Return To Dunnerdale For The Forgotten Boots

Those who paid attention to a previous post will remember what a dozy beggar I was when, leaving a damp and sploshy 3 days in the Wallabarrow Farm camping barn with Dawn and LTD, I left my new boots behind.
Now Wallabarrow Farm is just a bit over a hundred miles from the defensive moats of Knipetwowers, so I had to make special arrngements to get the boots back. This involved fighting the dog into his harness, driving to kendal to collect The Bro and continuing to Wallabarrow where I ransacked the porch for some boots that looked like mine. There were several lookalikes… but The Boss came out of the kitchen holding a clean and dry pair of Scarpas which he said were mine. They fitted and so, satisfied, we went off to bag a couple of Tumps before the rain started again.

Just a bit up the road is High Tongue – a rocky and tussocky lump acheived from the little parking area at it’s foot by a mild but enjoyable scramble. LTD really enjoys scrabbling up rocky bits, it seems.


We continued along through the rough ground and rocky tors to a second top overlooking a set of braided waterfalls, noticing, on the way, one or two rather pleasant-looking camping spots. In summer, these would be small green havens in a sea of bracken. And, the hills being not very big, and off-the-beaten-wotsit, probably quite quiet and ideal for a pleasant weekend sitting about reading a book or something. This second top had at least 50 metres of ascent on one side and, maybe, just about 30 on the other. It doesn;t appear much on the OS map, though.

After lunching in the shelter of a wall junction, a public footpath took us more easily along to the second target in the shape of Long Crag. Long Crag is very steep, well wooded and appears to be huge and fierce from the bottom. But it isn’t. The crags are small and easily overcome and the top has a boulder on the top which, on the day was lethally slippery and only climbable if any dignity is left behind and there is liberal use of any available high-friction bits of the body, such as knees and/or buttocks.

A path rook us down to the road for a two-mile plod back to the knipemobile which was still where we’d left it. At some point along here , the rain returned and the jaunt was over. The rain rained well into the night, so, any further rambling or scrambling wouldn’t necessarily have been much fun.
The walk was about four miles. Four rough miles, though, so……