Day Four: Grasmere to Patterdale

Grasmere to Patterdale: 13.5 km along the low route, more along the top.

Today was our third full day in the beautiful mountainous (or should I say fellanous?) Lakes District. Today was also our third day where we had the option of a valley walk or a ridge walk, and we again chose the mountain tops. My arthritic knees were seriously complaining about the over-use, but once I got them working each morning, I was ok.

A Quaker B&B...I've never actually seen Quakers before

It was foggy and rainy out when we started, which was actually a nice relief from the sunny wind the day before, but it didn't last. By the time we got the top of the ridge, the sun was out in full force again. It was a long slow slog up the valley at first, surrounded by sheep and with fields divided by stone fence along the way. We passed several waterfalls but didn't stop to take pictures this time. There were also quite a few other people on the trail because it was getting towards the weekend. This made it harder to discreetly stop for bathroom breaks, which I certainly needed after drinking several cups of tea at breakfast.

We met the ex-RAF pilot part way up and he took our picture. His wife was taking the bus that day because her feet couldn't handle the hills for another day. He phoned her from the top of the ridge--there was cell phone reception up there!

There were actually two alternate routes this day. The first one everyone seemed to take as it climbed the valley at a more gentle rate and was cobbled. The second one took us up on the third highest peak in Britain and over a really neat craggy ridge called Strider's Edge (I kept thinking of Aragorn from Lord of the Rings when we were hiking it). At the fork between the two routes we met Allen again, who was taking the low route, and he told us he would buy us a pint in Patterdale if/when we made it down off the peak.

On our way up we met volunteer park workers digging up the seriously eroded path and putting in rocks that would make a cobbled new path. Hard hard work on a hot day.

The top of the peak had a shelter shaped like a plus sign so that no matter which way the wind was coming, there would be relief from it.

We sat on one side and were quietly inspected by the local sheep. We found out that the breed that lives up here is called the Herdwicks, and they spend all their lives up on the peaks, only coming down to lamb. They are an important part of the Lakes District ecosystem because without them, the fells would grow brush again and eventually fill up with trees as it was originally. The sheep's presence means the mountains remain grassy and full of ferns and heather, which is conducive to tourism. So very different than the management of the Canadian mountainous parks!

The Summit Cairn of Helvellyn (isn't that a great name?)

Strider's Edge definitely pushed our comfort zone for scrambling. We could have gone around the ridge, but we wanted to walk it. The top was absolutely beautiful, high and exposed above the valley.

Strider's Edge: Our route down along the ridge

The low route far below
Our first shade all day

The White Lion Inn in Patterdale was...interesting. Patterdale is actually an extremely tiny little center, with a major hotel, and the Inn and a church. The Inn itself is several hundred years old, but we were to learn that just because a building has an interesting history doesn't necessarily mean it was functional or comfortable. Further down the road was Glenridding, a larger center with a post office and an outdoorsy store and two grocery stores. It is on Ullswater Lake, which is a popular tourist destination. We walked to Glenridding and bought some things for our lunch the next day. We were not very impressed the other time we'd bought the packed lunch from the Inn we were staying at, so we thought we would not do it again.

The White Lion Inn and the A592

Fields of Bluebells

The Inn itself was an extremely narrow building and the front door emptied immediately onto the highway. The pub was quite cozy and friendly; we ate supper with Gordon and Charlene, the two Canadian sisters and Allen. Gordon and Charlene were staying an extra night in Patterdale and Allen was traveling only this far. So it was a bit of a farewell supper. It's funny that after knowing these people only four days, we were very sad to leave them. Gordon and Charlene in particular, we really enjoyed getting to know.

The six Canadians and Allen, a farewell supper

We had dessert, which was chocolate cake and hot custard. Custard is an English dish, and one that both Brent and I are big fans of. Dessert is called "pudding" in England, regardless of whether you're actually having pudding or if you're having cheesecake. We had pudding several more times on the trip, particularly when we saw custard on the menu.

