Windermere Walk Part 4

Distance 13.5 miles
Ascent 700m
Weather clear and sunny
Buzzards, sparrowhawk, deer
Weird hunchback glowing people 2 (us)
People going the wrong way 2 (not us)

An early start, we caught the 7.05 bus from Bowness to Newby Bridge, in the dark. We walked up the lane through Great Wood to Canny Hill then got a bit lost in a caravan park before finding our way out to cross a field and the A590. On the other side of the road we entered another field and did some sheep wrangling. Sheep freed from barbed wire fence and minor injuries patched up, we walked up to field edge (where there was an open gateway between the fields that the stuck sheep could have simply walked through) before crossing a couple of fancy ironwork stiles into woodland.

The sky was getting light and at the top of the hill there was a spectacular inversion over the valley. The sun rose and the moon set as we walked along the forest track through Chapel House plantation, which has been chopped down. What would have been a nice forest path has been turned into bleak muddy desolation.

Heading up to Gummers How we saw a few other walkers and admired the view of the clouds over Windermere. Thankfully the man with the drone packed it up and left shortly after we'd arrived at the summit.

Leaving the top we entered Birch Fell and  Blakeholme plantations, where there are still plenty of trees, and also birds. We saw Chaffinches, blue, great and coal tits plus a treecreeper and some sort of warbler in the old oak trees. Also two roe deer.

We had tea and chocolate bars for half tenses sitting on a wall (with brambles) in the middle of the woods, before finding a bog disguised as leaves. Leaving the woodland we went through a farm as the farmer was putting out some hay  for his grateful sheep, who came running across the fields.

The road surfaces were quite Icy and slipsy and there was quite a commotion of unhappy pheasants, shortly followed by a loud gun shot.

At the Birkett House Allotment the pond was partly frozen and we saw a white chicken on the hill. There were a lot of small birds, mostly chaffinches, so we stopped here for lunch just off the path - perhaps not quite far off enough.

We passed a few more walkers during the afternoon and there were plenty at the top of Brant Fell, the frosty ground making it interesting for some who had just come up from town. We got back just before 3pm, had rest and a cuppa before heading to the Royal Oak for Christmas Eve drinks and a slap up dinner.