Introduction
R and I joined this year’s Ashram Holiday, with a group of people including my parents. We stayed in a large house called Far Moor End near a village called Ennerdale Bridge, on the western edge of the Lake District. It’s a remote area, with no public transport.
Friday
We travelled up by train to Penrith, where we met up with my parents, and took a bus to Cockermouth. From there Ian, who lives locally and suggested this holiday, took us the rest of the way in his electric car.
Ian took most of the group on a short walk to get our first look at Ennerdale Water, the local lake. It’s smaller than Windermere, many orders of magnitude less populated, and has been dammed so that it can be used as a reservoir.
Saturday
The Lake District is one of the rainiest areas of the UK (not surprising – all that water has to come from somewhere). Saturday in particular was a good day to visit the community café in Ennerdale Bridge, and see inside the church. We also took a short local walk.
Sunday
R and I were cooking the main meal on Sunday, but we did manage a short walk in the rain.
Monday
Most of the group went to visit Whitehaven, the nearest coastal town. We saw the museum and walked around town a bit. There are many impressive old buildings from the town’s boom years, although those were a long time ago.
The old church nearest the centre is ruined, but has a rather nice café in the remaining part. There’s a newer church up the hill.
Later, we went out to see the lake at night. It was quite dark.
Tuesday
Tuesday was sunny, and Ian led us on a circular walk around Ennerdale Water.
The easiest route is up and across Anglers’ Crag, a lump that juts out into the lake. This does involve going up (about 140 metres) and then down again, but the path is not too steep.
After descending to lake level, we followed the lakeside path around the rest of the southern bank.
On the northern bank we followed a track some of the way, then an easy lakeside path.
Wednesday
David kindly gave us a lift into Keswick (and back from Cockermouth later), because we wanted to see the pencil museum that we had missed in our last trip to the area.
Thursday
A group, including us, decided to try walking to the two nearest hill summits listed in the Wainwright books: Crag Fell and Grike.
We took a fairly easy and direct path that angled up the hill.
There are two summits of Crag Fell (523 and 522 metres above sea level) and we visited both.
From Crag Fell we walked along the hilltops to Grike, which is a little lower (488 metres).
We then descended by a forestry track toward the Great Stone of Blakeney, which as we had previously been warned is not particularly great.
We continued to the road and followed it back into the village, and then to Far Moor End.
Friday
Sadly we had to go home on Friday. This involved waiting in Penrith for a train. The station is quite near Penrith Castle...
