This year I have decided on an activity for my family entitled Project Lake District. I intend to take my children to all nineteen of the lakes in the Lake District. Strictly speaking only Bassenthwaite Lake is actually a lake. The rest are waters. That being said, geographical taxonomy is neither my specialty nor my subject for this blog. I love the Lake District and have explored a lot of it, climbing Scafell, Helvellyn and Skiddaw Massif to name but a few and I have spent plenty of time around Windermere, Derwent Water, Grasmere, Coniston Water and others. I want my children to experience the beauty of this place too.

Today we conquered Derwent Water. I had initially intended to walk the kids all of the way around it, however this quickly turned out to be unrealistic. A couple of days ago I walked my children 11.52 miles to wear them out and that was, I found out, their limit, so another few miles on top (Derwent is around 14-15 in circumference) would have been impossible, particularly since my youngest had not slept well since the big walk and she is possibly the angriest, most stubborn and grumpy human being I know.  We kept it to four miles (ish) and that left us with some extremely tired sprogs and dogs.

Map

Photos

Next up: Grasmere.