WHERE I DON'T GET LOST

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 7

I’m excited because I am going on the little train up into the fells.  For breakfast I enjoy fluffy eggs topped with smoked salmon.  When I stop at the kitchen to say that the eggs were the best I ever had, Neal is distressed because he thinks I’ve said, “The yogurt is out of date.” The waitress translates for him because I have a wonky English accent. 

 

Yesterday I saw no stores — anywhere! So when I see a delivery van park out front I wonder, “Is this how they get their food?”  I forget to ask because I get involved discussing my wet, muddy sneakers.   (Rosegarth Guest House offers drying shoes as a service).  “Sure, just bring them down.  We’ll stuff them with paper and put them in the drying room.”  Although bringing a second pair of hiking shoes added weight to my suitcase, I sure am glad to have them.

At the ticket counter I pick up a brochure about three walks from Dalegarth Station and Boot. 

 Many volunteers operate “The Little Ratty.”  They are very safety-conscious, checking to be sure all four of us hikers are on board.  We travel from Ravenglass north to Eskdale on a three-foot gauge railway originally built when there were mines to tend. 

 

Here is a four-minute movie I made about the train trip:  Sheep on the Track

 

I am reading a most wonderful book. The Shepherd's Life: A Tale of the Lake District, is an autobiographical book by James Rebanks, a sheep farmer from Matterdale, Cumbria.  I come to understand how the ancient (back to the Vikings) ways of improving land for sheep make the hillsides so beautiful in this 800 square mile Lake District.   Unlike the Grand Canyon of the United States, which was formed by geological forces and pretty much left untouched by people, this landscape is very human and beautifully green.  As a tourist, I enjoy the hillsides and cutie-pie sheep without the very hard work needed to make all that beauty.  

 

 I see some mud in a farmyard but, unlike yesterday’s hike, there is no mud on the trail.  I try avoiding the stinging nettle but have to smear the nearby dock over my legs when it gets me after all.   

Stinging Nettle on the Left; Dock on the Right

Ferns, lichens, and mosses are all over, but especially next to stream beds.  This spooky-looking lichen has witch-like fingers sticking up.  [My naturalist friend and lichen photographer, Don Hunter, says it is called Cladonia polydactyla.  Get it?] 

 

See the fingers?

It is such a treat finding wild foxglove.  Do the people who live here take it for granted?  Other flowers are more plentiful, except for the wild poppy, which I see rarely.

Herb-robert spp. celticum

Western Gorse

Perhaps a thistle or thistle-like flower which has lots of seeds like a dandelion.

Campanula

Welsh Poppy

Crane's Bill

Devil's-bit Scabious / Succisa pratensis

 

There are more birds on this trail than I’ve seen recently.  I wonder whether it is the berries.

British Robin

Crested Tit

Swallows

 

 The walk pamphlet guides me to St. Catherine’s Church.  “Do pop in, the church is always open.”  It is not.  Judging by their sign, they are undergoing leadership changes.

 

Very nice spiders on this walk

 

 Walking slowly but steadily on the path is a woman in her 80’s.  She lives in Manchester and comes here every year to walk and enjoy the peace.  Her son, who lives in the countryside, meets her here because he dislikes Manchester.

 

 After a few hours walking in the cool air, eating lunch at the Boot Inn seems like a very good idea.  I order mackerel with plum sauce followed by blackberry and calvados trifle with apple sorbet.  I wait 20 minutes for an internet connection with no results.  The bar manager says, “It’s in the middle of nowhere.  You have to be patient.”  I tell her the sophisticated and delicious food sure tastes like it is from somewhere.

 

 I walk around the quiet town of Boot where red-haired cattle enjoy the fresh grass I hold up for them.

 

 I have another hour or so of walking before it is time to take the steam engine back.   Stanley Ghyll is a deep, wooded, stream-cut gorge in the Eksdale granite. This area is so lushly green!  Leprechauns live here, I’m sure.  Trees are mostly oak, birch, and hazel.  There is a 60 foot waterfall called Ghyll Force further along the trail but if I walk there I won’t get to the steam-driven train on time. 

 

As I walk toward Dalegarth Station I wonder why I’ve seen so few butterflies on this trip.  And magically, there is one amidst some blackberry vines.  And a beauty it is — a new one to me.

It's hiding but I spot the orange-red

Red Admiral

Sheep Pride in the Train Station

Here Comes a Train

The Steam Engine is Working

The same two sheep we saw coming up need to be whistled off the track as we return.  (In case you didn’t watch the movie earlier, click here:  Sheep on the Track)

Tomorrow I’ll take the regular train north one stop so I can walk to the Irish Sea and see the big sand dunes.