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A sad day all round really - I decided on the company of the chaps especially as this may be the last time I can get over this way whilst the road remains closed. Once I left the cyclists enjoying the traffic free road below I climbed up and didn't see a soul all day. There is such a peacefulness about the place knowing that no-one will be there.

A few extras:
1. It's not over 'till it's over .... a few sporing liverworts still to be found
2. An old lonning for PaulaJ - there's lots around Thirlmere from the days when there were farms there called Bank and City (you aren't likely to think you're on the Underground .. especially when you get to Stenkin)
3. A traffic free Dunmail Raise in the sun
4. A traffic free Thirlmere looking towards Dunmail Raise and Helvellyn in the snow ... taken only a short time after the sunny one.
5. One for history's sake. This was the very nice security guard at the start of the closed section of road. He opened the barrier for me and was just about to stop a car heading towards us. He said that there are 8 of them on at various junctions around Thirlmere, round the clock. Generally there hasn't been too much bother but today he said he had problems with motorcyclists, 3 of whom gate-crashed the barrier and nearly hit the bus coming along the lakeshore.

The Moment - Margaret Atwood

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you
like a wave and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.