HAWESWATER 30TH AUGUST 2015

August bank holiday weekend saw us camping at a small campsite in the village of Rosgill, on the Eastern side of the Lake District. Just a good relaxing couple of days with some friends, Sue, Alan and there dog Rufus and taking in a walk that Jill & I have done before, a walk round the HAWESWATER RESERVOIR. A relaxing morning saw us parked up at the small village of Burnside about 10.30am with a cloudy sky but quite warm. It remained like that for the first 45 minutes or so before the distant rain on the high fells decided to come our way. Not heavy rain but enough to make us put on waterproofs for half an hour or so before it started to clear up. It remained quite humid with very little wind and the sun was doing its best to burn away the high clouds. The path through the woods and bracken filled fields were quite wet after a fair bit of rain through the week and the becks flowing down the fells had a fair amount of water in them as they tumbled into the Reservoir. The path is an easy to follow one as it winds its way around the perimeter, through small woods, fields, over a few wooden bridges with small waterfalls tumbling down, under crags with names such as Laythwaite Crag, Castle Crag and Flakehowe Crag as we made our way to  Riggindale Crags &The Rigg. It was here that we made a short diversion to the RSPB lookout that monitors England's last remaining Golden Eagle that lives in this area. No sign of him and as he has no mate or chicks to feed, it is a very rare sight to see him at all as he only feeds once a day and spends much of his time perched in the crags of the surrounding area, very well camouflaged. It was getting quite warm at this stage and a break was welcome as we scoured the crags to no avail

Our route for the day, about 10 miles

Cloud covered fell tops

Taking in the views

RSPB Hut

 Looking at all the cars parked in the small car park and down the side of the road at Mardale Head show's what a popular spot this is with walkers as there are quite a few routes up to the high fells that surround this wild area of the\Lake District. Despite all the cars, it is still relatively quiet as people make there way along the various paths and we only came across a handful of people. As we made our way round to Mardale head and the car park the terrain changes and you find yourself walking on the road as you can't get down to the path along this side of the shoreline. The path has been closed for sometime now so there remains about 4 mile or so of road walking. A bit hard after the ups and downs of the Western Shore path but there is the welcome break of the Hawsewater Hotel for a drink and toilet break halfway round. It's also a bit on the expensive side as well!!! You do get the added bonus of seeing the elusive Red Squirrel if your lucky. We did but Rufus the dog made sure he scurried off with his barking!

Looking across to the cars parked at Mardale Head

Mardale Beck

Looking across to the Rigg, Riggindale Crags and surrounding fells

RUFUS

The last part of the road took us past past the dam at the head of the  reservoir and back to the car

Hawsewater Dam

 A great walk round this reservoir that serves the North West Water to Manchester