Climbing Walla Crag and a Visit to Buttermere

After the beautiful weather we'd had the previous day, we were pleased to see the sun shining again when we woke up on Sunday.

Having spent the previous day exploring the Southern part of the Lake District, we were keen to see some of the North where we were staying.

We started the day again with a yummy breakfast, mine included porridge with a shot of Whiskey, which is a fantastic way to start the day!

Not having much of a plan for where what we wanted to do, we started the day with a climb up Walla Crag on the recommendation of our B&B owner.

The fell is within an easy walk of Keswick, and is popular with walkers due to the amazing views you get over Derwentwater when you get to the top.

We loved the walk we had done the day before, though it wasn't too difficult, certainly there were no mountains to climb. So we started off with a bit of trepidation since we were in no way prepared for actual mountain climbing. We were both wearing jeans, and I was wearing converse sneakers..

The walk took us through the beautiful Keswick countryside, and thankfully the walk turned out to be fine for doing in sneakers, with a steady incline up towards the top.

The first part was along a country road and then through some woods and along a stream, eventually coming out alongside huge green fields overlooking Derwentwater.

As we had started off quite early, we had the trail to ourselves for most of the walk. I had wondered how my asthma would be, since I have real trouble climbing stairs, but this was a completely different type of exercise, I found I had no trouble and we made good time as we headed to the top.

Bradley protecting his neck from the sun with my scarf

Having a break close to the top!

Once we were about three quarters of the way to the top, we started getting some amazing views across Keswick and Derwentwater. We stopped for a while to have a drink and take lots of photos, while a few people caught up with us. There were quite a few people obviously doing their daily exercise, walking their dogs or running up!

We continued further up towards the top, which we found out later was 1,243 feet from where we first started, along a skinny, rocky path surrounded by bushes on all sides.

Once at the top, we found lots of people sitting, having a snack and enjoying the views. The top was much colder than it had been further down, and even though we were hot from climbing, I was glad to steal my scarf back off Bradley.

After catching our breath, we started the descent down the other side of Walla Crag. We found the descent harder than the climb up, the paths were a lot rockier so we had to watch our footing more carefully, and there was lots of really boggy patches of mud we had to find our way around.

Looking pretty proud of ourselves!

Once we reached the bottom, we walked down to the main road and hopped on the next bus to Seatoller. We would have to change there for a bus to Buttermere, a pretty lake West of Keswick. As it was the end of the line, we thought it would be a good place to stop and have lunch. Only to arrive and find only a few houses and a lot of countryside..

With an hour until the bus to Buttermere arrived, we were lucky to find a National Trust car park with an employee selling some muesli bars which tided us over until we reached Buttermere.

Since we now had an hour to kill in the tiniest town ever, we headed into the countryside and wandered through the woods before having a break in the sunshine by the side of the trail.

The hour was up too quickly, and we hopped on a tiny bus heading towards Buttermere. We discovered the reason the bus was so tiny further up the road. It goes through Hornister Pass and past Hornister Slate mine, and the roads are tiny with some steep drops on each side, so we kept having to stop and let cars past or give way to oncoming traffic.

The tiny road behind us on the bus

There are huge amounts of Slate on the mountains, looking ready to fall onto the traffic below. It was very unnerving driving beneath them.

We arrived in Buttermere village just after 2.30 p.m. and headed straight to the Lake. Lake Buttermere is one of the prettiest in the Lake District, and the walk around the Lake is very popular. There is also a large waterfall which was flowing heavily when we arrived, but it was hard to capture in a photo though.

All I could think about was how nice the water looked, and how I wished it was warmer so we could go swimming! Though I'm not sure the Lakes ever get warm enough to swim comfortably.

We stopped for lunch at a pub with an outdoor garden. We both had really yummy sandwiches and chips, and rewarded all our exercise with a cold cider in the sunshine.

We sat in the sun until the last bus arrived, which we jumped on and headed back to Keswick.

After such a long day, we had a little nap before heading out to dinner, proud of ourselves for how much we had seen in the last two days in the Lake District. Considering it was supposed to bucket down with rain the next day, we were glad we hadn't left anything out!