June 30

Testing the kayak.

June 19

Fly home. Appropriately we walked from our hotel to Manchester Airport. Sitting in wait for a flight isn't the most exciting thing to do so I decided to summarize our trip to England.   

Coast to Coast trek - devised in 1972 by Alfred Wainwright, from St Bees on the Irish Sea to Robin Hood's Bay on the North Sea, 198 miles. We walked it over 12 days using NorthWest Walks who organized the accommodations and transfer of luggage each day. For us this was one backpack but most people had the baggage transfer company moving one decent sized suitcase per person. A benefit of this was reducing the load on my ankle which had bone spurs removed on April 4.

Hadrian's Wall path trek. 84 miles from Wallsend to Bowne on Solway.  We organized this ourselves after getting to Newcastle by bus. Booking accommodation proved to be more difficult than expected. We considered doing part of the Pennine way but abandoned the idea because of difficulty getting B&Bs. I contacted NWW and they were not accepting any bookings for June because of a shortage of accommodation.

Keswick. We learned about Keswick from a hiker that we talked to on the trainto St Bees. When we were in Carlisle I couldn't find places to stay through booking.com. I found a nice place through AirBnB. That gave us 4 days.

Amberside arose out of a chance conversation with another couple in Greenhead. I got 7 nights at a B&B through AirBnB.

June 18

We had breakfast at the B&B and then walked around the corner to the bus station to catch the 555 bus to Lancaster. It's not far, 34.5 miles but took a while, over two hours, because it wound its way through the countryside. But it was really interesting seeing how the terrain changed as we left the Lake District;  the 3000 foot mountains became low hills. The houses also charged. In Ambleside and Keswick houses had stone walls that didn't show any mortar. This changed to stone walls that showed mortar and then some with brick or stucco. Today's bus ride was a bargain at  £8.30 each in comparison to the  £7.70 each that we paid for the six mile ride to the Helvellyn trailhead when were in Keswick. The main reason for taking the bus to Lancaster was the problems that they are having with the train service. No trains have been going to Windermere.  I had booked a train from Lancaster to Manchester Airport at 15:25 so we had time to look around Lancaster. We got to the train station early and asked a question of a station employee. When he saw our tickets he told us to get on the train that was about to leave because our train was unlikely to be running; he told us not to worry about the incorrect ticket. We were grateful because we got to Manchester Airport earlier than expected.

June 17

Our final hurrah. We decided to try a nice long hike for our last walk on the fells. The plan was to take the long way to Troutbeck then go up to the end of the valley to the col and over to Thornthwaite Crag and then walk the ridge toward Windermere. As we entered the valley we couldn't see the col or the crag but figured that the ceiling would rise later in the day. As we approached the end of the valley everything went as we had hoped and visibility improved a lot. Then just as we reached the col the weather turned and we were surrounded by clouds; suddenly the visibility disappeared and we started to get wet from being immersed in the clouds.  Also the temperature dropped and the wind picked up. We decided not to go back the way we had just come up but rather go to the summit and return by a much easier route that we used 2 days ago. By the time we reached the valley again Susie was really wet and cold so I gave her a dry sweater that I had brought and with her dry jacket she warmed up nicely. So we didn't get to do the ridge walk because of the weather and even if we had the visibility was there. We had to change our focus to drying out our clothes so that they can be packed for the flight home. Even with the wet weather of the last two days this has been a wonderful experience in northern England.

June 16

Umbrella day. Fortunately for the farmers and unfortunately for us, the weather forecast was accurate. It was raining after breakfast as we left the B&B and it continued to rain almost all of the time that we were out. It made us aware of how wet this part of England can be. We have been extremely lucky that it didn't rain like this during our Coast to Coast trek. Today we walked south-west to Hawkshead and when we were there I wasn't interested in going to the Beatrix Potter Museum; all I wanted to do was dry out and warm up. On our way back we were passed by guys on bikes and then as we approached Ambleside, we saw them running toward us. We were told that it was an Ironman race. About 15 minutes before returning to the B&B the sun came out and the rain stopped. That's when I took the only picture of the day.

Today marked the end of my "last legs" pairs of socks. Earlier I had gone through my socks at home and saved a bunch that were essentially worn out for this trip. As they got dirty I was happy to retire them to the garbage and didn't have to wash them. 

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June 15

Cobbled hike. We had run out of the obvious hiking routes that were accessible from Ambleside so I cobbled a hike together after looking at some suggested hikes and the maps.  We walked over Wansfell Pike to Troutbeck then up the stream to the head of the valley. This gave us access to Thornthwaite Crag at 784 m and Stony Cove Pike at  763 m from which we drop into Kirkstone Pass and back into Ambleside. The walk took us a little over 8 hours. It was a great hike with lots of good views and a bit of challenge. Of all we saw many sheep including an abundance of this spring's lambs. At breakfast we learned that the price of wool is so low that the farmers are not bothering to do the shearing. We also learned that much of the land on which we have hiked was donated to the National Trust by Beatrix Potter and her husband.

June 14

Walk to Grasmere. This was the first day that the weather affect our activities. It was raining lightly when we exited our B&B so Dec to stay in the valley rather than hike up a fell. The walk to Grasmere was made more interesting by the rise in water levels in the local streams. Although it rained modestly overnight, the streams we carrying well over twice as much water. We thought that this was due to the shallow soil on the fells and their lack of trees. On the way to Grasmere we stopped to look at some caves; the second one was large and deep.