June 19, 2018

June 19, 2018

After breakfast, we walked through the town of Keswick to the pier on Derwentwater. This lake is surrounded by steep windswept hills. We take a boat to the far shore, where we disembark and hike nearly straight up for a mile to the top of the Catbells. The view is just outstanding. The barren mountains, long blue lakes, and the green rolling pastures are simply gorgeous. During the Romanticism Movement of the Victorian Age, this was the area that people (like Wordsworth) for the first time went hiking and climbed hills just for the sheer pleasure of it. No wonder the Lake District is also a World Heritage Site. Humorously, what looks like bright green grass on the hills is really just tall weeds. We then hiked down to the lake and cruised back to Keswick for a Hot Chocolate break in our room.

In the afternoon, we did a circle driving tour of the area. Our first stop was at Ashness Packhorse Bridge, a rustic stone bridge over a creek with Derwentwater in the background.

We then drove up to Honister Pass. At the peak is the last operating Slate Mine in Britain. Since slate is durable and cleaves readily into sheets it was a popular building material especially for roofing. We had a small slate floor in our Chicago house and we loved it. Instead of taking the mine tour we walked around the area looking at the tailings cascading from the many mine shafts dotting either side of the road.

From Honister Pass we descended into Buttermere Valley. We stopped and did a short hike along the shore of this beautiful and serene lake. With more time we could have walked the whole perimeter. The Lake District is a very popular walking destination for Brits on holiday.

We then drove over Newlands Pass, past a nice waterfall along a narrow lane hugging the mountain and descended into Newlands Valley, one of the few with no lake at the bottom. It is all agricultural. Unfortunately it seemed the road kept getting narrower and narrower. Good thing we rented a small car this time.