The ups and downs of walking...

The weather forecast was much improved today: the rain would stop periodically instead of being incessant! OK, it wasn't quite so bad - we expected to stay dry until after lunch, when we might get caught in one or two showers. With this in mind, we decided to head down to the western shores of Lake Windermere to a part of the Lakes we'd not visited before. All things being well, we'd be in amongst the forested hillside above the lake by the time the rain came, and hopefully this would give us some shelter.

Today's walk (see Claife Heights and the Sawreys) started from the car park near the ferry crossing point, near to Far Sawrey and not far from Near Sawrey either. Near Sawrey is farther than Far Sawrey although by the time you saw Near Sawrey, Far Sawrey was farther and no longer nearer. Glad that's sorted out!

Near Sawrey is better known as the home of Beatrix Potter, and Hill Top farm is close to the road near the centre of the village. Even on an overcast day in October, there were still plenty of people wanting a closer look, and as the entance charge isn't cheap we decided not to bother.

The gentle climb from Near Sawrey took us to Moss Eccles Tarn, which is a picturesque spot for lunch, well it would have been if the rain has caught us up. And unfortunately there wasn't much shelter so we had to grin and bear it.

Eventually we made it to the woods, but although this sheltered us from the worst of the rain, unfortunately the rain made the rocky ground incredibly slippy (particularly for me and Kevan) and this, together with the overgrown trees and roots that were constantly in the way, made progress very slow. The three miles or so back to the start felt more like six, and the last stretch downhill to the car was both trecherous and very, very steep. On a nicer day I'm sure it would have been much easier, but on a poor day this turned out not to be one of our favourite walks.