Sunday August 10th

After getting up early (Andrew and I took Mum and Dad some tea up), we set off for a 6½ mile walk up Gunnerside Gill. I wore my new boots which rubbed a bit and were uncomfortable. The Gill was narrow and wooded lower down. The hillsides were dotted with grey limestone and bright yellow Common Ragwort and, higher up, old and derelict mine workings. We walked up the right hand side of the stream, passing through fields and by barns and lead mines. On the way, Andrew photographed things; views; frogs etc., with his Asahi Pentax KX. We kept stopping to look at various interesting things or to eat (Mum and Dad saw a family of Weasels), and gradually the landscape became bleaker and more rocky, with many derelict and ruined buildings. As if to underline this, the weather deteriorated until by the time we reached the top of the Gill, where the valley forked, it had started to drizzle.

I hadn’t brought my cagoul so I got a bit wet, but luckily, it didn’t rain much. We were on a wide, rubble-strewn path which went straight across the side of the hill on the opposite side of the valley to before and looked as if it was still used. We paused above Gunnerside to watch several Painted Lady butterflies and we then struck off the path and down Cow Hill to Gunnerside. Cow Hill is the hill Andrew and I went up last night when it was dark. It is covered in short grass, clipped by cows and rabbits, and Common Ragwort, Thistles and Hawthorn bushes.

Shortly after we got back we all walked along the road from the village to try find Ivelet Bridge which is supposed to be superb. Unfortunately we couldn’t so we turned back (we got within a hundred yards of it but couldn’t see because of trees).

After we got back, we went up the little hill behind our cottage intending to watch rabbits. As we walked up, hundreds of them flashed away across the hillside from where they had been grazing. Andrew and I sat under a tree near one of their regular runs and although they didn’t come back in such force again, a few did venture within ten feet of us before thumping the ground with their hind feet in alarm and rushing away. Mum and Dad watched from higher up the valley and after they had gone, Andrew and I stayed until it got too dark to see, coming in at 8.45.

All in all, a good day. New things I saw today were Rabbits, Painted lady butterflies, a dead Magpie moth and Dor beetles (in a small wood halfway up the Gill).