Hundreds of Herdwicks

Plan A for today was to cycle to Arnside, eat fish and chips and cycle back. The weather forecast showed no rain until 6pm. However this morning it tonked down and as I am very much a fair-weather cyclist Plan A was dropped in favour of Plan B - drive to the old Dungeon Ghyll, walk to the top of Mickleden, eat a picnic lunch and walk back - I don't mind walking in the rain.

All was quiet as we set off up the Mickleden track and we seemed to have the entire valley to ourselves. The solitude and silence were soon broken when the farmer let about 400 Herdwicks out from the farmyard and back onto the fells. The track was totally rammed (excuse the pun) with sheep all recently daubed with an interesting shade of green dye. We had to pin ourselves against the dry stone wall to avoid being trampled.