Walk to Wast Water

I’ll begin by saying a huge Happy Birthday to my first born. 29 years ago our lives turned upside down when we became parents to Daniel…& the rest is history! I know he is in Italy celebrating with a big group of friends. Hope you had a memorable day Daniel xx

So to our day. My feet are telling me it was a tiring one. Yet invigorating and fulfilling. Cath made sandwiches for us all this morning, and we packed a towel, a tiny canoe plus oar, and our water shoes and set out on our walk to Wast Water, the large lake close to Nether Wasdale. It was about 6 miles as we wanted to walk to the exact spot where last year Jon and Angela had taken Andy out on the canoe. It was about 3/4 of the way along the water, which itself is 3 miles long. We had planned this for today as we knew the weather forecast was good. It didn’t let us down, and was very hot all day. Dare we say too hot!!

We walked for over 2 hours. It’s a nice walk through woods, along streams and up hills (but not anything steep) over cattle grids and through farm gates. We also had to negotiate lots of sheep in the road. Eventually arriving at the right spot, Cath and I stripped off to have a swim. It was COLD! Colder than it was last year. It took a while to acclimatise but we did swim eventually but not until we had launched the miniature canoe in memory of ‘Inspirational Andy’. We hope that it travels on through the waterways of the lake.

We ate lunch, swam and then started for home. My legs and feet were aching - actually they still are. But it was worth it. We eventually got back to Nether Wasdale where we stopped at the pub for a much needed pint of shandy. I took off my walking shoes and walked the rest of the way in my socks!

After an hour relaxing at home, we drove up to Gosforth, to meet more inspirational people. The volunteers that make up Wasdale Mountain Rescue. Andy’s mum wanted to make a donation and Cathy delivered it by hand, to be sure it arrived. They gave us a tour of their centre, and we spoke to lots of the volunteers, men and women of all ages, who always come together on a Friday to socialise and catch up with jobs. They are currently fund raising for a new waterproof drone, so the money donated in Andy’s memory could go towards that.

Back to the house, we are packing up. I can’t seem to get all my stuff back in my bag!! Or should I say bags…I have several. Heading home tomorrow after a really lovely week reliving old memories and making new ones.