While the pub was cozy, our room was not. Our window was directly over the door of the pub, so we heard the pub traffic late into the night. The staff were grumpy to us and the food was just ok (except for the pudding). ;)

Day Three: Rosthwaite to Grasmere

Rosthwaite to Grasmere: 14.5 Km

We had breakfast with a couple from Florida who were both militarypilots and then became commerical airline pilots. They were very friendly and had great stories and we saw more of them in the days to come. We also ate with a younger couple--the only people we saw on the C2C trail close to our age--who were going east to west while we were going west to east. They only had two days left whereas we had thirteen more days! Our breakfast was served in a special breakfast room on fancy china with silverware. Brent had the full English breakfast and I had porridge (yum). We ordered packed lunches from Rachel the hostess, and they were the cheapest we paid for all trip--only 3 pounds! And just as big and tasty as any of the others. We highly recommend Gillercombe Bed and Breakfast at Stonethwaite.

We moved quite slowly this day because we knew we only had roughly fourteen kilometers to go--a bit more than that because we were taking two alternative routes to the main trail that would put us high above the valley bottom. We hiked slowly at first and took lots of pictures of the valley and waterfalls and bridges we saw along the way.

Details of fence: There's nothing like this in Western Canada

A Stone Sheepfold

Much of the day was spent walking along the ridges of the mountains down the valley, so once we made it up the first big climb, it was just gentle up and down until we reached the end of the valley and had to go back down into the town of Grasmere. One fell that we climbed up and over was called the Lion and the Lamb because that's what the shape of the rocks look like.

First cellphone reception in a three days: the Australians text home

The valley below us, where the other route went

The Lion and the Lamb

Hiking along the ridge. Can you tell how sunburnt we are?

Our B&B was called Ivy Dene and it was a peculiar arrangement. When we arrived, there was a note saying go next door to get in. So we did and the lady next door let us into our room. Only later in the evening when we finally sought out our hostess did we actually find and meet her and found out that the lady next door was our B&B owner's daughter, who also owned a B&B. Otherwise I don't know how we would have figured out the breakfast arrangement! Nevertheless, the room was clean and comfortable and we had no complaints other than the strange hostess arrangement.

Ivy Dene Bead and Breakfast, and the daughter's B&B next door.

Grasmere was kind of like a miniature English Banff. There were lots of touristy shops, including a bookstore that we spent a good while purusing and spent a fair amount of money at. Grasmere is also home to an amazing Gingerbread Factory. We had to sample some of their fare, and it was unlike any gingerbread we've had before. It was thick and and spicy and chewy and had chunks of candied ginger in it. So good...they do mail order internationally, perhaps we shall have to indulge. :)

We also stopped at Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum. It was in Grasmere that William and Dorothy Wordsworth spent a large amount of their writing careers, and it was interesting seeing how they lived and where they wrote and the beautiful scenery they wrote about. I was quite disappointed, however, about how much William's efforts were emphasized over Dorothy's. Dorothy wrote quite good work as well, and William based a lot of his poetry off of memories captured in her journals. Yet from the museum one gets the picture that he was the sole creative genius. But maybe that's the feminist literary analysis coming out in me...I've written several papers on Dorothy Wordsworth's work.

Dove Cottage, in all its glory.

Day Two: Ennerdale Bridge to Rosthwaite

Ennerdale Lake behind us

Ennerdale Bridge to Rosthwaite; 23 km.

We had our usual porridge in the pub below our room and headed out to the trail shortly after eight. We ordered a packed lunch again but were a little disappointed with the results this time. A sandwich, a chocolate bar, crisps (aka potato chips) and a piece of fruit. Not the healthiest or best hiking-oriented lunch. But nevertheless, there was little opportunity to stop and buy lunch on the way so, we couldn't be choosy.

The hotel was quite old, dating back to the 17th century and smelled of old wood and woodfire smoke. It was quite a pleasant dining room/pub, but was not as cozy as the previous night's B&B.

Today we had two options for our route, and feeling tough and up to the challenge, we took the higher route, which was supposed to have taken us over three summits on a ridge walk, but we ended up missing the first summit, hiking up and over High Stile and Haystacks but missing Red Pike.

We hiked through and around many many sheep pastures. At first we tried to avoid getting manure on our boots but eventually we just gave up. It'll wash off later anyway. We enjoyed seeing all the baby lambs frolicking. We passed a sheep farmer coming the other way on her quad, with her border collie keeping watch from behind her on the seat.




The three peaks that we were supposed to do are quite popular day hikes and we saw many people on the trails along the ridge. There were also a lot of sheep and sheep trails at the summit, showing us that however tough and fit we thought we were, the four-legged mountaineers could make out just fine too.

