Around Derwant water


Forum » Walk Reports » Lake District

By Gwithian on 25/08/18 at 9:25am

Date started:20/08/2018
Distance:14.5 km or 9.0 miles
Naismith:2:54

Our planned couple of days in the lakes didn't go quite to plan, we arrived at Keswick early on Monday to very low cloud and drizzle, so our planned walk up Catbells was put on hold and we decided to do the walk around derwant water instead.

On the way through Keswick we bagged a few bargains in the sales and headed off to Portinscale, then Nichol End followed by Hawes End.

Towards Lodore

The rain eased and it was actually quite warm and humid. It was a really pleasant walk around the lake until we got to what we call "Whinny the Poo" bridge at Lodore, we crosse don't the bridge but the path ahead was flooded.... the lake was a lot higher than usual, indeed the shingle beaches (is that what you call them?) were covered and parts of the wooded area near the lake was also under water...

Anyway, we had the choice.... a two mile detour or a paddle.... we chose the latter, took off out boots and socks, rolled our trousers up and paddled through... it wasn't deep, about half way up our shins, we walked on the reeds at the site of the path as the stones were too much for our soft feet..... the water felt beautiful, not at all cold and very refreshing, we were not the only people doing this, and those with dogs.... well their dogs couldn't believe their owners were doing the same as them, it really was beautiful.... we thought with a heavy heart that we knew two cocker spaniels who would have loved that bit..... there were even some fish in the bit we walked through

Anyway, we got through the water, dried our feet and put our boys back on.... it's amazing actually how fresh and revived our feet felt.....

We carried on, now heading back to keswick, as the lake was high, we couldn't walk along the shoreline, instead we had to scramble through the trees, this made a somewhat interesting walk, executed at a rather slow pace, I managed to crack my head on a low branch, Joan thought it might if knocked some sense into me... but miracles don't happen.... do they?

Then we saw this part of a tree.... we both thought it looked a bit like a greyhound.....

Ok I'll get my coat....

It was a very interesting walk, towards the end it started raining again, but it was too humid to put on our waterproofs so we just got wet.... well our skin is waterproof anyway....

We went past the National Trust centenary stone

looking at Skiddaw from the landing stage at Keswick

It was a really enjoyable day and the first time we have done a complete walk around Derwant Water.... :D

Not too sure why my images haven't worked... I copied the picture URL from Flickr and pasted it into the image, like below

[img]https://www.flickr.com/gp/142799687@N02/c6z56V[/img. .... but it didn't work.... I missed the last ] on purpose so you could see what I posted... thanks



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