Walk 27- Newland’s Valley- proper camping

3 course breakfast

Newlands Valley

Green view

Julie at the gate

Pete and view

Beautiful

Clear water

Wet brekky

Lucky escape

Sorry readers I left you rather in the lurch earlier this week didn’t I? I mean its all very well setting up the tent, going for a walk and then returning for dinner at the pub but what about the actual camping I hear you cry? How was that first night under canvas? Well, I am glad you asked and very happy to tell you.

We had a lovely time in the pub. It’s funny how Coniston Bluebird goes straight to your head when you’ve had a good walk. I managed to use the payphone here to call both Mum and Dad and Jane to let them know we were all in one piece. There is absolutely no phone reception around here – let alone Internet access. That’s all very well but it’s awkward these days when people are expecting to hear from you. After a nice meal we drove back to the campsite (we really had hardly had anything to drink) and it wasn’t yet dark so we sat around outside our tent shooting the breeze. It was nearly perfect sitting there drinking our rosé wine out of the posh plastic glasses I’d bought. Two slight issues here- firstly it was a rather chilly evening and secondly the wine I’d bought in Booth’s was a bit rough. Hungarian? Really did I choose that?!! Lots of other people were doing the same thing -chilling that is not necessarily drinking Hungarian wine….

Eventually it started to go dark and so I made my way to the facilities which were basic but perfectly adequate and got ready for bed. Marie’s advice of leaving it as late as possible to go to the loo was put into practice and then I said goodnight to Pete and got into my tent and zipped myself in. There is a lot of zipping involved in camping I discovered. It all seemed quite pleasant and on the face of it I had everything I needed for a good nights sleep. However, needless to say this didn’t really happen and I did not manage to get much sleep even though the weather was pretty perfect. How come then? Well here is my top 5 list of reasons for not sleeping:

1) It was rather cold and although my sleeping bag was lovely and warm – my head was not
2) The sleeping mat thing kept slipping down the tent and slightly to the left
3) The girl in one of the tents on our level had a rather piercing giggle and stayed up way too late (maybe 11pm). Ridiculous.
4) My sleeping bag, although large , became horribly contorted during the night as I struggled to find a comfortable position, making finding a comfortable position even more unlikely.
5) The shouty man in the tent next door turned out to be a snorer. This was my main problem. Goodness knows what the 3 other members of his family crammed into his tent did for sleep. Next time I need to remember my earplugs ( oh yes, you read that right….next time…)

Anyway, eventually as the dawn chorus started and the owl gave way to the cuckoo, I think I finally nodded off maybe for a couple of hours. At about 7am I could hear quite a bit of zipping going on next door and so, after unzipping my own inner tent and fly cover, I stuck my head out of my tent. There was Pete already sitting out in his chair fully dressed. Oh dear he hadn’t had much sleep either but then he says he never does!! I got up and went over to the facilities for my 50p shower. There was nobody else around at this time of day and so it was all still very nice and clean.

Next we set about breakfast. It was a lovely morning again and so we put the rug out and got the camping gaz stove on the go. It was a little tricky but Pete managed to suss it out. We had a jolly splendid 3 course breakfast consisting of:

Orange juice and cornflakes
Bacon sandwich and cup of tea
Sausage and mushrooms and cup of coffee

I mean really you can’t ask for more than that can you and it all tasted so much better because of our surroundings. It did seem to take us rather a long time but we weren’t particularly in a rush today. We decided that we’d do our walk today in the beautiful Newland’s Valley which we’d driven past the previous day. We set off at about 10.30 heading towards the little hamlet of Little Town. The car park here was already over-flowing and so we drove on a bit until we came to a farm with a cafe attached. The nice man let us park for the day and after a cup of coffee we were on our way.

