Walk 76: second of this autumn double-header

Loughrigg Fell seen from Latterbarrow

After having stayed over in Bowness last night, today saw the second walk in two days, both with Joe. Walk 76 took us both up the west side of Windermere, using the ferry from Bowness then a walk up Claife Heights and on to Latterbarrow. The second summit made the effort worthwhile as it delivered a spectacular view: the picture here is a taster, several more are on the walk 76 page and the individual fell pages as linked.

I hope to get one more walk in before Christmas but long-running engineering works on the line are going to disrupt all journeys from Hebden Bridge to Preston for the next five months. I’ll just have to see how they affect the journey…

Autumn colours: walk 75

Rainbow over Windermere, as seen from the ‘Swan’ steamer heading for Bowness

Walk 75 took place today, in the company of my son Joe. Southern England currently recovers from a severe storm (though perhaps not quite as bad as one imagined — eh?); in the remote north-west things were pretty good today. With Joe on half-term holidays there was the need to keep him occupied, what better way than to go to the Lakes and pick off one of the easier remaining Outlying Fells, Finsthwaite Heights, on walk 75. A ramble through golden woodland colours, rainbows, trains, buses, boats and beer…

Add the 16 Outlying Fells so far to the 214 ‘main’ Wainwrights done and that makes 230. There are 330 Wainwrights (main + volume 8) altogether – so I have one hundred to go…

Black Combe: great views, bad transportation

Cartmel Sands, near Ulverston, pictured from the train this morning

It is just as well that the Cumbrian coast line has brilliant views for its whole length: particularly between Carnforth and Millom. (The picture on the right was taken from the train on Ulverston this morning). It takes a very long time to get round it, so it’s good that there are things to see.

My trip yesterday (Friday 11th October) saw me spend nine hours on a train for a walk of under four hours: walk 74 of this project, up the isolated hill of Black Combe. Descriptions of the walk and the summit are on those pages as linked.

View of the Duddon estuary, with friendly sheep. Millom is in the middle distance, below, Barrow on the peninsula behind.

But the day was also noticeable for the lousy journey. I don’t even have to get annoyed by the train that got me into Preston this morning half an hour late, because I still made the next connection (though would not have, if I’d been going to Windermere, say). But the train companies got me home two hours later than they needed to. I know this is supposed to be a blog promoting the use of public transport but sometimes they do a brilliant job of showing just where priorities lie. Anyway… it’s all on the walk 74 and Black Combe pages. Enjoy — and I am also very proud of the photographs on this one. See what you think.