Every cloud has a silver lining and it certainly did at the weekend…

My daughter and I had a lovely few days up in the Lakes, we were staying near Lorton which is just over the Whinlatter Pass from Keswick, it’s the second time we’ve stayed around there and we find it a beautiful and convenient spot to stay in . Lorton is a tiny village but it’s handy for walking round both Derwentwater or Buttermere.

Whilst we had a great time the weather was somewhat inclement. On Friday to say it rained would be an understatement, it poured down and looked set in for the day, we had a mooch round the shops in Keswick, eventually buying a jigsaw at a charity shop before returning to our apartment in Lorton. We were about half way through the jigsaw when the weather finally lifted. We decided not to waste the day but to have a walk around Buttermere.

As we approached Buttermere we could see a waterfall cascading down the side of Red Pike…

It was the wonderfully named Sourmilk Gill in full spate, fed by Bleaberry Tarn near the top of Red Pike. I’ve been to Buttermere many times but I’ve never seen the gill like this.

We parked in Buttermere village and walked round to the waterfall, you could hear it from quite a distance. It was quite awe-inspiring, the water seemed to be flinging itself down the hillside.

We crossed the wooden bridge and walked round the lakeside path, getting pretty wet feet along the way! By the time we returned lots of people obviously had the same idea as the path from the village was pretty busy, we had timed it perfectly as when we were there we pretty much had the view of the waterfall to ourselves.

The light was beginning to fall as we returned to the car, making lovely reflections and pink shades on the fells. I think this one is called Whiteless Pike.

The next day we decided to walk up to Aira Force, a waterfall near Ullswater. This is a very popular tourist spot and lots of people clearly had the same idea. It was busy! It soon quietened down though when we continued up the fell past the upper falls and eventually out of the woods and up to the top of Gowbarrow Fell. Boy it was windy up there!!! The views were amazing though, this is what I love with walking the fells in the Lakes, you don’t have to get very high to have wonderful views with that top of the world feeling. The whole walk was only 4.5 miles long. This photo is taken with the panoramic setting so it’s very distorted but you get the idea…

The blue skies gave way to moody dark clouds and a little rain as we made our way down. However with sunshine and rain, you get rainbows! This one was a double rainbow too. We’ve not noticed this before but the colours on the outer rainbow were the opposite way round to the inner one. It’s hardly come out on the photo but it was really clear.

I’ve often seen Ullswater with a very moody sky and that afternoon was no exception. The rays bursting through the clouds onto the lake were beautiful…

…and yes we got wet again!

All in all it was a lovely weekend, it’s always nice to have some mother daughter time and yes we would have preferred a drier few days but with heavy rain we also got wonderful waterfalls, rainbows and moody skies, every cloud has it’s silver lining!