High up on the fells.

A Mountain Tarn, England style

After we came down the far side of Haystacks fell, we walked through an old quarry site and then through a present-day slate mining operation. At the mine headquarters there was a gift shop, a tea house and a big window so you could watch the employees carving up the slate. What a great idea! We stopped for a cup of tea and admired the slatework, wishing that we could buy some--but that would be a lot of unwanted added weight. I was again reminded of Obelix and his menhirs. (If some of you are wondering about the repeated references to Asterix, here is a wikipedia link about the comic books-I highly recommend them.)

A building on the old mine site

We arrived at our B&B at around five thirty, and were greeted at the door by our hostess, Rachel, who told us that of the seven people staying there that night, we were the first to arrive. We were surprised because it was five thirty and we took the long route down! We had much needed showers and then Rachel made us tea. She told us that because of the big football game between Manchester and Chelsea taking place in Russia that night, we'd better get to the pub at a decent hour if we wanted a place to eat.

Gillercoombe House at Rosthwaite in the distance: almost done for the day!

We ate at the pub at Stonethwaite just down the road. I had poached trout with butter and parsley. It was very tasty. I have certainly gotten over my childhood dislike of fish! Brent had ham and chicken pie that was also very good. We talked for a long while with an old man sitting in the pub, who recommended to us several other hikes in England.

Donna the Parrot

Rachel the B&B owner has a pet parrot, who we met the following morning as he awoke us with car alarm sounds, truck back-up alerts and wolf calls. Funny little fellow.

Day One: St. Bees to Ennerdale Bridge

22.5 Km from St Bees to Ennerdale Bridge

We ate breakfast at 7:30; Brent had the full English breakfast--one of the better ones on the way--and I had tasty creamy British porridge. Porridge came to be an important staple to our breakfast diet, and we ate a lot of good porridge! The Brits eat theirs with golden syrup (corn syrup) and we often had to ask for brown sugar if we wanted it.

Feet in the Irish Sea

We were on the trail by eight thirty and Allen hiked behind us for a while. He was very interesting to talk to, but as he was hiking with all of his gear, we got ahead of him after a couple hours and didn't see him again that day.

Hiking along the coast

Gorse, a scratchy, yellow-flowered, lovely-scented bush.

White Haven or Sandwith (pronounced Sannith)? We went towards Sandwith

We hiked along the coast for several hours before heading inland. We were fascinated by the number of different ways the British have devised for crossing fences. Here are a few examples.

A Kissing Gate

A Stile, with a dog door beside.

An A-Frame Gate

We climbed a big hill called Dent Fell. It was here we first met the Australians, who were taking a "nannynap" part way through the day. We hiked behind them for a while as we dropped down towards Ennerdale.

Dent Fell in the distance
Dent Fell, made it to the top.

The other side of Dent Fell, hiking with the Australians for the first time

We passed through a number of quiet little towns which our guide book said would "appreciate our custom." As we had bought a packed lunch from Abbey Farm House, we didn't need to buy anything along the way. But we appreciated the sign in the window of one pub.

We stayed at the Fox and Hounds Inn in Ennerdale. It was a clean but not fancy place. We had supper there, I ordered lamb, which was quite tasty and inexpensive. We met up with Gordon and Charlene, a retired couple who live on an island off the coast of BC, and who we had stayed with at the Abbey Farm House. We had supper with them and chatted. They were very friendly and interested in all our life plans, and had all kinds of architect and academic connections. We would see them throughout the hike until we left them behind in Patterdale.

The Fox and Hounds Inn

We did our laundry in the bathtub at the Inn and hung it up to dry. We hadn't done laundry since we got to England, and were running low on socks and underwear.

The Churchyard across the road from the Inn.

The Church itself, with a round turret.

London to St. Bees by Train

The Sydney Hotel, where we stayed in London before our hike.