Today’s 5.4 mile walk was much more on the level than the previous day and basically we did a figure of eight walk around the valley, with Little Town at the junction of the 8. The scenery here is really impressive particularly on what was yet another clear, bright, sunny day. There are so many interesting peaks and valleys all around. I must admit I didn’t really ache that much either from the climbing the day before or the tenting. At one point though, I did feel a bit woozy and I wasn’t sure whether that was a bit of sunstroke or the lack of sleep?

The walk initially leads along the base of Catbells which Jane and I are due to come back and walk with Joyce and Enid later in the year (could be a challenge….). Then after an ice cream and toilet break back at Little Town we moved onto the upper valley which is a lot more wild. By the way Little Town is famous as the location for the Beatrix Potter book ‘Mrs Tiggywinkle’.

As we walked up the upper valley we realised we’d actually gone a bit too far and missed the bridge over the lovely stream. This was because we were being far too chatty mainly because Pete made the mistake of asking if I had any wisdom I wished to share with him as I approached my 50th birthday. I suppose I could have given a simple ‘yes or no’ answer to this question but do I look like someone that would just use one word when 2000 would do? No, I didn’t think so. But if you too want to hear my wisdom then you’ll have to take me for a nice walk!!

Eventually, we found ourselves back at the pretty Newlands Church and schoolroom and the tiny Chapel Bridge. We got back into the car and then had a detour into Keswick for some petrol and phone reception in order to check the weather forecast with Jane. She assured us that the forecast was still good and so we agreed that we’d camp for another night. Hurrah! I’ve always said that one night in a tent is really just staying up late. Two nights is proper camping.

Back to camp we went and we enjoyed some late afternoon sunshine before driving into Buttermere again for dinner at the same pub. Then back for another night under nylon. Tonight the wind did start to get up a bit but I was much more used to the noises by now and the snoring man had packed up and left taking his non-kiwi boot polish with him (ex-army obsessive behaviour)? I think I actually slept quite well until the wind really got up in the trees at about 4am. It was funny (yes really) because the noise was SOOO loud in the trees and yet it hardly seemed to touch the tent at all. Thank goodness. At about this time the dawn chorus started as well so I think after this I really only tossed and turned until about 7am again when I got up and went for my shower.

By the time I got back, Pete had packed his tent up and was looking slightly worried saying he’d felt the first raindrops. Oh dear. No sooner had I changed than it really started to bucket it down and I must have dismantled my tent in about 10 mins and shoved it all in the back of my car. We did get rather wet but it wasn’t unpleasant as we stood under the big tree boiling our kettle and eating just cornflakes today!

So that was it -after this we were on our way. I really cannot believe how lucky we’d been and I’d had a really memorable, idyllic camping and walking weekend. I’m already investigating other cool camping options……..

Walk 26 Haystacks Part 2 – the climb

Haystacks view

Warnscale Beck

Pete part way

Haystacks summit

WOOOOHOOOO

Haystacks summit

Top of the world

360 degree views

Innonimate Tarn

Buttermere blues

Lovely cove

We set off down through the campsite to the Lakeshore and then along the path that takes everyone around the circuit of Buttermere itself. Immediately you can see the view across to Haystacks and it is this view on previous walks that has always made me want to climb it. You can see the path go steadily up the initial slope and then it seems to flatten out before reaching the very rocky outcrops on the top.

The walk really starts at Gatesgarth Farm where today the car park was over-flowing. There was an ice cream van parked up doing a busy trade on such a lovely day. However, we strode on meaningfully as it was already 2pm. Pete reckoned that it might take us 4 hours to do the walk and we knew we’d have plenty of daylight as long as nothing went horribly wrong. As we walked over Warnscale Beck the gorse was in full bloom and the bright yellow colours reflected in the water.

As we got nearer to the start the top of Haystacks became a little clearer into view and I started to say to Pete ‘should we do this tomorrow?’ I pretended that my reason was that it would give us more time and we’d be able to do the walk at a more relaxed pace but honestly, I was just looking at it thinking ‘no way, I can’t get up there’. The very sight of it and the bleak rock face was giving me vertigo. Pete, however, was having none of my flim-flam and just said no, no we should carry on, we’d be fine. Damn.

