On Friday evening I caught the train up after work to Manchester to Si and Suzie's place, getting in there around half 9 having met up with Duncs at Manchester Piccadilly station, followed by Will almost an hour later who's bus took forever up from London. Friday night was fairly chilled out, mainly just catching up and planning our route for the Saturday and the general plan for the rest of the weekend. Then Saturday morning we were greeted with miserable weather outside, along with the rain - not really ideal for climbing a mountain. But the Lakes were still a good hour or two drive north of Manchester, so there was still hope. As we got closer, the rain seemed to subside and there seemed the possibility of sun for our day's hike. After a couple of hours drive, we made our way to Glenridding parking lot and set off for the day.

From the car park, we set off towards the YHA Helvellyn, and then cut inwards towards Catsyte Cam (an outlier fell of Helvellyn). After about two hours of walking, we arrived at Red Tarn, a small lake nestled in between the Helvellyn, Striding Edge and Catsyte Cam. We stopped off at the lake for a well deserved break, and were somewhat jealous of the random campers who had set up tent alongside the lake - not a bad place to spend a weekend I guess. From the lake, we set off on a steep climb and then a scramble up the corner of Swirral Edge, which was definitely more of a climb than expected. After a bit of work getting up there, we reached the top of Helvellyn - England's third highest mountain at 950m (3117ft) above sea level. Even though it's not the highest mountain, it's one of the more popular ones to climb. So that adds another UK mountain climb to my list.

After some lunch at the top, we didn't spend too long up there due to the temperature drop from the altitude, so a couple of photos and a brief walk around later, we started making our way to Striding Edge for our decent down. The scramble down to the Edge was fairly intense and took a bit longer than it should've, but once down, we missioned along the top of the Edge towards the well known landmark The-Hole-In-The-Wall. The walk back to Glenridding seemed to take a lot longer than getting out that morning, I guess by then the walks were starting to complain and slow us all down. After a good six or seven hours after setting off, we made it back to the car park, but it was straight over to the first drinking hole we could find - Ratchers Bar - for a well deserved beer.

After a bit of relaxing in the sun, we jumped into the car and drove over to Grasmere and checked into Thorney How Hostel, a nice little backpackers and hikers hostel in the middle of nowhere. After a shower and clean up, we took a walk over into Grasmere for dinner - and found the Lamb Inn pub which was part of the Red Lion hotel, and they did an amazing lamb shank - perfect after a full day walking.

Then yesterday, which was a miserable day in terms of the weather, didn't inspire us to do much, so after checking out of the hostel, we made our way into Keswick to have a look around there for ideas for the day. Some of the things we had wanted to do and see were closed, but they id mention a classic car show which was over in Penrith, so we headed off there to check that out and tuned out to be the 9th Lakeland Classic Vehicle Show. The venue was Hutton-In-The-Forest, an ancient and historic Cumbrian house, dating back originally to the 14th century, and both the house and the gardens in incredible condition.

We walked around the car show and the gardens, taking our time around the classic cars and motor cycles, as well as through the beautiful gardens. After the car show, we headed back down to Manchester, stopping off at the Newby Bridge Hotel for lunch, which was definitely a few hours overdue, with all of us rather hungry and grumpy. But once eaten, the spirits picked up again and we headed back down to Manchester, for a quiet evening of food and TV. I had a fairly early train booked today, so it was back down to London by lunch time, and then just a chilled out afternoon at home, trying to ignore the stiff and aching legs.