The Lake District – day 2, walk to Wast Water | alison richards

The weather wasn't the best for a walk, but we donned our coats and boots anyway and drove to a place called Nether Wasdale, which was the start of the walk we had picked out to do. I think it looks worse in the photos than it was - it was thankfully not raining, but the clouds were hanging low so it was quite a dim day. We parked in the parking area, and set off. The first part was across farmland, but pretty soon we got to the lake called Wast Water, which is the deepest lake in England. It was really gorgeous but in the autumn it seemed like a lonely part of the world.

Somewhere under those clouds is Scafell Pike, England’s tallest mountain and one of the three peaks in the “Three Peaks Challenge”, which covers the tallest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales.

The Wasdale area was managed by National Trust, and they have a campsite up the road a little bit.

The road into Wasdale. There weren’t too many people driving on this road at this time of year!

We were halfway through the walk and left the lake for country lanes and fields.

We got back to the car and decided to go to a pub in Nether Wasdale for lunch. Considering it is such a small place, there were several pubs in the village, perhaps catering to all the people walking across the area.

We decided to head back to Motherby. Looking at the map, the quickest way back was to go down a pass that went towards Ambleside. We didn't know at that stage, however, that the road shares the title of the steepest road in England of about 33% gradient. It's also a single track road.

The view from the road was amazing. And the road itself was crazy to drive - 33% is really steep and Dad's car struggled a bit! But it wasn't too busy, and everyone was taking their time with the driving. We stopped a few times so I could take some photos.