Anniversary Leg Exhaustion - May 2015

No apologies for the cheesy couple picture: this walk was our celebration of being married for 12 years! Our Anniversary date was actually the following day, but the weather forecast for then was terrible, so we went on the Saturday, and chased the sunshine. This had worked out well for us on our Ennerdale Trip, and so we fixed on Bassenthwaite for Saturday 30th May, which being the Northernmost lake, looked to be the sunniest.

That Book Woman hadn't included Bassenthwaite in her 'Low Level' walks (even though there is very little mountain scrambling to be done. Perhaps that's why!).  So I looked to my favourite internet site (here) and also a new found one (here) for inspiration.  Both walkers started at the south end of the lake, in Portinscale.  We decided we'd rather start at the tearooms a bit higher up!  So OS map in hand (OL4 if you're interested) and freshly-charged camera batteries, off we set.

You can see on the photo of the map below, that the tearooms (and toilets) are on the lower right, in between Dodd Wood and the Osprey Viewing Point.  And yet on the upper right, it says "You are here".  Yes.  John had forgotten to put into the satnav the location of the tearooms (and toilet) and had simply left it taking us to 'Bassenthwaite'.  It might well have taken us to the centre of the lake for all I know. (Hope that's not what he had planned!!). We'd been driving along the A66 with the lake on our right for a good while before he said "Ah". So we turned right and parked at Banks Point, which did have a litter bin (which is a rarity in Lake District Car Parks) that I had no need to use, but no toilet - which I had in increasingly pressing need to use.  Tearoom negative also.

Ready for the off. Usko is looking non-plussed. It's like he knows how long this walk will be already

Anyway, I gritted my teeth and coped admirably actually.  We set off down to the lakeside and were greeted with the following views:

It was just here we saw one of the very few 'other people' encountered this walk: a man coming up out of the water in diving gear.  Surreal.  In fact over the course of the day I did wonder whether my anti-histamine of the morning had been swapped for something a little more trippy.

We headed to the bridge to cross the river and then headed down the other side of the lake.

View from the bridge

This may look like a picture of a wheely bin, but that is purely luck on my part ;-) The sign just to the right of Usko is actually the Flood Level from 2009, which might explain why the house on the left (which although gorgeous looking) needs some work doing on it.

We headed along the road for a bit and I tried to capture a sheep on camera... only for John to capture me being stared at by another sheep..

 And then we wandered through the wood alongside a stream to the water's edge.

Looking back across to the bridge just crossed.

Then began our baptism of fire at map-reading, and path-finding. We ended up doing the same stretch of path about 3 times to-ing and fro-ing until John bounded down a bank near the road to find we were about 20 feet higher up than we should have been to see the sign. No matter, we eventually found it and were back on our way again.

Slim-fit bridge with added fallen-tree for difficulty in access.

Wildlife growing on a log

The boggy ground was at times avoided by boardwalk

Where we sat and ate our lunch, grateful to Mr Banks' family

Lunch view one way...

..and the other

One thing that is difficult to capture is all the beautiful colours of flowers we saw. Rich Bluebells (and white bluebells) led to John explaining his latest knowledge of the difference between English and Spanish varieties (apparently the spanish are the equivalent of grey squirrels in the Bluebell world). Buttercups so vibrant it was as if they were singing, and clover that was so vivid in its magenta, it was like a (very lovely) punch in the eye.  

Dog on a Rock

Field full of buttercups

Fascinating cloud formations

And then we found our way to St Bega's church. We would have gone in but for the fact there was a music recital going on, and I'm not sure Usko barking alongside would have gone down too well ;-) But we found another wonderful place...a Portaloo in the grounds. And I have never before seen such an amazing Portaloo. Spotlessly clean, fresh smelling and with hospital-grade hand sanitiser... Maybe inhaling the alcohol in the sanitiser led to the trippy appreciation of the day... but I'm not complaining. And it never does that at work.

Church with a view

Watched nervously from the other side of the brook

We then headed past Mire House (which looks haughtier than it sounds) and came to Dodd Wood: with tearooms and toilets, and a full car park which I suspect may have been full for a while, so I begrudgingly said that maybe our parking spot *miles away* was a good find.

Mire House.  It's on our list of places to come back to and go round properly

I quite fancied going to see the Ospreys, but the info told us it was a good 20 minute walk up a steep incline. So we settled for a brew from the Old Saw Mill tearoom and tried to encourage Usko not to bark at every beast passing.  John took him to the stream for a drink, and off we set again.

Our refreshment stop

Usko's refreshment stop

After a bit more map-negotiating, we ended up coming down into the valley and crossing the River Derwent.  It was awe-inspiring being surrounded by mountains all around. We tried to video it, but somehow the experience doesn't come over at all on playback.

Many of our path-finding issues were to do with the signposting.  Yellow arrows are the things to look for. You can just see one on the tree here - bang smack in the middle of a field.  Other places we saw them were at ground level and on the top of a stile (so's you had to be climbing over it before you knew you were going the right way). Crazy. More clear were the 'no path here' signs put up by landowners fed up with people traipsing on their farms ;-)

Did I mention the colourful flowers?

A much less beautiful bird's claw which I haven't enlarged too much for those of you with sensitive dispositions.  Usko found it and was chewing on it so joyfully that the 'drop' command seemed undetected to his auditory system, so yours truly had to hoik it out of his mouth and then stood there shrieking for a bit upon realising what it was.  How a single claw had found itself in a field I don't know. *shudders*

After missing another sign, we walked alongside the A66 for a while. This was not fun.  Not only were we within striking distance of very fast cars, but there was also the aroma of muck-spreading in the air, which caused Usko to roll around on the grass. Although I am glad he was dim enough to roll around *nowhere near* any muck, I was more than a little concerned that the grass he chose was the grass verge next to the A66, and therefore he was quite able to roll under a car. :-0  He was on a short lead for a while until we retraced our steps and found our way in to a field containing no moving vehicles.

The path took us to Thornthwaite, which is a pretty and quiet village.

I could have happily ended the walk here. But alas the car was not in Thornthwaite, so on we had to walk.  Unfortunately the clouds had covered up the sun and we felt less inspired and more old trudging along the last couple of miles, and comparing aching joints or twinging muscles. 

You may have heard the expression 'the trees have ears'... well at Bassenthwaite they have eyes too..

Not sure, but we think they might be bat houses?

Usko was super-excited to meet this friendly horse, also super-twitchy.

I've not had to end a walk by stretching out before, but I did this one!  We decided 25km might be a bit further than is comfortable in the future.  But it was a lovely day, and I'm glad to say we did it.  It was great working out our route from the map, even though we got lost a few times, we always found our way back to where we were going. I'm sure there's an analogy in there somewhere for married life ;-)

P.S. Bassenthwaite is tick-tastic.  So far since Sunday we've removed 14 from Usko, and Boy1 just told me he'd found another. :-( I guess that's the downside to walking a dog in long grass where sheep are grazed.