Trailblazing Trio Adventure!

At dinner last night, Dr. Bob gave us the go ahead to have a day to ourselves. We could go wherever we wanted and would report back our adventure at dinner tonight. Mike, Courtney, and I were very excited because during our hike yesterday we had discussed our own independent trip to Ambleside, a city to the southeast of Chapel Stile. We had also nicknamed ourselves the Trailblazing Trio and thought today would be a perfect opportunity to test out our trailblazing skills.

We found a bus headed to Ambleside at 9:42. While waiting for the bus, we chatted with a couple (probably in their 70s) who have a holiday out here every year around this time. They were excited for our trip but told us that usually the weather here is much nicer. We boarded the bus and made the approximately 5 mile trip to Ambleside.

In Ambleside we decided to try out two hikes that were in our anthology (a collection of pieces put together by Dr. Bob that we use as one of our three textbooks for this trip). Paul Buttle had created written directions for a variety of hikes in our area. He gives the distance, total feet of climbing, suggested time, and starting point along with a map and written directions. We decided to do two different hikes and see how accurate the directions still were (I think the book was originally published around 1991). Our first hike was out to Rydal Hall, a 3.25 mile hike. The directions were incredibly accurate. Rydal Hall is beautiful and I believe the whole group will be going back in the next few weeks to really explore that house and Rydal Mount (a home of Wordsworth).

Returning to Ambleside, the three of us sat on a bench and had our lunch. Then it was time for our second hike out to Stock Ghyll, a waterfall. This hike was much hillier, our legs really got a good workout! But it was a beautiful hike. Again, the directions were true. This hike consisted of us walking across more farmland than the first hike. We also got our share of livestock: cows, sheep, ducks, and chickens.

Again, we came back to Ambleside. This time, we explored the city. It's a nice city and I'm sure we didn't see everything we wanted to see. But then it was time to head back to Chapel Stile. We grabbed some Lake District ice cream to go and then walked back. For a period of time, the weather was beautiful. Then it started to rain when we got close to Elterwater, the town about a half mile from Chapel Stile. So we did get rained on today. But then the sun came out as we walked up the hill to our cottage.

Overall, a fantastic day. Really seeing some great things and really enjoying all this hiking!