After the long drive yesterday and not much walking today was all about exploring the local area on foot. We had found a walk called Ambleside to Troutbeck and back which should only have been about six miles although it did say it would take about four to five hours so that worried us a little, as it turned out it was more like 10 miles and took us more like six hours but that did include me taking us the wrong way once and having lunch (in two parts) so not bad after all. The walk started outside our apartment but very rapidly started going up hill and kept going up hill! We followed the path to High Skelghyll and decided we would take the detour to Jenkins Crag which is a view point with fantastic views over Windermere – well worth the detour, unfortunately it should have only been about a 100 yard detour but I decided that we had to go back and walk though the woods which we did but it didn’t feel like the right direction so we finally got the phone out and checked on google maps which confirmed that we were heading in the wrong direction so we walked back up the hill and got back on track. It was quite a walk up hill and back down again and finally we arrived in Troutbeck which is a small village that has a postoffice that seems to double as the shop, meeting place, tea room and general centre of the village and a National Trust house which we had planned to go into but after walking out of town towards it – the house is called Townend – we found out that it didn’t open until 1pm and it was only 12:30. We thought about waiting for it but there were clouds gathering that looked like they might bring rain with them so we decided to carry on with the walk. In the end it was probably a good thing we got on with the walk as for the next hour we walked up hill to the top of Wansfell Pike, it was a long climb and a few times we thought we had got to the top only to go round the corner and seeing another peak up ahead. In the end it was well worth it at the top as we had fantastic views over Ambleside and Windermere. We thought about stopping at the top and having our other sandwich but it was really windy and a little cold so we decided to head down. If possible the way down was a lot harder than the way up, but then I have always disliked going downhill! We finally hit the bottom and turned off to visit Stock Ghyll Force (a waterfall) that is actually running quite fast, but not easy to see as it is a little overgrown but it was a nice place to sit and have our final sandwich before heading off into town. As we hadn’t really looked round Ambleside yesterday we went for a short walk round town, mostly to see what there is as we are both quite shattered, then it was time to head back to the apartment for a relax before having something to eat and go to bed to prepare for tomorrow.
