Day Thirty One

Wednesday 26 May - Windermere to Great Langdale.

I could have cut the corner and swum the lake, diving in at Bowness, heading North West to the head of the lake near, say, Clappersgate, and been handily placed for hypothermia treatment in Ambleside. So I walked round.

I'm sure the one-way traffic system in Windermere has improved the flow, but it means that normal activities such as window shopping and pavement gossip take place in an atmosphere of low-level crisis, especially if you are in the network of pleasant shopping streets that have become an elongated roundabout.

Luckily, escape on foot was swift. I followed a much-walked path up to the rightly-popular viewpoint at Orrest Head. Several other people had walked off their breakfasts in the same way. Despite the gloomy weather forecast, it was beautifully sunny. I swapped walking notes with a very nice chap from Manchester, who was planning an active day in the open air to celebrate his girlfriend's birthday - she was out of earshot, so I never found out whether she had the same or different plans.

From Orrest Head I walked roughly North, descending into and out of valleys which joined the Windermere valley at right angles. When I reached Town End (an outpost of Troutbeck) I followed a lane which contoured the hill before heading downhill to another popular beauty spot, the heavily wooded Jenkin's Crag, and then to the outskirts of Ambleside.

In many ways, I like Ambleside. It's bustling, but not completely overcome by either tourists or traffic. The ludicrous aspect to the town is the dozens (literally) of outdoor clothing shops, catering for everyone from serious mountain hard men to dedicated posers in search of something "sportif". I popped into a bar for lunch - an enormous ploughman's - and then adjourned to the gents to change into my waterproof trousers. It had started to rain as I approached Ambleside, with towering clouds threatening more to come. But as I left the bar in all my gear, the rain had (of course) almost stopped.

I walked a short way along the Grasmere road, turning on to a footpath which would take me to Loughrigg Fell. I didn't intend to climb to the top of the fell - just lazy, I suppose. A bridleway climbs part of the way up, then levels out and goes round the fell, before descending towards Loughrigg Tarn, around the West of which other footpaths would take me.

The tarn is stunning. Lying in a natural grassy amphitheatre, with the sun shimmering on the water, and even a couple of yokels (sorry, fishermen) to complete the scene, it was worthy of Constable or one of that Dutch crowd. A very quiet road took me across to Elterwater. The Post Office has gone the way of so many, leaving only the pub to take money from the tourists.

It had started to rain again as I approached the village, and as I walked alongside Great Langdale Beck, the heavens opened. I holed up under a tree for about a quarter of an hour, afraid that my waterproofs would be overcome by the deluge. Once the worst was over, I pressed on through the village of Chapel Stile, and half a mile or so further into Great Langdale and my overnight stop.

As she waited patiently for me to peel off my soggy clothing, the lady at my farm b&b told me that what I had walked through had been the first decent bit of rain they had had since Christmas. Relying as they do on a private supply, they had been rationing water and sending their washing into Ambleside. They were very welcome to all the water which had bounced off me. Later it transpired that four people had been struck by lightning in three separate events in the Buttermere area, just over the hill.