A WEEKEND IN THE LAKE DISTRICT

I’d never visited the Lakes before, I had high hopes for some great photography, however, that didn't necessarily go as planned, and you will find out why. 

I wasn’t quite prepared for the rapid weather changes that can occur in the Lake district. 

We drove down on Friday, it was a beautiful clear day, blue skies, and we began to see snow topped mountains as we were driving along the motorway, I honestly felt as though I was in another country, it was spectacular. 

It took us around 2 hours to get to the Lake District. Once we arrived, we stopped off in a cute town called Keswick to meet up with our “friends’ we would be spending the weekend with. I use friends in this terms as its my partners friend and his girlfriend, i’d never met either of them before, however they were fabulous.

We stopped at The Royal Oak to get some very late lunch / early dinner, before heading off to our lodge for the weekend. 

The lodge we stayed in was not far from Keswick, it came equipped with a hot tub, which was AMAZING! We made plenty of use out of this luxury, until we all looked like shrivelled prunes, at which point we got out and played some board games. 

Along came Saturday and that was about to be known as Hike day, well if we could actually make it to the mountain. 

Remember when I said Friday was lovely weather, but it changes rapidly, yes well that is exactly what it did. We woke up and it seemed to have been raining ALL NIGHT, whilst it was still looking a bit grim, we all put our wet weather gear on and prepared to face the mountains. 

The mountain we wanted to climb was Scafell Pike, it was around an hour drive from our accommodation, which of course was going to be absolutely fine! 

Fine you say, Jess. Wrong! 

Our Sat nav tried its hardest to get us there, but each time we hit a dead end, either because the road was randomly closed, or because the road was so flooded my car would have been going for a swim rather than a drive. 

A lovely local directed us back onto more main roads, and near enough over 2 hours later we finally made it to Scafell pike. 

We at least I guessed we were there, the viability was so poor I couldn't actually see the mountain, or the Lake which surrounds it, sounds pleasant right!?

We were advised not to climb up, the viability was poor, wind up to 60mph at the top, ALOT of snow and ice, but boys being boys were adamant it would be fine, and so our journey up the mountain began. 

It was steep, and technical, I mean not that I have anything to compare to, I haven’t actually climbed a mountain before, and I'm convinced the weather was not the right time for the first ever one. 

But never fear, everything was okay because we had lots of sweets and Maryland cookies, although I swear those cookies have reduced in size since I was a kid!

We slowly made our way up icy rocks, through fast flowing streams, and began hiking through snow that, at times was so deep it came past my knees. We continued, following a sludgy path where other people had walked, which we presumed was the way, because all we could see was snow, everything looked the exact same. 

BUT can you believe it, we MADE IT TO THE TOP! It took us a whopping 3 hours, and I was SHATTERED. 

The only problem with making it to the top was having to make it back down again and it looked quite terrifying. I fell over one too many times, and also ended up in a stream so I had to walk the last leg of my journey with a squelching noise in my boots. Oh SO glamorous. 

It took us just over an hour to get down Scafell pike, to be honest I think we skidded most of the way, but we all made it down very safely and made the long drive back to our lodge to have some well earn drinks in the hot tub. It was absolute bliss. 

Sunday was mostly spent packing up and leaving the lodge we stayed in, however, I had a wonderful weekend, and it felt like such an achievement climbing a mountain. 

I definitely want to plan another trip to the Lake district, so if you have any recommendations do let me know.