A wet afternoon down Borrowdale

"So go create. Take photographs in the wood, run alone in the rain and sing your heart out high up on a mountain
where no one will ever hear
and your very existence will be the most hypnotizing scar.
Make your life be your art
and you will never be forgotten.”
― Charlotte Eriksson

There's nothing I like doing more than walking through the woodlands of Borrowdale when the weather is not up to scratch. Somehow sunshine and clear blue skies just don't seem to work in this part of Lakeland and as long as you are dressed appropriately, you can't go far wrong. It never ceases to amaze me how people will saunter around Keswick on a rainy day but won't travel a few extra miles and experience nature at its finest.

This is another walk you can taper to suit your needs and time. Doing the full round from Grange to Seatoller (via Castle Crag) and then back by the River Derwent is one of the most beautiful walks there is in The Lakes. That needs to be done on a fine and clear day though, just so that you can fully appreciate the views on the higher outward route.

With today being wet, I just followed The Cumbria Way alongside the River Derwent and through the woods as far as the old quarries where one of Lakeland's "characters" used to spend the summer months. Millican Dalton (20 April 1867 – 5 February 1947) was a self-styled "Professor of Adventure"and was born on 20 April 1867 at Nenthead, Alston, Cumberland before moving to Buckinghamshire. At the age of 36, he gave up this city lifestyle and went to live under canvas, in a rough wooden shack in Buckinghamshire for the winter months and in a cave down Borrowdale (which he dubbed "The Cave Hotel") for the summer months.

An alternative lifestyler long before the term was created, Dalton, who was a vegetarian, pacifist and teetotaller, lived off his wits and surviving on a small income which he earned as a climbing guide. Millican Dalton's cave, as it is locally known, is on the eastern flank of Castle Crag and consists of two inter-connected split-levelled caves formed by the slate quarrying process. This cave was inhabited for nigh-on fifty years by Dalton.

During the winter of 1946-47, Dalton's hut in Buckinghamshire burned down, so he moved into a tent. This was too much his the 79-year-old frame, however, and he contracted pneumonia, from which he died on 5 February 1947. All perfectly true!

For a more detailed version of he lifestyle, see this site.

On my return to Grange I popped in the Chapel just before the bridge to a) dry off a bit and b) to have a look at the Borrowdale Story Exhibition which looks to have grown over the years and now has displays showing the history and also modern day life in the valley. It's a very interesting way to spend half an hour and should be backed up, when you get home, by a visit to their website where there are interviews by local characters and much more besides. Here is a link to their site.

All in all it was an afternoon very well spent in the company of some of Lakeland's finest scenery.