A 12 km bus-enabled linear run.Route: parking the car at the NT Great Wood car park (free to members) and then taking the 78 bus to Rosthwaite (£2.50 each, bus stop a little to the south of the entrance accessible via footpaths). Running and walking slowly up the clear wide path to Puddingstone Bank on a mix of rocks, gravel and finer gravel. Then descending on stony path, flowing with the previous night’s rain, to Watendlath. Keeping to the left of a fast flowing river (Watendlath Beck), very slowly along a waterlogged path overgrown with bracken with the valley becoming more and more like a Scottish glen. Crossing a footbridge and taking a clear gravel path surprisingly uphill to reach the road and down to the “Surprise View”. Then taking a permissive path via Ashness Farm to reach the main track gently but clearly uphill to the top of Walla Crag. Descending to the start of the road to Castlerigg but turning left off it to cross the stream and descend further before taking a lateral path left back under Walla Crag and descending gently, twisting and turning, back to the start.
Conditions: very warm, muggy, humid and cloudy.
Wildlife: hens, cockerels, geese, goslings, assorted breeds of sheep and belted Galloways all in a couple of fields just past Ashness Farm on the route of a Conservation Walk.
Pub: the Royal Oak, Braithwaite for Jennings Cocker Hoop and Sneck Lifter.
