Day 13: Digestive biscuits are not actually healthy

So why did I eat twelve of them?

I had originally planned to hike the Edges of Helvellyn today, another hike from my mother's Great Walks of Europe book. But the facts that I would spend more time sitting in a bus than hiking and that my host told me it was too dangerous and I didn't want to bother with convincing him that I can handle it (Crib Goch is much more difficult and I mountain-goated over that) so I'm saving it for another trip when I'll stay in Keswick at a hotel where no one cares to know where I'm going, and my mother will be there too.

I wandered around Bowness and enjoyed looking around in all of the little shops; there are a lot of ice cream and fudge shops in the area, and I got some Thunder and Lightning, which is like a caramel swirl-type thing, and tried some Mint Cake, which I have never seen before: it's basically just a giant bar of packed mint flavoring. It's really odd but kinda good. Apparently it was brought along on the first successful Everest expedition.

After I had seen enough of the Bowness shops, I took the ferry to Ambleside, a town on the north side of the lake. Well, north point. While I waited for the ferry to arrive I had some good fun birdwatching. The swans were doing some weird things with their necks. I tried to figure out what all the different birds were thinking and decided it probably all had to do with food. But it was quite entertaining nonetheless.

Strange swan walk. Head bent down, wings out a bit, SWAGGER. Why?

I arrived in Ambleside, which is much like Bowness but has even more outdoor shops, even a Marmot outlet. It's a bit ridiculous, honestly. I wandered around, looking for a wallet (I foolishly left mine at home and I'm tired of carrying my money in pockets, the cash gets all wrinkly and it feels disrespectful to the Queen), failed, and stopped in a coffee shop to figure out what to do for the remaining hours of the day. 

I decided to conquer Loughrigg (loff ' - rig) Fell. It seemed easy enough, so I found some directions online and followed them up the hillside. I don't think I followed them all the way up, because they stopped making any sense at one point, but I know I got to the top of something. Man, it was beautiful. Fells and pikes and valleys and meres and tarns all around, as far as the eye could see. 

Looking north to a textbook glacial valley

Looking south back at Windermere (I don't know why the colors are so brown)

I called this the Great Wall of the Lake District

Then a couple of Germans arrived (why do they always do that?); they seemed quite nice, but I didn't have the courage to speak German to them, they seemed to be having a lovely time sitting and finding something in their backpack (I felt a bit awkward about overhearing when they didn't know I could understand them, or more accurately about half of their conversation). I soon left so I could catch the bus (which turned out to be ridiculously expensive, maybe I took the wrong bus) back to Bowness and get some dinner.

Looking back at the fell

The place was covered in sheep fields; in England apparently it's okay for either farmers to use National Trust land, or for the National Trust to make trails through farmers' fields. Either way, I walked through a few on the way up this. Saw some adorable lambs, which were sadly pretty afraid of hikers. 

This guy had to run past me to get back to his group

I arrived back in Bowness and got some takeaway Indian food which I planned to eat on the same pier as yesterday. There were people there, though, so I went a bit farther down and at on a log at the lakeshore instead. It was pretty nice this way, actually, I got a windbreak from all the trees so it wasn't as cold, although the view was a bit blocked.

The sunset was quite nice; it wasn't so cloudy today so we got some actual color this time. 

I don't know how but no matter how clear the afternoon is, clouds seem to swoop in by evening. 

I soon walked back to my lodgings and fell asleep. Packing can wait for tomorrow morning.