On the third day, we embarked on another three-hour walk which included the peak of Wansfell Pike. And here it is, with 480 elevated metres of glory. It was quite steep towards the end and got a bit hard-going, our clothes becoming saturated in sweat. This was also the day I got signficant pink lobster sunburn on my head, which meant my head peeled for the following week and I kept wearing a cap every day after the trip to stop looking like I had some severe brain disease which was devouring the skin on my scalp. We overtook a number of other walkers and their families on the way up and, truth be told, we never saw most of them again.
The "three hours" figure was supplied by an experienced walker who has probably done the walks more than once and we should have factored this in. After setting out around 9.30am, we made it back to Ambleside near 4pm. Three hours, my foot. My sore foot.
The route took us down a more gentle incline on the other side, down a passage between field boundaries known as Nanny Lane, into Troutbeck. We were then unhappy to discover we had to clamber back up some of the lost height using an incredibly dull passage called Robin Lane but it did deliver us, eventually, to cool views overlooking Lake Windermere. We descended back into Ambleside through Skelghyll Woods and Jenkyns Crag.
We vowed not to get caught out by an over-long hike again. We would definitely carry more food and drink on the next run...