In hindsight this was very good though, as really I still wouldn’t have wanted to do it the next day. Especially after a night in a tent. So on we went. The long steady climb up starts immediately you reach the far side of the lake. The path is very well maintained in this part and we even met some folk from Fix the Fells who had been out earlier digging and sweeping away debris to keep the path clear. V impressive. They were now on their way down, as were most people that we came across! Meanwhile, my back was already hurting and I had to stop every 100 ft to catch my breath and there was a long way to go.

It’s a long hard slog and the final ascent up to the ledge at Scarth’s Gap is particularly tricky as it turns into a virtual rockfall of boulders that you have to clamber up. However, I found this actually a little easier as there was no option but to go slowly and look where I was putting my feet now, so at least I wasn’t out of breath. Just at the top of this section we came across 3 mad crazies coming down with their mountain bikes. They had no option but to push them and they picked their way down very tentatively. Pete is a keen mountain biker himself and he was completely puzzled as to why these experienced looking loons would have their bikes with them here as there no chance of actually riding them. Odd.

We also passed more people coming down and they all encouragingly said ‘its much harder coming down than going up!’ Oh goody. As we reached the top of Scarth’s Gap we really had made some height and we started to get some great views back down to Buttermere but we had no time to hang about. Now things were about to get serious as its after this that the scrambling and rock climbing begins as you clamber up the rocky outcrops to the summit. Up until now my Leki had been really useful but now it was just getting in the way so eventually we put it down and stuffed it in Pete’s back pack. The scrambling was quite a challenge but definitely not anything that felt dangerous or that I looked at and thought I couldn’t do. I was a bit put out, however, when a man with a baby in his rucksack came skipping past me calling Haystacks a nice hill. There’s a word for people like that.

Finally, we reached the summit which is really amazing and made me yelp out loud WOOOHOOOO! I’d made it and the reward from the views made it all worthwhile. It was 360 degrees with the view down the valley back to Buttermere and Crummock Water in one direction, the deep, forested valley of Black Sail in another and other huge peaks all around including Great Gable. Still the weather was beautiful with hardly a breath of wind even up here.

For those of you who like a few facts I can tell you that Haystacks is 1958 ft at its summit or 579m above sea level and the rocky outcrops at the top are a mix of andesite lavas and quartz feldspar phyric microgranite. Ooh lovely. This is also famously Wainwright’s favourite fell top in the Lakes and soon we were passing his final resting place at Innonimate Tarn which looked perfect in the orange glow of the late afternoon sunshine. There was a couple with a sheepdog and they were playing fetch with it in the water. They turned out to be French and it was as if they’d just come up here for a little picque nicque and when they walked they really just ambled along in their espadrilles.

As we started our descent we passed two more small tarns and the path was really quite easy to begin with as we made our way around the back Green Crag. In a couple of places the path got a bit more scary and I couldn’t look as we edged along the side of the deep gully of Black Beck. As we made our way across we could see in the distance a family group clambering down the slate heap and we also heard the man shout very loudly ‘Get up NOW’. It appeared that his teenage son had gone on strike and later on we realised that these four were in fact from the tent next to us. I think I heard them tell someone they’d been up Great Gable so this must have been them on their way down. No wonder the boy was on strike!

As we reached Warnscale Beck the path started its steep descent. The path here is quite rough and we really had to concentrate on every footstep so as not to trip or slip. If I stopped I realised that my legs had turned to jelly and wouldn’t stop jittering and it was now all taking its toll on my knees rather than my back. It took ages to come down but finally we made it back to the valley bottom and on towards the Lake. As we reached the Gatesgarth Car Park Pete checked his watch and it had taken us exactly 4 hours as he’d predicted. Sadly this meant that the ice cream van was long gone. So it was time to stretch those legs out and make the final push back to camp.

