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...and this will round out the posts from the Ambleside walk. Truly this hike was a highlight of the trip, a day in which I ended up using about 20% of the Bigger Cahoona's precious battery life. But better than all that was the time I was able to spend with Andrew on what was one of the focal points of our journey. Can't say enough about how much of a blessing it was to have him with me on this adventure. Did something similar with our daughter Allison in Kentucky when she ran a marathon, and cannot understate the value in spending this kind of dedicated time with your children. If you can, do it.
So to cap things off for this day's activities, see 3-shot panorama below of Ambleside nestled in its surroundings of hills, dales, valleys and fells:
A wall along the road in town. Looks like this archway was created using the slate they mine in the area, many posts of which will be published from a tour that Andrew and I took the day before going on this walk.
From this point forward we were pretty much in town. This was captured on Skelghyll Lane just a piece up from Hayes Garden World in Ambleside, seen below:
The sun had been clouded over for the previous two posts, which was great for those pics, but then it came out just in time to illuminate the perfects spots at the perfect time. Immediately I thought of the mushroom pic mentioned in this post because it was so similar to Glen's.
Since I was bracketing, have slightly lighter exposure of same below:
Not ten feet from where yesterday's post was captured we saw this gem. And because of the pixel-power of the Bigger Cahoona I was able to crop out the mushrooms on the left as a picture of its own:
Note the wall to the left leading up to the marker resembling a tombstone in the background. Similar gate and marker below, captured a little further down the trail, closer to the little town of Troutbeck:
This pic was taken from the wavy road featured in the post from two days ago, fairly close to the house. Wow, do people really live there and see this every time they go to the grocery store? Incredible.
And I think it's healthy. Not only is the air pristine and good for your lungs, just seeing this kind of landscape day in and day out is good for the soul. I experienced that while living in a cottage outside of Nacogdoches, on FM 1275 2.4 miles from Loop 224. Every day I saw beautiful scenery on my way to wherever, and in the fall enjoyed the damp smell of newly-mown hay in the surrounding fields. My daughter Allison says she experienced much the same thing while living in Kentucky on the drive from Erlanger to the Toyota building where she worked...a beautiful route that was just right for getting a good start on the day, as well as a great way to decompress on the way back home.
From this position I stepped up the hill to my right a bit to capture the two-shot panorama below:
A wider view of same house featured in yesterday's post. Did not take the trouble to remove the jeep in this one...
This is one that I knew would be blogworthy as soon as the shutter was released. At home a bit of post-capture work was required, however, including the removal of a jeep next to the back wall.
As we walked along it seemed odd that our trail went right up this wavy driveway, between the house and the shed on the left, then through a couple of gates where the trail started to look like a trail again and entered a thickly wooded area. Much, if not most, of the trail sliced through private property. As can be seen in the sign below, these trails are governed by the Lake District National Park Authority and everyone we encountered seemed to respect the rules:
It was getting to be late afternoon by the time Andrew and I wound our way back to the town, which allowed for semi-silhouettes such as this one.
It's amazing, this Google Map thing. While checking things out online after the trip, discovered that the trail we walked is marked along its entire length and can be verified by some of the photos taken by the Google Camera Guy, including one very close to the fell summit. Though it has been only some weeks since the trip, already I get a little nostalgic looking at the places that Andrew and I visited and explored...
Ambleside was just about a 15-minute drive from Windermere. This part of the trail afforded a view of Windermere/Bowness, and the lake to the right.
Didn't see too many of these...a door built right into the stone wall. Makes sense, though.
One of the battery-saving measures that I took was to keep from using the Bigger Cahoona's screen to review pictures. Wasn't worried too terribly about this because bracketing was used as a kind of insurance against incorrect exposure. Nevertheless there was a lot of post-capture required to get things right on many, if not a majority, of the pictures taken during the trip...
A view like this makes it easy to understand why James Herriot fell in love with the place soon after beginning his work back in the 1940's. Even in all kinds of weather it must have been fantastic just to drive the dales day by day and practice in settings like this.
These signs are everywhere, posted at strategic locations on the many walks in the area. This is probably just days or weeks old, as no weathering is evident.
More common are signs that look like this:
Did not have much to write about today...this text is here to serve as a separator between the fence pattern in these two very similar shots.
The first full day in the Lake District we took an all-day tour, just to see what's around. The tour guide was great, and wending our way through those narrow country lanes in a bus was a very interesting experience. One thing the guide pointed out was the fact that nearly all of the sheep that you'll see are spray-painted one color or another, and in some cases two colors. She said this was because they've been having a problem with sheep rustling, so this makes them easier to track if they come up missing...serving the same purpose as brands on a cow (though obviously not as permanent). On our Ambleside walk we got to see quite a few up close, such as this one.
This is a better look at the field in back of the byre in yesterday's post.
Lots of these stone buildings around...and I'd guess they've been around a hundred years or more, enhancing the rustic flavor of any English landscape, as can be seen in this and tomorrow's post.
Encountered this along the way. This is a community of homes purchased by individuals wanting to have a place in the Lake District, something that is heavily advertised in the surrounding towns and villages. Starting price is something like 59,000 pounds. They do keep it nice looking, but at the end of the day it's nothing more than a trailer park for retirees and vacationers, mostly from Britain.
Different perspective with focus shifted below:
After making the steep climb to the felltop, coming down the other side was a much gentler path, the pics of which will be posted more/less in the order captured.
I had doubts about this one, but Andrew said he liked the shadow running down the middle of the path, and it turns out his instincts were "spot on", as they would say in that part of the world...
Another angle of the wall from yesterday's post, with a close look at how it begins.
Of course the vistas upon summiting a climb like this were awesome, but the shot above is my favorite of the images captured there. A college group had summited just before us, and the students were lounging around on the rocks just behind me as I snapped the photo:
