next hardware store (“ironmonger”) I pass, so I can hammer my coins into the trees whenever I use them. I drink a lot of coffee so as the song says, “… I’ll hammer in the morning, I’ll hammer in the evening all over this land…” And a beautiful land it is.

 

 

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.

 

 

 

 

Day 5 -- Sedbergh to Kendal, 14 miles

At breakfast, I learned the proper pronunciation of the town's name, at least so far as the server is concerned: Setburr -- no hard "D" in the middle and no berg or bruh at the end. So there you have it from someone who lives there. I'm sticking with that, for all it matters, because I left town thereafter.

 

Despite the reasonable distance, today’s walk was extremely slow. Bad footing due to wet rocks, roots and mud combined with difficult route finding, numerous stiles and gates, and an unintelligible diversion due to a bridge closure, all slowed my pace to a crawl – and I didn’t even stop to talk with anybody. That’s because I met only two people during the entire walk.

 

 

 

 

 

One was a farmer who shouted from his passing tractor that I was headed in the wrong direction, “Wrong way, fella, you need to cross the bridge and turn left.” No matter that the footpath sign pointed where I was headed. I thanked him and courteously followed his advice, and when he was out of sight, I checked my map. He was right, the directional post was wrong.

 

Diversion notice (unintelligible)

 

As I neared Kendal, I reached a point where I had a choice: either follow the most direct route along a busy A road that may or may not have a verge, of follow a slightly longer route through pastures that may or may not have decent footing. As I pondered the decision, a local farmer stopped, got out of his car and explained that the A road would not be interesting (I knew that already) but the route crossing the farmland would be better. He assured me that the farm route “had good footing underneath” and that the grass had been mown last week. I followed his recommendation and had a better walk.

 

Shelf fungus growing on tree

Kendal is a large city with too much traffic, but a nice town center. I will take some form of public transportation tomorrow to escape the city limits and avoid road walking.