Coast to Coast - Day Four

Day four: Grasmere to Patterdale (nine miles)

Grasmere with Helm Crag in the background. I climbed
that at school on my first trip to the Lake District

Our landlady in Grasmere had an annoying husband. He had a mate or knew someone who had run the route we were about to take and had done it in 20 minutes. He'd also been up at 6am and had a swim in Grasmere that morning.

To help my blistered toes, David gave me Compeed patches from his store of supplies. They are funny things and look like blisters themselves. The idea is that you stick them onto your blister and they protect it from further rubbing. They seemed quite good, they meant I could get my boot on without too much discomfort and I bought a box in Grasmere to see me through the rest of the walk. David bought himself a walking pole. I tried to persuade him to buy two and throw his heavy stick into the hedge, but he wouldn't have it.

The lovely sunny weather we'd enjoyed for the past three days had disappeared this morning and it was cloudy but quite warm. From Grasmere we headed up Grizedale Pass (another steep climb, but not as harsh as the haul up to Greenup Edge). It was a good path for a change, but once we got to about 1,500 feet, we walked into the cloud and it was quite wetting.

Above and below: on the way up to the Grizedale Pass through the murk

At the top, there was a strong wind blowing and it was so misty we couldn't even see Grizedale Tarn until we were right up to the shore. It was pointless doing either of the high-level alternatives (Helvellyn or St Sunday Crag) and so we stuck to Grizedale itself. We walked down out of the cloud at Ruthwaite Lodge (a climbers' hut) to find a bloke taking a pee up the side of the building. He just carried on peeing, no apology, no explanation ... nothing but pee. Sue and I walked around the other side to be out of the wind and the sight of pee, while this chap struck up a conversation with David.

He was wittering on about walking there and climbing that when he suddenly said he'd had a bit of bad news - he'd just heard his friend had died. I started giggling and set Sue off, so while David was expressing his condolences around the other side of the building, we were splitting our sides.

David at Ruthwaite Lodge, chatting to
his new friend

On the route down to Patterdale, in the clearing weather, I was able to pick out Striding Edge and see the path that Tom and I took when we walked it some 20 years ago. There was lots of evidence of the very severe floods they had back in December including chunks of hillside washed away, walls gone and lower fields strewn with rubble like the terminal moraine of a disappeared glacier.

Amid the rubble and destruction, there were lovely blue wild violets in the gaps between slabs of stones on the path, also bluebells in the trees and wild garlic in any shady spot lower than 1,500ft.

Today's wombat fact was a little disappointing - wombats live in burrows. Come on Sue, you can do better than that!

In Patterdale, we conveniently arrived in the car park of the Patterdale Hotel and it was warm and sunny enough to sit on the front lawn and have a cup of tea. David and I were staying at Grizedale Lodge, while Sue had to walk on to Glenridding, a village particularly badly hit by the winter floods. We arranged to meet next morning at the top of the road leading to Grizedale Lodge, where we were staying. As we arrived, our landlady was just returning on her racing bike and the Sherpa Van arrived with our bags - suddenly Patterdale was a very busy place. The B&B was very good. They hadn't been troubled by the floods there, but another place they owned had been flooded. She said they'd had loads of help from volunteers and the authorities, who had provided free skips and other practical assistance. She did say that Glenridding had been very badly affected.

Damage caused by the winter's floods

My toes were quite sore. When I looked, my blisters had burst and so had the Compeed patches and pulling them off brought off some skin as well. Another blister had formed, full of bloody puss and that also burst as the Compeed patch came off. Ah - the joys of walking! I bound them with tissues and bandage tape and set off for the pub.

We were planning to eat that night in the White Lion, which is about half a mile down the road. We sat with Karen and Jess and the two Dutch girls were also in there, plus the Liverpudlians from the first day. I think we were on Jennings (brewed near Workington) that night rather than Black Sheep.

Looking up Patterdale towards Grizedale Pass