Living in the UK as a young man one of my favourite activities, along with my friend Pete, was to leave Manchester on a Friday night as soon as we finished work and head north to hike in the Lake District.
Never being short of places to camp one of our haunts included Troutbeck, just north of England’s largest lake Windermere and we would begin evening at the Queens Head, usually after pitching our tents. Still standing today the Queens Head provided us with many weekends of fun and warmth.
Hiking in the UK is not for those who are scared of melting in the rain, the cold and bitter winds that scream across the fells can find any gap in your clothing to get inside and make you miserable. On the other hand, a warm sunny day standing at the top of Stony Cove Pike and looking down Troutbeck Tongue or taking a break at the Kirkstone Pass Inn cannot be beaten.
The countryside is wild, with stone walls and very few trees. Slate bridges cross mountain streams which run crystal clear across stones that have been there since time immemorial. The sight of storm clouds obscuring the sun, rushing across the fells leaving a sprinkling of rain and then exposing us to the sun again is magical and majestic.
The Lake District is an area of the UK that has always had a special place in my heart and imagine my surprise when looking through my ancestry.com tree I found that one side of my family has it’s roots in an area close to Troutbeck.
Scafell Pike, Helvellyn, The Wainwrights, Pooley Bridge, and Grasmere are names and places that will ever reverberate in my memories and I look forward to updating this post sometime in the future with more recent pictures to go with the names.