Wastwater to Ambleside - a view to a drive...

Just up the road from Ravenglass on the A595 is the turning for Wasdale Head and Wastwater. In 2007 viewers of ITV declared that this was the finest view in England and since it was a nice day we decided we'd take a look. The roads were gloriously narrow and twisty - and in places narrowed still further by drifts of still unmelted snow. It might well have been the beginning of April, but the temperature was still a degree below freezing and the snow that had fallen in that part of Cumbria in the previous couple of weeks had been unusually heavy.

We twisted our way towards the end of the lake, and were frankly beginning to wonder if we were on the right road when suddenly, just past the Youth Hostel, we rounded a corner and the magnificent sheet of deep blue water revealed itself to us.

The lake is very nearly three miles long, and at 79 metres is the deepest lake in England. Apparently once upon a time there was a little garden full of gnomes, complete with picket fence on the lake bed to give sub-aqua enthusiasts something to look at while they were down there. After a number of fatalities however, the relevant authorities had it removed. Rumours persist that in fact all that happened was that somebody moved the whole thing deeper into the lake, below the 50 metre limit beyond which the Police divers tasked with the garden's removal are not legally permitted to dive.

Part of me is quite prepared to believe this - I know a few diving enthusiasts and they can be, to put it mildly, right little scamps. However, I'm also aquainted with a couple of police divers. They're very good at what they do, and take a very dim view indeed of people doing things that encourage the taking of unnecessary risks underwater - generally they're the one who have to go and recover the bodies, apart from anything else. I strongly suspect that if the Police Diving unit really believed that the garden had been placed below their legal limit, they'd have gone back when they were off duty and made sure it was truly gone.

Still, it's a nice story.

We continued down the valley towards Wasdale Head, actually a little way beyond the end of the lake itself. There's not much there, but it is a good place to take in the great hills that surround it - Great Gable and Scafell Pike. On a warmer day, with perhaps less snow, I might've had a wander up one of them - the views would have been spectacular on such a clear day - but I didn't fancy trudging through the snow that was still clinging not just to the peaks, but most of the major routes up.

Oh alright, I was also feeling pretty lazy. Besides, we had plans for the afternoon, and the the morning was nearly over.

So, we pointed the car towards the top of Eskdale and headed for the Hardnott Pass, Wrynose, Langdale and Ambleside, that much loved, over visited, tourist choked honey trap at the heart of the Lake District. Except, presumably as a result of still uncleared snowfall - although the "ROAD AHEAD CLOSED" sign was rather lacking in ancillary detail - the Hardnott pass was closed. This led us to follow a somewhat random route through the little village of Ulpha, over some rather spectacular hills and finally approaching Ambleside via Coniston.

It was somewhat convoluted, but actually rather fun. There were times when the road ran through cuttings in snowdrifts that were taller than the car - and our car is taller than average - and the road gave the impression that we were level with the high peaks we could see in the distance. I'd love to tell you which road we were on, but we'd given up on the map and the TomTom satnav unit that came with the car (as tow jockeys we have little time for Satnav - for reasons we may go into at a later date - and would certainly never have got the thing if it hadn't been built in) rather unhelpfully told us we were driving along an "unnamed road".

Still, we eventually made it to the heaving metropolis that is downtown Ambleside and headed through the traditional traffic jam (Ambleside really wasn't built to deal with thousands of modern tourists  in hundreds of cars, and accordingly just doesn't) for the main car park, opposite what used to be the Charlotte Mason College, and is now something to do with the NHS. It's a large pay and display car park with a few hundred spaces. However, it was also a bright, sunny day in the middle of the Easter holidays, and predictably it was full to bursting. There were no free spaces, and about a dozen other cars prowling around waiting to spring if a space became available.

I'm an impatient sort of chap and was ready to give in and seek parking elsewhere (not sure where I thought we'd go - Ambleside is not overly blessed with parking spaces) but Mrs Snail reminded me that this is a car park which always rewards patience. Sure enough less than five minutes had passed before we spotted illuminated brake lights on a vehicle parked a few rows ahead of us. Since we knew the car had not recently arrived, brake lights meant only one thing - it was getting ready to depart! With a joyful cry we accelerated forwards and swung neatly into the spot just as the Land Rover Discovery pulled out of it. Perfect.

So, there we were. After a significantly longer drive than we'd anticipated, and much later than we'd planned, we were parked up in Ambleside - tourism capital of the Lakes. It was gone lunchtime and most certainly a long time since breakfast. We were starving and desperate for some decent food. Fortunately, we know the town well and knew that in Ambleside a decent meal is never far away - about which, more next time!