On Tuesday I completed a 9 mile walk from Grasmere to Windermere. The idea was that this would be a practice run for the Sandstone Trail (which I will hopefully walk next week). 9 miles took me 4.5 hours (including time for an ice-cream in Ambleside. That’s not that great if I want to do 34 miles in two days.

A little known house on a bridge in Ambleside.

Generally the walk was quite nice and I didn’t need to strain myself or anything. I started on the ominously titled “Coffin Route” from Grasmere to Rydal before heading up to Rydal woods and heading down into Ambleside. From Ambleside it was up to Skyghill Woods and Jenkins Crag before heading down to Trout Beck via Town End.

The view out over Waterhead.

Crossing Trout Beck proved problematic as the bridge had been damaged in Winter 2015. Luckily somebody had tied up a line so that you could shimmy across the remains of the bridge.

The fallen bridge over Trout Beck.

Heading up to Orrest Head I was lagging a bit but the walk did include quite a few uphill sections. Orrest head provides good views over the north bit of Windermere but it was starting to rain so the view wasn’t so good. The direction I’m intending to do the Sandstone Trail is largely downhill so perhaps 9 miles in 4.5 hours for this walk isn’t so bad in context. I have completed the Sandstone Trail in 2 days but that was as a teenager.