Hiking in the Lake District – Buttermere.

At the beginning of 2015, after a year of living in England I realised I hadn’t travelled this wonderful country as much as I would of liked and made a resolution to fix that! When I heard that my work were inviting people to join in on a charity walk in the Lake District I, of course, jumped at the chance!

After purchasing some hiking boots, and making an attempt to wear them in before the big walk, I piled onto a bus with the rest of the walkers and we headed for Buttermere. Located in the north-west of England the village of Buttermere sits next to a lake of the same name and consists of little more than a couple of pubs, a hotel (above one of the said pubs), a hostel and a handful of sheep – which seem free to wander as they see fit, no fences to hold these guys in! There is little to no wifi, zero TV’s in the entire village (no service, so we are told) and a way of life that, after living in London, seems incredibly foreign. But you don’t come to Buttermere for the wifi or to watch TV, you come here to disconnect and explore the beauty that is right on the doorstep.

We stayed at the YHA Buttermere, which was the perfect base point. The accommodation is very simple, with mostly shared rooms, but is perfectly adequate for a place to sleep after a day out in nature. I actually found my bed exceptionally comfortable and had a great sleep, but perhaps this was the result of a full day of walking.

We began our day of walking bright and early – the wind was already blowing fiercely and I was definitely happy I decided to pack some warmer walking gear despite the fact it was mid-summer (guess I am getting to use this unpredictable English weather). We were divided up into teams depending on our level of experience and given a team leader to help us on our way. It was only then I took the time to realise just how high up we were going to be walking, and realised I probably should of done a wee bit more training!

It was certainly a lot of hard work, as predicted earlier there was a lot of climbing up and then climbing up some more – there were points where it felt like we were basically rock climbing. The wind was our biggest issue on the day, and was actually so strong at some points we were forced to go down. Overall the day was fantastic, hiking is not something I’ve spent a lot of time doing, but after this I am absolutely keen to get out there and experience it some more… now that I have these boots I better put them to good use!