Pictures from the Lake District
Grasmere is the picturesque heart of the Lake District. Wordsworth lived and is buried here, and since his day people have come here to hike the hills and valleys.
In Grasmere we stayed in the Butharlyp How youth hostel for three nights. Our friends Neil and Christine, who we had met last year trekking through Lesotho, met us there and took us around the Lake District.
We climbed Helvellyn, following the famous Striding Edge route.
All of the open areas were divided up by a network of dry stone walls. They have to be built as high as they are so that sheep cannot jump over them.
The sheep had even made it to the top of Helvellyn. This one was mooching food from hikers so we fed it a piece of dog biscuit that Rosemary found in a pocket.
The top of the mountain was in cloud from time to time, although luckily we had very little rain.
From below the cloud level we had good views down over the village of Patterdale, where we had started our hike, to Ullswater.
On the rainy Sunday, we visited Beatrix Potter’s house, Hill Top, which is now a museum. She bought the house with the royalties from her first books.
The National Trust maintains the house and garden in the same state as they would have been when Potter was living there. However Peter Rabbit was not there.
We took the little ferry across Windermere, then as the rain moved in, had lunch on the shoreline huddled under some trees.
Later the rain let up for a bit, and we went for a walk in Grizedale Forest. There are several trails that pass by an eclectic collection of outdoor sculptures.
