A Romantic Stumble to the Pier
Concerned that I might feel the cold I wrapped up in my thermal socks, gloves, scarf and walking shoes before venturing out today. We had no specific plans, but wanted to explore the local area of Ambleside while the weather was still on our side.
Starting off from Cloud Cottage we wandered through Ambleside Town down on to Lake Road. Throughout Ambleside there are sign posts all saying 'to the lakes' but as you migrate out of town these suddenly disappear. This was slightly concerning, but using a bit of guesswork we decided to stick to the main road - this is known as Lake Road.
This luckily was the right decision and if we had thought about it for long enough common sense would have prevailed as Lake Road would surely be the road that led to the Lake. For reference if any of you are planning on doing this walk the edge of Windermere Lake is only one mile down this road.
From here you can take a boat out on the Lake for the sum of £14.60 per adult. These boats leave from Ambleside Pier. We decided however (due to the current mist) that we would leave the boat tour for another day. Plus I am not the best on boats and often regret making the decision to hop on board as soon as we have left the docking area. Garry often has to remind me of this though!
The sales rep at the pier provided us with a map of the area and we decided to follow the scenic route back to Ambleside. On reflection however the map was not exactly to scale and we may have got a little lost towards the end of the route.
The route started off from the pier - heading up Borrans Road in an anti clockwise direction around the lake. There were several places to grab a coffee or a snack in this area, but we decided that we should do some exploring before taking a break.
I think we should have realised from an early stage that the map was not to scale! The above photo sums up the confusion and thought having to go into what should have been a simple stroll down the river back to Ambleside. I would like to point out though Garry had the map so any directional issues were firmly in his hands.......
.....Or we may have been that we were concentrating on being silly - and not which way to go!
We took a diversion through Borrans Park - where lots of crows were chasing each other around. It was very peaceful - from the bench below you had a view out onto the Lake.
As an avid metal detectorist Garry was keen to locate the area on the map known as the Roman Fort. We both knew that there would be limited amounts of the fort left, but we were surprised upon our arrival at how big an area the fort would have covered. The majority of field above housed an entrance gate, a grain store, a meeting room and a general head quarters for the soldiers. They must have found some amazing treasures here when excavating the area. Garry decided that he would pretend to be a Roman Centurion marching up and down the remains at the site!
While Garry was pretending to be a Centurion I decided I would run away into the trees and try and hide from him. Despite my very fashionable brown coat camouflaging me against the scenery he spotted me and quickly. It turns out I was going in completely the wrong way and needed to head back towards the river.
We followed the river back towards Ambleside hoping that the mist rolling in over the hills would not ruin any of our other adventures planned for the day. It was certainly getting a bit chilly and we were glad to get back for a cuppa tea and some lunch to warm up.
We tracked our route however in case anyone fancied strolling in this direction in the future.