Day 3: Stonethwaite to Grasmere

Written on Saturday 4th July 2015 at 07:21 

The weather forecast for today:  

‘There will be some scattered showers at first, with a low risk that some of these may be heavy and thundery. These showers will clear away to the north before noon. The afternoon will bring some prolonged sunny spells, with just the odd isolated shower.

We were hoping to get to Grasmere before the shops close as two of our group are suffering in their current boots, but it looks like it’s not going to be worth setting off early! The route is 8 miles, with around 2000ft of climbing today.  

Our ‘shorter day’ did not feel very short, I have to tell you.  In 6 hours 28 minutes we walked 9.24 miles, with 1751 ft of climbing on sore feet (compared with 9hrs 20min and 2010 ft yesterday) – mustn’t grumble…!

For you nerds (like me) who like to know all the stats, you’ll be pleased to hear that John has this super duper GPS watch – it collects lots of data.  Apparently yesterday we averaged 1.8 mph and today we dropped to only 1.42 mph. Our first day we averaged 2 mph.  We are getting progressively slower and slower, which is a bit disheartening!

Still, we were a happy, merry bunch at 9:30 this morning.  We decided to take our time getting out and were rewarded by a break in the rain. 

Walking into Stonethwaite village to find the start of the path, we got the giggles over a scrambled egg incident over breakfast.  There was a bit of a misunderstanding, which resulted in Pat being served a plate of grey scrambled egg with flecks of green, made with soya milk and lovingly served by our wonderful host. She was trying to accommodate Pat’s ‘no dairy’ request, but had mistakenly thought that Pat preferred scrambled eggs for breakfast.  In fact, it was her least favourite option, and she looked on jealously as boiled eggs and perfectly poached eggs on toast were dished up, meanwhile she begrudgingly ate tiny mouthfuls of the scrambled egg, because (being British) she didn’t want to be rude.  When one of the boiled eggs was going spare and up for grabs, she jumped at the chance but got caught eating it by our host – at which point, looking like a deer caught in the headlights, she said ‘It was lovely, actually and I have eaten half of it…’

Maybe you had to be there. 

From Stonethwaite,  we followed Greenup Gill all the way up the valley, which is a beautiful mountain stream, punctuated by waterfalls all the way up.  The weather was distinctly mixed, brightening up considerably though at Lining Crag and Greenup Edge, which was fortunate for us as it would have been impossible to navigate in the earlier mist.

We were happier than we look

As with the previous two days, the descent into our final resting point for the day seemed long and painful, (why do my feet feel bruised?), but the sun began to shine and Easdale was lush and green.

 On arrival in Grasmere, I felt a bit like an alien - there were people wandering about looking at tea rooms and gift shops, while I felt like I'd just emerged from days on the trail.  Think Reese Witherspoon in Wild. A bit dramatic, perhaps - but if you don't like it, read someone else's blog. 

We are meeting friends for dinner tonight who have driven from Manchester specially, so we will need to stay awake past 9:30pm tonight... do you think we'll make it?

Edited notes about Day 3:

We stayed out until 10:30pm - what wild party animals we are.  Grasmere couldn’t quite cope with us, if the truth be told.  It was lovely to see Nobby and Katie, a year between visits is too long.

Both John and Pat managed to purchase new footwear.  Pat went for classic boots, but John’s got a pair of right bobby dazzlers, they’re like a trail running shoe. The tread looks like it belongs on a John Deer tractor.  They seemed to help today, he was trotting up like the original mountain goat. I think I probably should have sabotaged them really, - perhaps dropped some grains of sand into his socks, or a pebble in each shoe. He’s already too fast, but I don’t want the man to suffer.  Not really.  At least he waits.

We ate at Greens in Grasmere, and I would highly recommend it.  The food was lovely, service good, and they even though they stop serving food at 8:45pm, they let us come at 8:40 (we were a little bit late) and did not rush us to finish.