I went on this walk with Sal who was up at the caravan for a few days. It is a popular walk and rightly so and, surprisingly, she hadn't done it. Anyone with a reasonable fitness level can do it and, if it's your first visit, there's a visit to an impressive cave which was originally known as Loughrigg Quarry. You can walk it in either direction although I must admit that I usually follow the higher path to the cave and then return via the lake shore.
Due to chatting too much and not paying attention, I turned the wrong way when emerging from the woods so we ended up on the lake shore path which was no big deal. They say variety is the spice of life so why not do it in the opposite direction. Looking back I think this was the better way as we had the view of the Grasmere fells in front of us whilst returning on the higher path. Also, once we had climbed up to the cave, the path was downhill all the way to the car park. The view towards Grasmere is magnificent in autumn when all the trees have changed colour.
The weather was changeable but that didn't spoil our enjoyment as the sun usually appeared when we needed it for photos. Plus we both had good coats on so we didn't get wet when the showers struck. As always, the cave was busy with people of all ages which included a group of male pensioners who thought it would be a good idea to hold a yodelling competition!
The cave is a man-made cavern, which was formerly known as Loughrigg Quarry. The cave has been hollowed out of a rocky outcrop and it overlooks Rydal Water and, over two hundred years ago, it was a busy working quarry supplying excellent quality roofing slate to the surrounding local villages. There is still plenty of spoil about today which is evidence of its past size and importance. There is another large quarry just around the corner but this is nowhere near as impressive and is usually just bypassed and ignored.
Our intention was to carry on our walk to Grasmere shore but a longer spell of rain reared its ugly head so we made a swift retreat back to the car park. We did call in Grasmere for a coffee and a spot of lunch on the way back and I do wish I had taken a photo of our meals for this blog. I write this blog a week later and I still don't think I've recovered from our saturated fats overload. We both had cheese melts (mine had a layer of ham in as well) and I have never experienced anything like them. Its unusual for me to leave part of a meal but I just couldn't take anymore cheese! It has certainly been a talking point since then.
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