The Lake District getaway – crawling up a mountain and the cave cache! Part Two

We start this week’s blog from the base of the Old Man of Coniston. Yes, I really do mean the base. 

Due to not studying the map properly, we had not realised until 30 minutes into the uphill climb that there was actually a car park 250 metres up. Needless to say we had stupidly parked down in the village and started our walk from there. There’s nothing like making it a proper challenge!  

Fortunately, it was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and we were in good spirits…to start with at least. After marching our way up the tiny road, we were a little disheartened upon seeing the car park and the distance still to go.  

However, our spirits were lifted a little when we met some friendly walkers who seemed more knackered than us just 400 yards from the car park and hence, were happy to stop and chat, giving us an excuse to take a break as well.

It was nice to hear about their past visits and it gave us the encouragement we needed to carry on, despite not having climbed anything particularly high for a good eight years.  

 

We decided to head to Lever’s Water first as we knew that would give us the chance to collect a few geocaches on the way. The walk wasn’t too bad, once we got our lazy legs in gear and the scenery and views were amazing.  

After a nice lunch sitting on a giant boulder overlooking the lake, we began the real ascent. Not to make it too easy, we chose the most direct route along what I can only describe as a goat path, which was almost vertical! Ok, it wasn’t quite vertical, but it ended up being rather torturous! 

Oh boy, it was hard going! Every few steps we were climbing two or three metres. My legs were killing me, but aided by trusty walking aid, ITunes, I was determined to crawl and dance my way to the top…well it worked when I climbed Teide, also from its base, 20 years ago!  

 

Every few minutes I was taking a break and trailing quite a long way behind the other half, but I wasn’t going to give up. Finally, almost three quarters of the way up the steep ravine, I caught up with him, and he looked worse than me! Broken!  

 

He was hunched over on a rock, clutching a bottle of water and when I asked him if he was ok, he gasped, “I can’t do it, I’m going to have to go back”. I thought he was joking, and when I realised he wasn’t I told him in no uncertain terms that this was his mad idea, there was no way I was going back down, so he better get moving. And he did! 

 

Twenty-five gruelling minutes later, after a lot of stop start, I finally had my foot on the top of the fell. Oh the relief!  

 

We weren’t quite there, it was still a good 800 metres or so to get across to the top of the Old Man of Coniston, but the walk was much flatter and easier going. There was also snow on the top, which was fun to see, although not quite so much fun when the other half decided to hurl a snowball at me!  

 

A short time later, we reached the summit and took in the stunning views from the top, congratulating ourselves on not being as fat and unfit as we thought we were. 

Snapping selfies at the trig point and rock stack, I actually couldn’t believe we could still do a climb like that, especially after a year of lazy lockdowns! 

And even better there was a geocache at the top! It was nice to sit down for a well-earned rest whilst I signed the log, and enjoy a bite to eat. 

The walk back down the more commonly used route was much easier and we managed to grab another two geocaches. 

All in all, it turned out to be a very successful hike and one I will remember for some time to come.  

We needed an easier day the day after our climb, so we decided to drive to Ambleside just up the road from the holiday home for a spot of lunch and shopping. 

There were a few geocaches around the town that had been published since our last visit, so we picked those up.

 

There were also some new lab caches, which took us on an enjoyable walk through the town and up part of the nearby fell. 

One of the labs actually made me take notice of something I’d never really looked at before the old Bridge House. It was a pretty little thing, straddling the small stream, and I can’t believe I’d never really noticed it before. 

The final one took us to the waterfall or ‘force’ as they seemed to be called in the Lakes, which we’d seen before, but it was nice to visit it again. It also gave us the opportunity to collect the bonus cache and do the new virtual there, which if I remember rightly required quite a bit of counting.

We followed the visit with more caching and dashing and collected the ferry cache at last. 

After dinner we decided on an early evening walk up a small fell near Bowness-on-Windermere to collect a few other geocaches.    

 

It was a really nice walk, with so many baby lambs dancing about in groups all around us. It was so lovely to see them. We were definitely both glad we had managed to muster the energy to get up there.

Our last full day had arrived and the sun was beaming. We decided to make the most of it with a decent drive up and across the Lakes to Cockermouth, but going via Thirlmere, Derwent Water, the Honister Pass and Buttermere.   

 

We saw six or seven lakes on the way, and made lots of stops to pick up geocaches. There were some great customs including bolts in posts as well as Tupperware containers beside streams and boulders.  

 

The Thirlmere View cache was a bit of a challenge for me. I had to climb up and over a very large boulder as it was located up on a small outcrop overlooking the lake. 

I could have done with a foot up from the other half, but he was lounging back in the car listening to the football on the radio. However, it was well worth the effort - the views were stunning.

We also picked up the ‘Mirror Image’ Virtual after taking a little stroll along the shoreline of Derwent Water. 

The rugged Honister Pass was a joy on our visit, as it was so quiet, barely a car in sight. It meant we had plenty of time and space to pull in and enjoy the views, picking up caches as we went.

We stopped at the huge quarry to do another nice Earthcache called ‘Put it on the Slate’, and spent some time admiring the beautiful green colours in the surrounding slate.  

Then it was off to Buttermere to take an enjoyable walk along the shoreline in the sunshine, via a beautiful mossy green dingley dell.

Part of the walk took us to a brilliant cave/tunnel, that I’d not visited before and I had no idea was there. The path actually takes you right through it, and inside, up one end, is the geocache ‘Light at the end of the tunnel’. 

However, could we spot it? Well, it took a while before the penny dropped that it was above our heads in the mesh placed to stop rocks and stones falling down on walkers heads! 

It was a lovely big box too, and quite an old cache, placed back in January 2004, so it nicely filled a gap on my Jasmer Grid. 

 

By early evening, we eventually arrived in Cockermouth where we completed the ‘Famous Sons of Cockermouth’ Lab caches. It was a nice series, and took us to the former home of Wordsworth as well as some places of interest linked to other notable men who had lived in the town.  

 

All too soon, our trip was over and it was time to head home. This time, the other half agreed to go the more scenic route - via the M61, M1 and other M roads - so that I could grab some caches in a few counties I hadn’t yet visited.  

 

We made several stops, mainly at service stations, which are not often the nicest places to go hunting for caches as so often the woodlands surrounding them are used as overflow toilets! Nevertheless, I managed to grab finds in four new English counties - South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.  

The last one was actually a challenge cache ‘Continents Bronze’, which I qualified for having found geocaches on three continents.    

So, that was it. Our first trip away from Suffolk this year, and a good haul of caches in the bag, including 23 lab caches, two Earthcaches and four virtuals.  

 

Next week we are back home, trekking along some new trails in the forests, and trying to complete a big milestone. Until then, keep caching!