Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Wild ride

Dave's been hankering after a new pair of 'back-up' boots ready for a long-distance walk later in the year.  He'd seen some advertised that looked suitable, so we hurtled round the lake to Hawkshead, to the huge outdoor clothing emporium called, appropriately enough, Hawkshead.

As a shopping trip, it was successful.  He tried three pairs on, quickly whittled them down to one, and bought them on the spot.  We also had a sandwich, in a chilly and slightly unwelcoming cafe in the store.

But the journey there and back was incredible.  The snow has almost completely gone now, but has left in its wake the sort of debris and destruction you'd expection after a minor hurricane.  There are stone walls collapsing into roads.  There are huge branches and even whole trees down across the roads.  There is water absolutely everywhere, to the point where the roads no longer resemble roads, but a series of lakes connected by streams.  The fields are flowing; the streams look like raging torrents; and the rivers are quite frankly frightening.  And the whole time we were out, it was bucketing down again.

In a 4x4 it was interesting, bordering on hairy where we had to dodge the larger branches or whoosh through huge areas of standing water.  In anything less than a 4x4 I reckon it would be dangerous.  And if it doesn't stop raining soon, we're going to get floods again...

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