It all started with a little wander......

Morning: Lets have a lazy day and just wander around Keswick today. Afternoon: 10.76 mile walk.

Set off the day with no real goals for the day, gaiters were packed as a ‘just in case’ and all we really wanted to do was to visit Hope Park (my personal favourite spot in the Lake District) and maybe wander on up to Friars Crag, which no matter the weather, always serves incredible views of the lake, and one of the first places I was taken to on my first of many trips here a few years ago. For that it will always be special. (Special enough for us to leave another stone here to be found!)

Once there we all decided to continue on round to the Millennium stone, as the shore line on the way, and the stone itself, were the perfect spot to have a play with the drone and gimble to get some fun shots, so off we went.

Due to our ‘tech department’ being something of a perfectionist the footage took a little longer to shoot, so most of the group split off to keep warm, luckily it was worth wait (see below)!

We eventually met up with the rest of the group, after taking the wrong turn, so yet again ended up scrambling up the side of the lake, hanging on to tree roots and sliding in the mud—the exact same mistake we made when we did the walk 3 years ago!! After deciding that as we were half way round the lake already (which we definitely were not) and we would probably make it back before dark (which we definitely would not) we decided to be spontaneous and walk around the whole lake!

Gaiters, for those who had them, were well appreciated, especially as we navigated our way round the boggy back part of the lake, where we needed to cross a stream, which 5/6 of us made it across using a makeshift bridge (read: plank of wood) before it broke just before I went to cross...thanks for that guys! Some of us even thought we had biblical, walk-on-water powers which, shockingly, was disproved as walking shoes ended up totally emersed in the stream, no matter how quickly you tried to not so gazelle-like leap across.

From there the path was much nicer, as we crossed Pooh bridge – the actual half way mark in Borrowdale Valley, which has a winsome quote carved into the first slate slab on the footbridge – you’ll have to go there yourself to read it! We carried on round, and the light started to fade, luckily we were better prepared this time with actual torches, not just mobile phone torches to light the way. The second half of the lake is not so picturesque as the first, but there are some really lovely parts to see along the way, including the Teddy in the window, which you can send letters to and has postcards from all over the world, to the Wooden sculpture of cupped hands at Brandelhow – which we are assured is still there although in the dark we didn’t manage to spot it! The final slog was hard on the legs for most of us, even the dogs started to struggle, but the promise of Fish and Chips and a nice hot bath kept us going!