We woke up this morning none the worse for wear from our UK motorway horror story!  Time for a great breakfast, and then off to the ferry to catch the ride over to the starting point for our Cat Bells walk…the weather was overcast and a couple of spots of rain hit us on our walk down to the lake.

Once down at the lake, we hopped onto the first ferry going over to Hawes End ( our starting point for our walk).

As we got off the dock and headed into the woods at the base of the trail, the rain stopped and the sun started to break through.  Dan, the trooper, had the little light weight day pack that we had carried with us on the Camino… A collapsible waterproof pack, it’s only downfall was that it was purchased by me, and was therefore hot pink!  He is some secure in his manhood!!!

Once out in the open, we found the sign for our destination!

So, it’s a 1.6 km path that climbs 500 m!  That’s a 30% grade… Yikes!  Time for Superhero Dan!!!

 We climbed and climbed to some pretty spectacular vistas!

 But still… Up up up we went!  As Suzanne put it… Just another mountain for us to climb today ( pic courtesy of Ian!)

What you don’t see is the scrambling around the summit… Much steeper there with lots of scree!

( this was the baby warm up scramble before the pap bear scramble on the farther summit!). Luckily my Achilles held out for the climb… Nobody’s vertigo got the best of them and we hit the summit!

And here the views were extraordinary!

  

 Note:  the little spec on the lake is the ferry that takes us around…you’ll see how big it is a little later.

Well, what goes up must come down… And down we went!

  

 Not the easiest exercise for my ankles, or for anyone else’s, but we made it safe and sound.  (Although I think Fan is starting to enjoy that hot pink backpack a little too much!!!).

We soon came to a lovely wood closer to the lake where we came across these Rhododendrons just growing wild!

Those bushes at the top of the hill are at least 20′ tall!!!

Our walk took us around a portion of the lake to our boat launch, and timing could not have been better!  We no sooner got on the dock when the boat was there to meet us.  We decided to take it the long way around the lake, and enjoyed the ride greatly!

All I guess… except for Ian!!!

The views from the water were equally stunning!

In this pic you can see a closer look at the ferry as well as see the mountain that we had just climbed… All in all a wonderful morning!

We then headed into town for lunch followed by some wandering in the outfitter shops… At one, a very kind employee replaced the tips on my walking poles ( between the Camino and here I had all but worn them down to nothing!!!)

Time to head back to our rooms for some r and r and a shower before dinner.

Another lovely meal with another treacherous walk back to our B and B… I think it averages about 20 floors from the village centre up to our place!!! We’ve got to plan this better!!!

Well, another day is done… Tomorrow we head off to the Dales in Yorkshire for more hiking.  Our dear friends Glenn and Gwen introduced me to the Dales, and I’m looking forward to showing Dan one or two of the walks we went on… ( Dan should have gone on them as well, but there was a small matter of a volcano in Iceland that shut down his chances of flying over to meet us!!!)

Until tomorrow!