The Lakeland Loop: Day Five - Eskdale to Coniston

Apparently I took AGES to wake up on the fifth morning of our Lakeland Loop adventure. But I was downstairs eating breakfast in Eskdale yha by 7.30am which is surely all that can be asked of a girl who took her mountain bike over Black Sail Pass the day before. The start of Day five wound down the valley of Eskdale keeping the river close to hand and revealing along the way an unexpected rainforest of Rhododendrons. The greenery towered over us ancient and vast and inspired a peaceful awe as we peddled along. The surreal nature of the ride continued as we traversed a perfectly manicured golf course in the middle of just nowhere.

Next we were forced to do a couple of miles on the road as we rode up, up, up towards Waberthwaite Fell; but at least there was a sea view as compensation on the way. Mark had nothing but bad memories of the trek across Waberthwaite Fell; 'horrible, boggy, pathless' were a few of the more complimentary adjectives he supplied. I was more upbeat about the whole thing not having tried and failed to find any discernible bridleway before and it sure beat yesterday's pain and anguish. The ascent might have been unrewarding but as always there was a fast and furious descent, this time down through Bigert Mire Farm and onto a picturesque bridge just outside of Ulpha. As we sat on the bridge eating ice creams the sun came out and everything in the world seemed right. Today we had sandwiches and crisps and having had none yesterday boy did we appreciate them. It was all very acceptable and I could almost pretend that there wasn't another up lurking in the not too distant future!

We were riding through a tapestry of starkly contrasting scenery. Birks Wood just after lunch, with its carpet of bluebells, was gentle English poetry sandwiched between the remoteness of Waberthwaite Fell behinds us and Walna Scar yet to come. But before that there was Kiln Bank which one of those climbs that hadn't even registered on our richter scale until we were on it. I kept thinking 'this isn't a proper hill' and then we'd go round another corner and still the road was rising upwards, another whole section of up. 

Finally, we turned off the tarmac and skirted the contours of Brown Haw and Dunnerdale Fells on some fabulous single track. You couldn't help but ride it like you were out for a couple of hours of fun it just grabbed you and asked to ridden in technicolour. Of course when the single track ended and the fire road took over I paid the price and was very faded as I pushed on towards Walna Scar. Mark kept saying stuff like 'were nearly there now' and 'its just round...over...through ...' He told lies all the way up past White Pike and onto some sort of slate quarry which he swore blind was part of the route despite the fact that we had to throw our bikes over slate piles as high as houses. But I could see a bridleway emerging on the other side of the quarry with what looked like a wonderful descent and my spirits rose. Mark didn't disillusion me of our direction until we hit the path and then instead of turning left and descending he turned right on a route that went up as far as the eye could see. 

I wanted to cry. Instead I pushed - incredibly slowly. I think it is probably the slowest I have ever pushed my bike but eventually we made the summit of the highest pass on the whole trip. On cue it started to rain. I was determined to be grumpy but the descent was just impossible to resist and within moments I had a smile on my face as we skated on boulders and surfed the pebbles past all those poor walkers in the rain. True they had strolled up the pass while we had suffered with our bikes and packs but as they joked about grabbing a lift on the way down I knew it had been worth all the effort.