Day 2: Ennerdale Bridge to Rosthwaite

Weather: Mostly sunny, cool following breeze, perfect Distance covered today: 24.6km (15.3mi) Last night's B&B: Stork Hotel % Complete: Cumulative distance: 16.5%: 49.8km Total Ascent/ Total Descent  719m/ 738m GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 2 (click!)

So much of what I said in my in my treatise on Wainwright yesterday turns out in the event to be wrong, that I have to reappraise! The route yesterday might have been tightly prescribed for geographical reasons. Today, on the other hand, lent much scope for individual invention. I might have suspected as much early on. At breakfast, fights broke out about the right route options to take. A particularly well-informed Antipodean opined that on the basis of his half dozen guides, his membership of some obscure Wainwright group on the web, and the general superiority of Antipodeans, a particular route would be optimal. I was asked what route I was taking. I mumbled I was following the new Wainwright guide. My cover was blown when it was established that this Wainwright, Martin, is in no way related to Alfred (as if relationship could confer legitimacy on route selection!). I finished my breakfast quickly and left.

The fundamental point though, is correct. Wainwright’s wishes not to have a path slavishly delineated along his choices are well respected. There are few waymarks along the way indicating the Coast-to-coast path, and those that do are clearly doing so for practical safety or private property reasons. Once one is solidly out in the country, the choices become legion. It is as Wainwright would have wished.  So much so, that the chances of getting lost are very real.

This produces a different sort of behaviour amongst the walkers.  There are far more individuals intently consulting their maps and guidebooks than on national routes, and more interaction between them. There is also a distinction between the young and fit, and the elderly majority. The youngsters naturally head for the high routes as Wainwright himself would have done, while the rest of us earnestly seek the softer options.

During one particularly long, but gentle ascent, I very gradually overtook an older couple, and was hugely pleased to be complemented on my “engine”.  As it happened, our paths crossed later at undoubtedly the most scenic Youth Hostel in Britain, Black Sail Hut, where I was having a bite to eat. Sometime later, I got myself horribly engorged in a bog, only to find Mike and Paula on a well-kept path just 20 yards up and to my right, calling me to join them. We started to walk together and they commented on the fact that almost all the walkers were foreigners, mostly from former British colonies, something I have often noted. It remains for them and me a complete mystery that the most beautiful parts of this country are visited mostly by foreigners.

Further up the hill, Mike and I got into a heated argument about which side of a frothing beck we should be climbing. He was using a traditional 1:25,000 Ordnance Survey map and a magnetic compass, and I was using a brand-new, pre-programmed Garmin satnav with the Ordnance Survey route planned by myself and uploaded digitally to the unit.  I couldn’t possibly be wrong, could I?  I was!  Veronica (and Chris) will be delighted!  To be fair, as we parted many miles further on, he did have the good grace to suggest that subsequently, my machine had saved us from a few poor choices which would have required painful correction.

Mike and Paula were tiring visibly by the time we reached Rosthwaite and I was in no good condition myself. On reaching my hotel, my mood wasn’t improved to find that my en-suite bathroom wasn’t, that there was no wifi connection in the bedrooms, that there are no radios or TVs in the rooms, and that dinner is a single, set menu, to be served promptly at 19:30!  When I complained about the lack of TV on election night, I was told, “our standard of guest objects to having television in its bedrooms”.  I ordered a lager, only to be told “We only serve beer”.

Bristling, I showed up for supper, only to find that I had failed fundamentally to understand the ethos. This is Fawlty Towers in Cumbria! The guests, all perfectly happy with the arrangements, were straight out of central casting! Their conversation was hilarious. I pulled out my laptop to start composing this post, and there was affronted silence throughout the dining room.  I refused the lentil soup, only to hear a conversation elsewhere about how, when we were young, not eating your dinner meant not having your pudding.  There was a fascinating discussion about Greece and Europe; only about five years out of date.  I was even propositioned by a thirty-something, clutching a highly intellectual tome, wanting to know what it was like to walk Coast-to-coast. (Dunno luv, just been at it for two days!).

Yet for all my cynicism, they were all really enjoying themselves. They do gentle walks from lunch to tea-time, not ludicrous, long-distance paths. The dinner was truly delicious, better than any I have had on half a dozen long walks. They loved each other’s company and the officious politeness of the female maitre’d.  I enjoyed the white table cloths and the heavy silver, and coffee served afterwards in small cups in the sitting room beside the log fire.

I am the Neanderthalic misfit, not them....

Forces once again. Such an appropriate Northern name for a waterfall

First proper view of Ennerdale Water approaching it from Ennerdale Bridge

Robin Hood's Seat. Our green clad hero certainly got around!

Ennerdale Water in the sunshine

A tree in silhouette, in case you couldn't decipher it!

Given all the water descending the mountains, the path was often just a stream

A little black lamb for Phyllis. There were thousands of white sheep with black lambs. Why? Black sheep in the family?

Sunshine pointillating the trees

They got crazy black cows as well, with long hair, and they eat grass. Cool....

And so to the mountains! I have to get over that!

Black Sail Youth Hostel; possibly the best sited youth hostel in the entire universe!

The closest replica of High Cup on the Pennine Way that I've seen anywhere

This is Paula and Mike. Our paths crossed a few times after which we walked together for miles. They were great company!

Mike kindly took a picture of me!

A fantastic view of Buttermere from on high!

After the ascent the descent. You can hardly see it, but the first objective was Seatoller at the bottom of the hill. Then a further trek to Rosthwaite.

Passing on the way this unusual sculpture celebrating one of the last working slate mines in Cumbria

Paula and Mike descending, helped by a sign

How can there be such lush green fields below such rugged mountains?

Gorgeous bridge over the River Derwent

The days elevation profile