Walk Five - Sallows & Sour Howes

Our last walk in the Lake District was the sunniest of the week - was the weather trying to dissuade us from going home? Were we finally being rewarded for persevering through all the rain and cloud of the week? Whatever the reason, the day was beautiful and absolutely perfect for walking. The brightest blues and the freshest greens were providing us the the most amazing memories to take home with us.

For this walk, the start point was just a little way up the road from our cottage, in Troutbeck and as soon as we climbed out of the car (as early as usual), we were already shedding a layer or two as the sun smiled down.

After a quick walk through a holiday park, we were out onto the fellside and following a track upwards. Not horribly sharply upwards today - this was a path you just kept walking along, talking happily, watching the lambs alongside and admiring the views unfurling in front of you. The valley here is stunning and it was wonderful to walk, the cottages and cars below getting smaller with every step while the landscape beyond seemed to get bigger and bigger.

Up and up the path we went until a sharp right turn in the dip at the top bought us to a stile where Storm had to be unceremoniously hoisted over. She took the indignity very well to be honest and we thought she'd not held it against us. Well, until we reached to top of Sour Howes that is because there she jumped rebelliously into the fetid peat bogs and shook herself, in the manner of a teenager flouncing out of a room, before sprinting off to her next watering hole.

On we walked to Sallows, staying on top of the ridge and admiring the views that swept downwards toWindermere, glinting like a silvery blue ribbon in the distance.

It was desserted up there that day. These aren't famous Wainwright fells, the ones with names that everyone knows and are desperate to bag but they are lovely, squeezing onto the far end of much bigger and more impressive ranges, clinging on like a child holding the hand of a larger, more confident, sibling.

These two petite fells were a perfect ending to our holiday. We had achieved without exhaustion, we enjoyed views under spotlessly clean skies without chaperoning clouds to hide the beauty beneath and we had, for this little snippet of time, the whole Lake District to ourselves.