On Thursday Jon and I drove down to the Lake District. We decided to break the journey from Edinburgh to Cardiff by staying overnight at Grasmere, and on Friday continuing on to Alton Towers and arriving in Cardiff in the evening. It was a 3hr drive to Grasmere and driving through the Lake District was gorgeous.

We booked the Youth Hostel on Monday, and the only one which had private rooms still available was the one in Grasmere. Grasmere is known as the place William Wordsworth lived, and apparently he described it as “the loveliest spot that man hath ever found”. The youth hostel was in this lovely converted Victorian mansion:

It was a great, cheap place to stay. We spotted 3 deer just outside the hostel and lots of rabbits running about. We went for a walk, and having done some research before heading out we decided upon the walk to Easedale Tarn.

It was a nice and easy walk, although it rained the whole time. I took a few too many photos of lambs along the first quarter of the route (they were so cute!), but as my legs started to get rather wet we sped up the hill along the waterfalls. The views were fantastic.

We reached Easedale Tarn, and there were just a few people about so it was nice and quiet. Wish we had waterproof trousers though! On the way back towards Grasmere the ground was very wet and muddy. There were stepping stones almost the whole way which helped a lot (luckily I had wellies on so it wasn’t too bad), but some parts it seemed we were walking in a stream!

By the time we got back to the youth hostel we were soaked through and we turned the heating up to full to start drying out our shoes and all of our clothes. Jon had a nap for an hour whilst I read a book, and before we knew it it was dinner time! Which meant we had missed having a look around the village shops. I really wanted to go to the Grasmere Gingerbread Shop, but a look from the outside had to do instead…

We ate at a pub in Grasmere called The Lamb Inn which was yummy, and finished it off with apple crumble and ice-cream.

The next day we woke up early and headed down to Alton Towers. We were there from 10-5 and luckily it stayed dry the whole time. It was super quiet too, with the longest queue being 15mins. So fun!!

I would love to do some more exploring of the Lake District, hopefully with a bit less rain next time though!

S. xo