An appointment at Caldbeck again this morning drew us back to the Back O'Skiddaw Fells. Sometimes it feels a bit unimaginative walking the same areas so often, but we explore new routes (generally off path) and find that there is always something new to discover.
Gone are the days of having the parking spot to ourselves. Too much has been made of the peace and tranquility of these fells. Too many magazine articles that have brought more and more people. As a result we haven't parked in this particular spot for a little while. Today we were the third car at 9:30am. Enough complaining! Off we go up Longland's Beck
Cattle ahead, so we keep Breeze a bit closer
They are just a pair of Highland Stirks and take very little notice
Pausing for breath. We are heading up Trusmadoor which is the gully above Breeze's head!
So it's through some more cattle and round the drumlins then we start to climb
Heading up
Looking down on Trusmadoor from our route up onto Meal Fell. The heather is beginning to colour up
Breeze inspects the shelter on Meal Fell where we stop for a coffee
Then we make our way across to Little Sca Fell
Breeze heading for the summit cairn which some clever person has decided to turn into an art work - till the wind blows anyway.
Skiddaw
Walking across Broad Moss to Charlton Gill where we plan to drop down out of the breeze (the other one) for some lunch
Lunch finishes and as we are leaving, Breeze flushes a fox which must have been hiding in the sieves all the time we were there, only about 15 meters away (severe cropping of picture as I didn't have long to grab the camera and snap
Here you can see Breeze is just below, that is where she flushed him from, he paused momentarily and then hot footed it away
Excitement over, we climb back onto the side of Longlands fell for an easy descent
Looking back to Charlton Gill where we had lunch
Breeze spots a posing stone - albeit it a small one
Nearly back to the car now, which is parked by that clump of trees. That's Binsey in the background (pronounced Binsa)
These Highland's seem to like us, they have made their way back to the car to wave us off.
About 6 miles today, a nice gentle therapeutic walk. Breeze, as usual has done about ten time what we have done.
Houdini the Bull has been causing havoc locally. No respect for fences apparently, he just tramples over them and breaks into neighbouring fields Mick says.
So Mick's gone off on his annual visit to Yorkshire show with the best of this years crop of Mule Gimmers and a couple of Leicester Shearlings. In the interest of neighbourly relations, Mick thought he'd better move the cattle before he went so they didn't break into Phillip's field again.
These are the sort of new neighbours we like.
It is always nice to have cattle in the back for a change and thankfully, so far Houdini doesn't think our fence is worth trampling!
Martindale is home to the oldest Red Deer herd in England. We normally take a trip down the valley at this time of year to witness the amazing spectacle of the Rutting Season. Today we decided to combine that annual outing with a decent length walk. We parked at the Old Church on another beautiful autumn morning.
We quickly left the road to start climbing up Winter Crag
Breeze can never resist a seat
She loves having her photo taken!
Over Howsteads Brow onto Beda Head
Boredale on our right
I think Breeze has found a peat bog!
Ullswater behind us from Beda Fell
Beda Fell summit
Then we make our way over Heckbeck Head
To Angletarn Pikes - the pointy bit. We were only here a few days ago, but who cares? It's a lovely spot and we have a very good reason for coming back
Angle Tarn
As we reach the tarn we head off to the left, to pick up a path running below Heck Crag. One of the best places for viewing the Deer, without also viewing lots of other people viewing the deer. We had only gone a short distance down this path and were just about to stop for our lunch when we suddenly spotted a stag and a few hinds, only a few yards in front of us. We were so lucky, the wind was blowing towards us, we had Breeze on a lead in anticipation of there being deer about, and we just very quietly settled ourselves down and sat and watched
The roaring had been all around us all morning, but here it was so intense. There were stags in every direction and once you had your eye in, you couldn't count how many deer there were
Turn up your speakers to watch this short clip and hear a sample of the noise, but remember this is recorded on my little point ans shoot camera, it really doesn't do the sound justice
Lunch with a view down Bannerdale
And again, a short clip showing some of just one group and recording a bit of the noise
We follow the narrow path right along Bannerdale
Can you spot the stag?
Until we reach the road at Dale Head. From here it's a little way up the road back to the car.
Time for a quick look inside the church
We walked about 7.5 miles today, but it certainly wasn't one of our quickest walks! There was so much to watch and listen to, it really was a walk to remember.
I had two incentives for this walk; it's rutting season and the sound of roaring stags in Bannerdale and Martindale is amazing and it's several months since the dam was removed at Hayeswater and we fancied having a look at the renaturalisation that is happening there. So we parked at Hartsop and followed the intake wall back towards Ullswater. A walking party had set off just ahead of us, 21 folk from Cockermouth, who had caused havoc in the car park (out of about 15 cars only one driver seemed to have any common sense). To our dismay we soon discovered they were heading the same way as us!
Looking back to Brothers water
Calf close below Lingy crag, just ahead of us are the walking party.........................
Leaving the intake wall we begin to climb to Boredale Hause, but now we have managed to overtake the entire party thankfully.
Jay is with us today, although we did nearly lose her among the crowd as we negotiated our way through them all!
Wait for me!
Ullswater
Brothers water again. Anyone viewing my pictures probably thinks that Breeze trots along in front of us all day. WRONG!! Breeze charges about like a complete lunatic all day, I just take pictures as she runs past me as I like to have her on as many as possible to add a bit of scale. In truth, this is more like the real thing, although even this is pretty close for Breeze! There is no doubt that she easily covers 10 times the ground that we do.
From Boredale Hause we turn right and head over Angle Tarn Pikes and then down to Angle Tarn, seen here ahead
Star Jelly, it was everywhere around Angle Tarn.
Lunchtime!
As we left Angle Tarn and made our way along Satura Crag, the Stags were roaring away down below us. Such an evocative sound.
It's a popular spot up here. The group from Cockermouth had stopped at Angle Tarn just as we were setting off again after our lunch, there was another big party ahead and I lost count of the number of people we passed en route. We also collected our biggest haul of litter for quite some time. We always pick up anything we find, but we were running out of pooh bags and pockets on the rucksack to stuff it all in today.
The clouds were fairly low at this point, but the sun was peeping out from time to time, here it is lighting up Deepdale
Hayeswater comes into view
Looks like Dr Who is visiting
OK, so this isn't what we expected. The idea is to let Hayeswater re naturalise to it's original state, so what on earth is going on here? A new road and an awful lot of groundwork going on
Here's the explanation. A hydroelectric plant. I can accept that. If only this sort of thing had started decades ago, perhaps we wouldn't have all those hideous and ineffective wind farms everywhere.
Timw to wash the dog - notice she has two boots on again. Her feet are fine, but having had a number of injuries recently, we are being ultra cautious to try and get them hardened off without damaging them. So first half barefoot and fancy free, after lunch booted and fancy free!
Heading down Hayeswater Gill
Posing
Showing how to negotiate a wall stile
The old and the new - new plant and container on the left (for the Hydro works) and the remains of an old Lead mine in the centre.
One last view before we reach the car, I had to take this and I had to put it on here.......................... that's Pasture Bottom :-)
Another lovely walk with pretty amazing autumn weather. We are having such a dry autumn it's hard to believe. We walked about 6.75 miles and it's a really easy walk to. No wonder it's so busy!
