The second Saturday in October is Wasdale Show and Shepherds Meet. Has been for quite a while …
We headed up on Friday and made another stop en route to visit Rheged for the ‘Herdwick’ exhibition of Ian Lawson’s wonderful photography of the shepherds and sheep of upland Cumbria.
*i put a few pictures of his photographs on a post a few weeks back.
Great food as ever at Rheged
The drive round what always seems to be the greatest collection of roundabouts in the world from the A66 at Workington down to Gosforth. The sunset was shaping up to be memorable so we quicky popped in to The Screes in Nether Wasdale before heading down to Wastwater to see the light play ..
and as we’d gone that far we thought it rude not to keep going to Wasdale Head for a pint in the Inn
Saturday was show day and the forecast promised cold and wet and windy in the afternoon so we made our way back down to the Head for not long after ten to watch and listen to the Shepherds Meet …
but first a wander over to St Olaf’s.
I’d wanted to gan to Joss’s funeral but i was conflicted by the idea that someone that bemoaned the changing nature of Wasdale would be laid to rest amidst a small invasion of thousands of folk. So i stayed away, and had a much quieter blether with him under a laden Autumn sky instead
Within sight of his birthplace and a field away from his beloved Shepherds Meet.
I think his grave is awaiting a headstone.
I don’t think i’ll ever tire of coming to see this Meet in this setting
The first proper shower of the day kindly coincided with lunch for the shepherds so we all wandered over to the Inn for a warm and some soup. It were grand.
Then back out in to the elements with hoods up
My inner gear geek is always intrigued to see what the fell shepherds are wearing. Not once in all the years of going there have i seen them in any ‘well known’ outdoor brand of clothing. A few years ago they were all in Ridgeline smocks. This year a load of them were wearing the Storm Force Winter Jacket made by Kaiwaka of NZ None of them seemed to notice the foul weather !!
The weather worsened before the forecasted lull of 2-4pm (after which it was meant to be rubbish until the next day).
We watched the fell race and the trail hounds set off then decided to exploit the weather window and get a walk in. Taking the forecast as gospel we kept reasonably low and out of the braw wind and headed along in to yon end of Mosedale
We wandered back down Mosedale via Ritson’s Force waterfall
and opted for a pint int’ Inn ont’ way back …. then realised a) the weather hadn’t crapped out and b) it was too early for tea, so we went back out n’ up Moses’s Trod as far as Gable Beck …
Ont’ way up three youths were chasing sheep and throwing boulders around in a field of sheep beyond Burnthwaite. I think they’d been on the weed. Anyway we were somewhat perplexed to have verbal abuse shouted at us by complete strangers on a fellside. That hasn’t happened in 40+ years. What was more odd was that they didn’t seem to have clocked that it was a dead end only one pub sort of a valley. Suffice to say they were quite surprised to find me stood behind them at the bar half an hour later.
…. we wandered back down and caught the last of the light over Wast Water
I found it hard not to see the significant increase in damage being done to this beautiful valley since our last visit a year ago. The road is in a really terrible condition – mainly due to the impact that verge parking has on exacerbating the erosion impact of water. The shoreline around the ‘t junction’ is pock marked with fire scars. There was camper vans on the ‘green’ in Wasdale Head with a large open fire and a bbq going. Ritson’s Force had several fire scars around it. Wasdale is being ‘loved’ to death.
Sunday arrived with the promise of cold dry weather but also with the need to not be home too late. We opted for the schlep up Blencathra from the FSC followed by soup in the always excellent Threlkeld Community Cafe
We’ll be back at the ‘best day out in England’ next year …
Wasdale from the Old Norse vatnsdalr meaning ‘valley of the water’.