Water, water everywhere.

This is what we saw as we headed to start out walk alongside Derwentwater this morning, our 48 th wedding anniversary.
If you can see the little bridge in the centre we needed to cross that to get to the other side of the R Derwent to walk the paths along Lake side. Oops. All the boardwalks leading to the bridge were submerged so we had to go to plan B. This meant retracing our steps past our hotel to the road bridge in Grange to get to the other side of the river. This added 2 miles to the walk.

We spoke to someone who had done the walk yesterday without problem, last night was wild and we could hear the rain lashing against the windows hence the flooding. We were lucky as the morning was bright and ( very ) breezy, ideal for walking.
The path when connected was very good, in and out of woods so with a bit of shelter from the wind, but it was still inundated in places - extra - so we had to be a bit creative!
We stopped at Lingholme gardens for a welcome coffee but still had nearly 3 miles to go into Keswick where we got the bus back.  There was a sharp shower while we waited ( in Booths so we kept dry ). It was running late but the sun was out again when we got off at the Lodore Falls hotel. We had a cuppa and toasted tea cake and then made our way to the falls. Not that easy as some of the paths were streams!

We made it and took a couple of shots, including an anniversary selfie, before continuing along the road to our hotel. Just over 9 miles and over 25,000 steps done.
We think we’ve done very well today after last night’s heavy rain and the earlier forecast.


Looking forward to dinner. Last night I had the three course Cumbrian menu. I was particularly tempted by the desert, a ‘Trifle’ ( deconstructed ) incorporating a piece of Grasmere gingerbread. It was delicious.

Just looked out and it is lashing down again!



March 22nd 1975