| Name of walk | Alcock Tarn with Fr. John |
| Date of walk | 2017-07-31 |
| Distance walked (miles) | 4 |
| Duration of walk | 3 hours 30 minutes |
| Weather | Overcast with showers |
| Peaks on walk | None |
| Walked with | Fr. John Inglis |
| Parking | Lay-by outside Gramere |
I had arranged to meet Fr. John in the lay-by at Grasmere, at 9am. We usually meet up for a few walks every year. He had left darkest Surrey at 3am for his annual walking holiday in the lakes. He would be staying in the presbytery at St. Joseph’s RC Church in Cockermouth, but needed a small ‘leg stetcher’ en route. I suggested Alcock Tarn. An easy, short walk with good views, but not too taxing. Before we walked we nipped into Grasmere for a coffee and a catch-up chat. The weather was forecast as ‘sunshine and showers’. We seemed to walk in the ‘shower’ bit, the ‘sunshine’ occurred as I was driving back home!
View to where we were headed from the lay-by. We cross the main road and take the road by the trees.
Helm Crag.
There is a sign posted lane to Alcock Tarn which goes up beside Greenup Gill.
Unfortunately the bridge is gone, so you have to negotiate a safe crossing point, which we did. There is a pitched path for most of the way up.
Even John's long legs don't touch the ground on this seat!
Another view back towards Helm Crag.
Behind John is the route up to Stone Arthur.
This toad was the size of a 1p coin.
Now I've got the customary sheep photo out of the way!
Another view across to Stone Arthur.
Alcock Tarn.
Windermere in the distance.
View from the southern end with Stone Arthur beyond.
Gary and Christine from Yorkshire, who we chatted to on our way up.
Langdale Pikes, centre.
We start our descent.
There are some great view out over Grasmere, just a pity it was so dull.
A brief rain shower.
Then a lunch stop with a view. John had made smoked salmon sandwiches.
We chatted again to Gary and Christine.
They had spotted a slow worm (legless lizard). I removed it from the undergrowth for a quick photo shoot, then let it slither away.
John, Gary and Christine heading down through the bracken.
John 'corpsing' on the coffin stone. A stone where coffin bearers could rest the coffin and have a breather while taking the coffin route to Rydal Church.
Dove Cottage, a former residence of William Wordsworth.
Time for coffee and cake at Grasmere Garden Centre. John is telling the wasps to "bugger off!"
Not a 'Three Eyed Raven'. It had its eye on my coffee and walnut cake!
A good little circular walk of four miles. The walk took us three and a half hours. John was highly amused by one of Gary’s cat stories. Gary and Christine had a cat that didn’t understand why his humans got so annoyed when he brought small dead animals into the house to eat. One day the cat brought in a mouse and in front of his humans dropped the mouse into its food bowl, as if to say look stupid humans, the mouse is food! Unfortunately the mouse then jumped out of the food bowl and disappeared under the cooker, where it lived happily for weeks! No doubt this story will appear, in some form or other, in one of John’s future homilies.
Jo.
