Today we left London for a weekend in the Lake District. While I am loving London, I have been really anxious to get out of the city for a few days. London is HUGE, and I have never lived in a city this large before. Though I have never lived far from an urban center, this is the first time I can say I am really living in a big city—I don’t consider Denver to be in this category. It just doesn’t have the same urban feel. And even when I lived in Long Beach, 10 minutes from Los Angeles, I didn’t have the feeling that I was a part of LA. But now, I am living in central London, and sometimes it feels like an impossibly sprawling, impersonal beast, and I have come to realize that I have been missing the ability to escape quickly to fresh air and open land, like I have in Denver. Being in the middle of London can feel suffocating. In addition, being in London has made it all too easy to forget that there is more to England than the capital city, and I didn’t want my experience these three months to be solely shaped by one center. Needless to say, I have really been looking forward to this weekend away.
After an hour or so on the train, the scenery began to change: rolling hills, open pastures; and eventually I could see mountains distant on the horizon. I started getting antsy, itching to dump my bag at the hostel and get out into the open. I knew I needed some time alone, away from everyone, and I had already found a 3-mile hike that seemed perfect. We arrived at the hostel, outside of Ambleside in a perfect location on the shore of Lake Windermere, but I didn’t waste any time there. Within ten minutes I was on the road, headed for the hills.
The trail head was on the other side of Ambleside, which is a gorgeous little village nestled into a valley. Mostly stone buildings and cottages, with a town center full of coffeeshops, pubs, and outdoor gear shops. Pretty much perfect. The small lanes that led out of town were lined on both sides by stone walls, and I followed one of these lanes up a steep hill to the trail head. Once I got out of town the stone walls continued, with sheep pastures on either side and amazing views of the hills beyond. The path led through fields and some wooded areas, up a small canyon to High Sweden Bridge. The strange thing about this bridge is that there are no roads nearby—it must have been built just to get sheep across a creek or to provide a perfect home for a nasty troll. Just beyond the bridge was the highest point on the trail, which gave a view down into Ambleside and over Lake Windermere, along with 365˚ of mountaintops (or fells, as they call small mountains here).
The way down wound directly through sheep grazing land—no fences to separate me from the animals. Several times I came around a corner and there was a sheep standing directly on the path, looking at me with slight annoyance that I was on its turf. I did wonder if sheep ever attacked humans, and what I would do if I was gored by a farm animal out here alone on a mountainside. Luckily, the sheep seemed more skittish than I was, and usually bounded away from me instead of giving in to any latent aggressive instincts.
This was the first real solo hike I have ever done, and though it wasn’t anything too challenging or long (I think it was about 3 miles round trip), I really enjoyed being alone with my thoughts and the landscape, with only the plentiful sheep for company. Liz, I take back what I said about hiking solo—I think I might be hooked.
more photos are on Facebook - too many to post here.
:) I knew you'd love it!
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