By the time we’d got back we’d walked 6.9 miles and we didn’t hang about. Instead we set off in the car for the village and the Bridge Hotel for our dinner and a really well deserved pint of Coniston Bluebird bitter. Boy, that tasted good and we toasted our achievement and what Pete called possibly the best walk ever. I had to agree and I also have to say a huge thank you to Pete without who’s support, encouragement and patience I would probably not even have started the walk- never mind completed it. Thanks Pete.

Walk 26- The Big One- Haystacks Part 1- camping

Pete catching rays

Happy camper

Perfect pitch

Lower levels

Lakeshore

Buttermere shore

Yes indeed I’m calling this the Big One. That’s because not only would I be camping for the first time since childhood but also I had my eyes set on the goal of getting up Haystacks– a big old mountain in the Lake District. What else would I be doing on a Bank holiday weekend?! Needless to say neither of these things appeal to Jane and so I was on my own for this one. Of course not literally. Luckily for me brother Pete was in on the act and in fact had been ever since Christmas when I told him that I wanted him to buy me a tent and to take me camping for my present. That weekend had arrived and we’d been keeping a very close eye on the weather for the previous two weeks. Pete is a fair weather camper and assures me that I should be too and so the deal was that if the weather forecast was for rain then it’d all be off. Jane’s weather app told us that all was good although Pete’s was predicting rain for Sunday night.

Anyway we met up at Mum and Dad’s on Friday night. Pete had a particularly horrendous journey up and it took him nearly nine hours to get there from Reigate in Surrey. Meanwhile I’d arrived around lunchtime and spent Friday in Booth’s supermarket stocking up on all the essentials we’d need for the weekend. It’s strange how the simple word ‘snacks’ on a list can expand in so many directions but who was to say whether we’d need strawberries, bananas, Jaffa cakes or Mr Kiplings mini battenbergs. I think I spent as much on this little trip as Jane and I normally do on or weekly shop. Better to be safe than sorry though eh?

Right so we had our supplies- what about kit? Oh yes, I had all of that. I’d managed to borrow some things from Dave and Jayne whose camping days look as if they’re over after an incident with weather in Cornwall. So they gave me a camping stove and the all important sleeping mat. Then I’d had a lovely time shopping online, buying the rest including the largest sleeping bag you have ever seen. Not one of those silky ones that pack away in something the size of your average purse for me. No, mine was more or less a king size duvet folded in half and with a zip. Lovely.

So all packed, we set off in separate cars over to our chosen campsite. I’d found Dalegarth Guest House and campsite online at Cool Camping and it looked perfect. The journey over took us up through very busy Ambleside, Grasmere and then over the top past Thirlmere to Keswick. Then we cut off the main road at Braithwaite and up through the stunning Newlands Valley before dropping down to Buttermere. I have to say that the weather was absolutely beautiful. Blue skies, warm sunshine and hardly a cloud in sight. The views were amazing as this was one of those very rare days when, after the rain and wind of the previous days, it was crystal clear. I felt very lucky.

The campsite is a little way out of the village itself and right on the lakeshore. The staff were a group of very chilled out young hippies and it all seemed very relaxed. They had chosen a good spot for us to pitch our tents on the top terrace, near the car and most importantly near the facilities. Lots of people had warned me about the perils of needing the loo in the night and so I happily pitched my tent as close to the steps as I could! We set about this task straight away as we were keen to get on with our walk. We’d decided that it would be best to do this on day one as the next day, if I’d had no sleep, I’d be unlikely to be in the mood for a big mountain climb!

Even on this busy Bank holiday the campsite was very quiet. It’s on about 3 different levels and surrounded by lovely tall trees and with a small beck running through it down to the Lake. There were just three other tents on our level and plenty of space between us. We didn’t hang about but already I could tell that this was exactly what I’d dreamt of what I’d decided I wanted to go camping. Not too Commercial and just quiet, peaceful and surrounded by nature. And all for £7 per person per night. Bargain.

This looked all set to be a great weekend and after about an hour we set off on our walk.