Hiking in England

Every english person we have run into has told us we must go to the Lake District when in England so on our way back from Scotland to York we decided to do a detour and see what this was all about. Once we got there it was nothing like I had imagined. I had brought my board shorts for some swimming but the lake was freezing and the activity all the locals go for is hiking. This really sucked as I had lugged my boots across all of Europe and then when I finally need them I had left them at my relatives house!

We still thought we should go for a hike regardless of leaving our gear behind and bought a trail guide from the tourist office. Once we got a few kilometers into the hike this is how the guide read “Look out for a less-than-obvious footpath which bears to the right to descend over a stile. Cross the stile and descend ten paces to a cairn. Take the left fork and follow a path curving around the fellside”...... what the hell is that?! Needless to say we got lost. After consulting some other lost hikers we found our path was about 200 meters away across some grasslands. Making our way back to the path I was warning Maria to watch where she stepped and as she looked at me disbelievingly she stepped into a crack in the earth almost a meter deep. For the rest of the walk people would look at Maria’s muddy knees and once passed us but still within earshot would ask their partner if they saw her knees. Serves her right for not believing me!

As for the Lake District I would have to agree with the Poms that it is something you definitely have to see. I do now understand why they lost their empire and I believe it is because they spent all their time building stone walls to keep the sheep in instead of looking after their colonies.