Our trip from London to St. Bees was more of an ordeal than we expected. When we went to buy our train tickets at Euston Station in London, we had trouble speaking the same English language with the lady behind the glass. At first she couldn't understand us when we said we wanted to get to St. Bees and then, as we only later found out, she sold us tickets that took us all the way to Carlisle, which is close to the border to Scotland, where we then had to transfer to another train that would take us back down the west coast to our destination--while we could have got there much cheaper and easier a different way. But we didn't find that out until our tickets were checked on our way back down the coast.A castle in Carlisle that we didn't get a chance to explore

Riding the fast train

At any rate, even though the cost of the train was so high--102 pounds per person--we really enjoyed the train system. The cars were clean, there was a fair amount of leg room and we got to see the countryside fly by. We took a Virgin Rail train from London to Carlisle and then a slow diesel train that stopped in many tiny towns on the west coast. While on the slow train we met Allen, an Englishman we were to hike with for the next four days. He was a retired HR coordinator, and a gentle and kind man who told us all kinds of interesting things about England.

Our B&B stop that night was called Abbey Farm House, and as you can see from our earlier blog pictures, it was lovely. Clean and light and airy, with a big clawfoot tub in the bathroom, free internet and tasty food. The host, Steve, was friendly and very helpful.

Abbey Farm House, in the flesh.

St. Bees itself is a small town, although larger than many we came across. It has a Post Office, which is also a convenience store (many of the post offices in Britain are like it), two pubs and a restaurant. And many B&Bs to accommodate all the Coast to Coast walkers and the many vacationers who come to visit the lovely beach there.

The little town of St. Bees

We had our first English pint in a pub there, it was called Speckled Hen ale, and came recommended by a man sitting at the bar. We stood out like sore thumbs as foreigners unaccustomed to English food and drink, but this got better along the way.

Where we ate supper.

The Irish Sea, at low tide.

Back in rainy Calgary

We're home! Eric came and picked us up at the airport yesterday afternoon. Now we just have to adjust back to Alberta time. It's two in the afternoon here but nine at night in England and I am getting pretty sleepy! Over the next while I'm going to post an overview of each day on our hiking trip. That should give our normal readers a sense of our trip, and it'll hopefully be of use to future Coast-to-Coast hikers looking for information on places to stay and things to see along the way. We looked at some blogs of the trip before we went and really appreciated the information, so I thought I would contribute to the body of online knowledge of the trip. But, generally speaking, some highlights of the trip: - Church in Westminster Abbey. It was just so amazing to worship in a church so beautiful and one with such a history of worshippers. I am seriously considering converting to Anglicanism, but that's a whole nother story. -Our night at Keld Lodge, half way through the trip. We crossed that day the Pennines in the pouring misty rain and were soggy wet and grateful for a warm bed and cozy B&B regardless where it was, but this place outdid our expectations. They had a whole room devoted to drying out hikers' gear (they get a lot of us) which was toasty warm and had our soaking wet stuff crispy dry by morning. They had a bar lounge for those who wanted it and a sitting room with a coal burning fire place (which was going) for hikers to relax and put their feet up (which we did). They had a restaurant that, while certainly not the cheapest place we came across, had WONDERFUL food. We had the best meal we had the whole time were in England there. The bed was comfortable, the shower fairly large (an uncommon thing) and with plenty of hot water and pressure. And to top it off, the evening was misty but not raining and the world was green and hilly and full of lambs and silent rural desolate beauty. -Our Australian friends. We met up the first day with three Australians hiking the trail, who unlike us wimps who had the majority of our baggage delivered from place to place, were carrying all their stuff on their backs. When we met them, they told us we were from the second best British commonwealth country (Australia, it would seem, was first). ;) But we got to know them better over the days of hiking and spent a whole day with them in the middle, wandering through a valley in the Yorkshire dales. They were lovely enthusiastic people and it was really neat to share our excitement in seeing the countryside with them. We were sad to leave them before the end of the hike (they split a day in two that we did in one). -Meeting two of my grad school colleagues in London. It was fun seeing two friendly familiar faces in London, and we enjoyed spending a little time with them and sharing our adventures with them and hearing about their time doing the Battlefields tour. -Finally, climbing peaks in the Lake District. The tops were beautiful and there were so many little tarns and villages down below to view. Plus our hiking companions were hardy, sure-footed, fit and well-dressed-for-the-weather domestic sheep (you thought I was going to say Swiss mountain climbers or something, didn't you). There were ewes and lambs calmly chewing their cud at the top of Britain's third highest peak. You may say, yes but Britain doesn't have much for mountains, does it? But you shall see when we post pictures, they certainly do have some high peaks! Ok, on to the hiking posts...and with picture this time!