Mountains to the Sea

• 12/3 Floods, Ullswater
• 13/3 Mountains (Fort Hardknott) to the sea
• 14/3 Baycliff to Bardsea in the sun
• 15/3 Downday

Woollen clothing is renowned for its antibacterial properties, a favourite for travellers with reduced wardrobes and limited laundry facilities. I’ve been putting its reknown to the test, six straight weeks of three merino top layers and a pair of long johns. Sensational, not a whiff. Di has a different take; I’ve got used to my own stink. Knock a buzzard off a garbage truck, apparently. That’s love right there. Wash day today.

On Thursday, in the cold grey rain, we headed up Kirkton Road and “The Struggle” to Kirkton Pass Inn, Cumbria’s highest pub at 451m. The forecast was for high winds. “The Struggle”, the last narrow, winding section of Kirkton Road, with 20% to 24% grades, was awash, and the cascades gushing down from the fells and pumping through the high, contouring, stone farm boundary walls were foaming white and blowing sideways in the gale. The pub has been closed for five years, due to open later in the month, but we stop to take in the view – briefly.

The rain stings as the cloud descends, and Di takes refuge behind the Inn phone box. ‘Or-right?’ says the pub renovator as he carries building detritus past in the rain. We take a few snaps and dive back in the car, soaked and freezing.

Passing on and up through Hartstop, Bridgend and Patterdale, we come alongside Ullswater, second only in length to Windermere (9mi versus 11mi), but the rains coursing down from Helvellyn and Red Tarn are pooling deeply on the roads, culverts backed up by the white water smashing onto the shore. A distant small island looks like lighthouse rocks in a big sea. At the A5091 partway up Ullswater, we concur that the comforting-looking White Lion Inn back at Patterdale might be the better bet for a bit of respite.

The delightful young man at the Lion is mopping the floor, “best to leave some jobs on quiet days like today”, he muses, “otherwise they can be a bit long. But Mother’s Day should be busy”. He’s left the car and waded over today as the road to his property is flooded. “Waders come in handy?” I suggest. “No point”, says the barman, indicating with his hand that the water was chest height. “But it’s only twice a month, so no big deal. I keep some dry clothes here”. Keep in mind, dear reader, that it snowed up on Helvellyn last night.

He gets the fire going in minutes with two blow torches, “make sure you tell people I got it going by hand”, the barman quips. “Sure thing”, is our retort, “we saw you rubbing the two sticks together.” Fish and chips and beef lasagne, proper pub nosh, and a couple of beers by the fire as the rain lashes down outside, perfect.

We’re no longer surprised at the sodden “fell walkers” wandering by and ask the barman about his soundtrack; Girls just want to have fun, Eye of the Tiger, Sweet Dreams Are Made of this, I bless the rains down in Africa, all British pop. “My Kenyan wife puts those together”, says the barman. Di presses the point, “but what do you listen to at home?”, “Talk-sport”, the reply. He talks of deer up on the fell in summer, and the year the bridge collapsed downstream of the lake, blocking the outflow, floodwaters backing up to the pub. Could have sat there listening to his tales all day. A careful drive home, through lots of water and a game of Uno and a few beers at the Golden Rule (many games actually – Di claims cumulative victory). We bid the staff farewell and toddle home.

Friday Di’s charted a course through the Hardknott Pass. After a clean-up breakfast of bacon, eggs and leftover mince on toast, yoghurt, and berries (not all together of course). We grab a coffee at Zeffirelli’s. Coffee has posed something of a challenge. Most cottages we rent have minimal coffee facilities, small-town grocery stores seldom have coffee bags, and shops typically do milk or oat milk, sometimes soy, rarely almond. We resolve to purchase a coffee plunger.

The hardware store has plungers, but we’re thinking something lighter. The lovely Irish girl in the first camping store (there are more than ten outdoor sports stores in Ambleside) gives us some great advice on Ireland, but points us towards the second store, the Climbing Shop, for coffee supplies. We pick up an Aero Press. Our next airbnb has a coffee plunger, a percolator and an automatic coffee machine. Oh well.

We head first to Bowness-on-Windermere for a brief walk and lunch on the soup de jour and cheese and onion sandwiches (and perhaps a wee draft) at the “Hole in t’Wall” where Dickens frequented. At this point, I can confirm that the fat tongs indicate a 1% increase in body fat; however, this has enabled cyclical washing of a single merino clothing layer without undue cold – and addressing Di’s problem of having to live with me in the absence of said cyclical washing.

It’s snowed overnight, and as we circle back past Ambleside and head west, the high fells to the North are blanketed in snow – it’s a delightful farewell to our stay at Ambleside.

