Grasmere

This is probably cheating a bit, I took this lot of photographs along with the ones of Rydal Water. 
It seemed to make sense to split them up as I had so many.
The two lakes are close with White Moss car park in between, I must admit that we go a bit further towards Ambleside and once you've passed the end of Rydal Water there's a sharp right turn over a bridge and then right again into a small but free car park.
Walk around the footpath with the Lake on your right and then head uphill onto the Loughrigg Terraces looking across the lake at Grasmere.
It is possible to keep to a lower level and end up on the shores of Gramere and in all the years we've been coming to the Lake District we've never done that. 
No doubt as the knees get creakier it will become our favourite walk.
The views from the Terraces are lovely and there are loads of benches for you to sit while getting your breath back or simply to pause and enjoy the scenery.
Eventually you reach a set of steps to climb up onto Loughrigg Fell, don't be deceived into thinking it's an easy climb and you'll manage it in your flip flops. 
As it gets higher it gets trickier and I had a few 'never again' mutters under my breath.
Once you reach the trig point the views are awesome and you have a selection of paths to follow, take a map so you know where you'll end up. We'd left the map in the car so took the route we knew that brought us back down to the remains of the slate mine just five minutes from the car park.
So here are some more Lake District photographs.

Rydal Water on a misty morning

The footpath around the edge of Rydal Water

Looking back from the footpath up to Loughrigg

Coming up Loughrigg Terraces above the mist with the early light burning through, the footpath follows the wall you see in the left corner.

Still some mist over Grasmere

 Almost a birds eye view over Grasmere and the hills beyond.

Loughrigg Fell

TT heading back downhill, you can see all the lumps and bumps left from the slate mining operations. Seems hard to believe this was an industrial landscape at one time.

And that's it for another day. I was going to have one discreet ad on my blog but apparently I lack content, who'd have guessed, so you've been spared.

Thankyou for viewing my photographs.

An early start

I knew the fine weather wasn't going to last here in the north so I decided to make the most of it with a trip over to the Lakes.
It meant setting the alarm for 5.30am but that's later than normal for sunrises, by 5.50am we were on our way to Rydal Water, TT was driving so we took a bit longer to get there, he likes to maintain a regular speed to conserve fuel and ignores me rocking back and forwards in my 'go faster' attempts.
As it happens we arrived just after sunrise and in thick mist, so I had plenty of time to get from the car park to the side of the Lake.
The nice thing about mist is that it comes and goes so I was hopping back and forwards as bits appeared and disappeared from sight.
Rydal is one of my favourite lakes because it's normally very still so you can get perfect reflections, and it's about 1hr 10mins drive from Gilsland.

Here are some of the many photographs I took.

Rydal Water

Just a hint of Autumn colour, anoother two weeks and it should be lovely

The mists move back in almost hiding the Island

And the mist goes again

Two for one

Mist is burning off, it's going to be a beautiful day

The path around the Lake with sunlight streaming through the trees.

The path leads you to the Loughrigg Terraces or on a lower level path to Gramere Lake, we took the high path and I'll share some of those photographs in my next blog.

As always photo's are copyright of Joan Thirlaway and cannot be used without written permission.

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