I had read about this hike and wanted to do it because it sounded really interesting, a good variety of things to see. I don't know whether my parents were quite as keen but they came with me nonetheless.
We started off by parking in Ambleside and the walk from there was straight uphill! Once we'd made it out onto the open moorland, it wasn't quite so steep, thankfully, as I didn't want to be responsible for killing my parents! The landscape made up for all the panting though, it was very pretty.
From there we crossed into an area that was covered in bracken, but had a great view of the lakes. We could see Windermere, and the whole vista down below was looking so gorgeous that I was glad we'd gone on this walk!
We made it to the top of a hill, and you could see Loughrigg Tarn, a smaller lake below. It was so calm and still that the lake looked like glass, reflecting the moody sky. The mountains all around and the autumn colours were so beautiful.
We came over a rise and then below was the lovely Grasmere, another lake that looked just like a mirror. Annoyingly I didn't take a photo of them, but we had to walk down a lot of roughly hewn stone steps to get there. It was hard work and required concentration not to slip, hence why there isn't a photo, but we all finally made it to the bottom, to a much smoother path around Grasmere.
The walk around the lake was along a fairly level gravel path so it was easy going. It was fairly busy but not too bad, lots of dogs around! We walked along until we got to this massive cave in the side of the hill, and of course I went inside to explore...
I think the worst part of a hike is knowing you're close to the end but you still have to keep going. Also, the scenery was a bit same-y as we walked next to a very full river after we'd walked over the Pelter Bridge, below.
We finally made it back to Ambleside then decided it was time to go find some lunch after our 10.5km walk. We had lunch in Ambleside then decided to drive to the village of Grasmere to have a wander through. It was a cute little place.
We went back to our house in Motherby and got ready to go to dinner at the pub nearby. It was our last night in the Lake District.
The next day we left the house at about 9am. I had a train booked for about 2pm from Birmingham back to London so we had free time up until then. We drove down via a detour through the Peak District, but on the road into Birmingham we hit really terrible traffic. I was watching the clock tick by and it got close to my train time. See the thing with the UK is that if you book a train in advance, you can generally get it cheaper. On the day, the tickets are extortionate! Like crazy stupid expensive. So I didn't really want to miss my train!
We were driving around the city and it was sooooo close to 2pm. We were near the station at a set of traffic lights on a 4-lane road and I just told my dad who was driving that I was getting out. He got out to help me with my luggage and I ran all the way to the train, making it onboard with 2 minutes to spare. Coughing, spluttering and red-faced, I found a seat, and half an hour later I'd finally calmed down from my panicked run across Birmingham! What an end to my trip!