Today was advertised as one of the toughest sections. Anticipating a long day, we were on the trail by about 8:30 after yet another full English breakfast at our B&B. The forecast was "a few showers", and sure enough the first one started less than a km from our B&B. Thus began our series of endless wardrobe changes. We backtracked a bit from yesterday, then took a shortcut to bypass the village of Patterdale. We soon started climbing and with that came better and better views, giving us a reason to pause occassionally and take in the views. As most hikers have found out the hard way, walking over uneven terrain and looking up to sightsee at the same time often leads to disaster. A brief respite passing through Patterdale Common and then more climbing up to Angle Tarn, where a solitary tent was pitched on the shore. A lovely setting and great lighting for some photos. There had been a lot of trail work done on the next section, as many well-placed rocks kept our feet out of the numerous bogs. As we climbed these stretches it was fascinating to realize just how much your views changed by moving just a few metres up the trail. As we approached a high point called "The Knott", the skies opened and the raingear came out in force. The clouds moved in and our visibility was cut to almost nil. I'm sure the views would have been lovely, but they were not ours to see. A moment of inattention to the landmarks and we overshot our next turn by about 100 metres. Not to worry - back on track and up to Kidsty Pike, which would be the high point on the trail if you didn't do any of the previous "high route" optons. As we turned onto this section the wind came up and the rain continued for a while before tapering off. Needless to say there wasn't a lot of picture-taking going on. We made our way cautiously and safely down the rocky, muddy, slippery & steep section of the trail called Kidsty Howes, By the time we reached the Haweswater Reservoir (about 5km long), the rain had stopped long enough for us to have a bit of a lunch stop. We trekked the entire length of the reservoir and then off the C2C route (on quiet country roads through lovely rolling terriain) by a few km to our B&B in Bampton Grange. Beautiful little village and a nice B&B, although dinner was a bit slow in coming - almost three hours :( By the time we clean up from one day, prep for the next, read maps & instructions, check weather, have dinner, do blogs, etc., bedtime comes pretty quickly. I'm not sure why I downloaded lots of books and magazines onto my iPhone before I came. I've only read about 10 pages since I got here! And with that it's time to sign off again. We're out of the Lake District now, so it will be interesting to see what tomorrow's walk brings.
Looks lovely, despite the downpours. But then again, what would the Lake District be without rain? Glad you all made it in one piece. I was afraid, reading the blog, that someone might have had a spill...
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