Minutes out of town, and we’re on narrow back roads and it’s not long before we’re winding up to Wrynose Pass and thence to Hardknott Pass, the landscape becoming ever more barren and rocky. Hardknott is steep and narrow, a first-gear ascent up many hairpins, the elevation thus won providing stunning views back down the valley and eventually over the saddle into the valley of the River Esk and the 1900-year-old Roman Hardknott fort. Some of the photo stops made for some interesting hill starts.

It’s a big fort, or was, with four towers on its surrounding walls, granaries, officers’ quarters, barracks and hot baths and saunas. The fort’s on a ridge just below the pass, commanding views over the pass valley and the adjoining valley of the River Esk. It forms part of a strategic network of Roman forts out to and up the coast to Hadrian’s Wall. Stunning. Quietly grazing sheep belie the bitter cold, and we head for lower and hopefully warmer climes in the valley below. Whether or not the temperature improved, we’re not sure, but our travelling spirit is rewarded by the discovery of a fireplace (and bar) at the King George IV further down the road. An old bloke in wellies and an oilskin jacket sits at the bar with his dog and a pint. A mother gives her kid bar-doggy-treats to chew on to shut him up (English pubs seem to compete for the best doggy treat menu – it’s over the top. They’re not typically intended for children, though – at least I don’t think so – better than coke I guess)

It’s dusk when we arrive in Baycliff on the coast of Morecambe Bay, having passed, by way of narrow winding lanes and bridges, from the wild, rocky and rugged high country of the Western Lakes down to the rolling green plains along the coast. Jackdaw cottage is cosy and warm, the owner has lit a fire, and after a hot meal at the “Farmers Baycliff” not 25 paces from our cottage door, we call it a night.

Saturday, it’s all blue sky and sunshine, and we walk along the rocky beach up to Bardsea. The tide is out, and the six and a half kilometers across the bay to Morecambe Power Station is sand. Apparently, you can walk it at low tide, but Google advises a guide, “due to quicksand, fast-rising tides, and shifting river channels”. It’s been used as a thoroughfare for thousands of years by Roman Soldiers, Monks (from Furness Abbey and Cartmel Priory) and farmers to avoid the long road around. Robert the Bruce and his army invaded England using this route. The crown appointed a king’s guide due to the rapid tides (“faster than a galloping horse”), a role that still exists today.

In 2004, at least 22 illegal Chinese immigrants, trafficked to England by Chinese Triads, were caught by the tide and drowned while collecting cockles in the bay. Emergency services were alerted by a mobile phone call from one of the workers who had sufficient English to say “Sinking water” before being cut off. The twenty to thirty-year-old, mostly men, died of hypothermia trying to swim for the shore. The Gangmaster went to jail for manslaughter (an Irishman we bumped into on the shore shared this story – which we checked on Wiki)

As we rise up from Bardsea with our hot chips from Chill and Grill, the vast sand flats of the bay open up below us. The Birkrigg common divides Bardsea village from Sea Wood forest, providing a very handsome view of Bardsea’s whitewashed cottages and towering church spire nestled in the green hills rolling down to the Bay’s shore.

We stop to soak up the solemnity of the Birkrigg standing stones (seating stones really – they’re very small), which must have enjoyed some impressive rituals situated up on the hill above the town. A lady seated with some friends explains how she talks to spirits up here (perhaps consuming some too?)

A lovely public way takes us from just above the stones right back to Baycliff through farms, hedgerows, stone barns and paddocks (sheep, alpaca, cows, shetland ponies and teeny weeny pom-pom sheep that the ponies delighted in rounding up when they got bored).

Grabbing a beer at the “Farmers” to debrief the day, the barmaid advises that Morrison’s at Barrow-in-Furness would be best for us for shopping (15min drive). But Dalton-in-Furness is 4 minutes closer (and I know best) so I head there. There’s a dusty bottle of Coke and a pack of stale biscuits on the motley tin shelves with a careless smattering of other tins and boxes, their faded labels unreadable in the flickering flouro. A sign hanging over an empty void reads “chicken”. “Tomorrow” says the young shopkeeper, his face pointing right at me while his eyes gaze permanently right, “maybe”. “Vegetables?” I offer, hopefully. “Delivery tomorrow. There might be vegetables”.

Today – UK Mother’s Day, we did some actual shopping, where the barmaid told us to (which was excellent), had a coffee at the Round-House cafe, looking out at the Irish sea (and 189 wind turbines), and spent the day sitting by the fire drinking coffee (made with our Aero Press) and reading. Oh, and I made fish soup. Same recipe as for owl soup, you know, “Put a prepared owl in a big pot with a granite boulder. Boil the pot for several hours. When the stone gets soft, throw away the owl and eat the stone”.