Further along the Goldrill Beck path I chatted to an elderly lady who lived in a nearby farm. She informed me that the buck I saw was a regular visitor to the fields. She also told me about some otters that were further downstream. A local woman had spotted them as she swam in the pools near Patterdale.  

There was plenty of birdlife along the trees following the path. It was a bit of a dull day for getting a good photo of them though. It wasn't long before we reached a branch in the path. We took the right one that ascended the hillside to our first target, Place Fell.

Place Fell

On the way up to Boredale Hause we spotted a couple of Wheatears on a rock at the side of the path. As we approached the mother flew off; the other bird remained. On closer inspection I could see that it still had downy feathers and this was probably the reason it didn't fly off. We left it so that its mother could come back.

As we got higher the mist closed and it started spotting with rain. Eventually Place Fell's trig appeared out of the mist; our first Wainwright of the day. It wasn't a day for lingering though and we set off down the other side. 

The rain went from showery to persistent and I had to put my overtrousers on.  We heard some walkers behind us and they disturbed some deer that must have been near Hawk Crag. There were dozens of them, and they ran with great speed along Place Fell's eastern edge.

Tommy Topit

We started our descent into Boredale. Halfway down we met a couple climbing up. The male of the party Calse later named Tommy Topit. My conversation with him went something like this:

Me: It is raining quite hard on the top.
TT: I've walked in far worse.
Me: About 5 minutes ago we saw a dozen deer jumping over a stone wall on the other side of the valley.
TT: Yesterday evening we saw about 150 deer jumping over a stone wall near here.
Me: We are doing the Wainwrights and are approaching about halfway.
TT: I've done the Wainwrights many times including in alphabetical order, A to Z, and also Z to A.

Okay, I made that last one up. But every time I said something Tommy Topit had to Top Trump it.

They said they were going up to Place Fell and then coming back over Beda Fell. This meant we would meet them again on Beda Fell. I'm pretty sure that as soon as we were out of sight Tommy Topit would have got his missus running, rather than walking, so that they could beat us to the top of Beda Fell.

Beda Fell

Crossing the Boredale valley bottom involves walking through a small field. Many, many years ago I remember walking through this field with my dad and the area was covered with the carcasses of sheep. There didn't seem to be any visual injury on the sheep. The cause has remained a mystery. I'm sure Tommy Topit would have witnessed much worse than this.

We made the ascent to Beda Fell's summit in deteriorating weather. At the top, the rain went from persistent to stair rods. Mo and Calse started looking a little glum. In order to improve their morale, I sang them the chorus to The Sun Has Got It's Hat On:

The sun has got its hat on hip, hip, hip, hooray,
The sun has got his hat on,
And he's coming out today.

I didn't know any more but I told them that I'd learn some more verses this evening. They told me not to bother since my singing of just the chorus had improved their morale immensely. I was quite happy with this. It'd been a long time since I'd had such positive feedback on my singing.

The Sun Has Got Its Anorak On.

We didn't see Tommy Topit on the summit of Beda Fell. We didn't see him on the path over to Boredale Hause either. My guess is that him and missus saw how much it was raining on the top of Place Fell, though better of it, and made a swift retreat down to the nearest pub. No doubt he then bored the landlord with a story about how he owned the largest real ale pub in Dubai.

It rained so hard that eventually it seeped into my trousers and I got that rather uncomfortable feeling of wet underkegs. It'd been a while since I'd got this wet. Well, yesterday afternoon actually. That's the Lakes for you.

Despite the weather it had been a good walk. I almost got that super shot of a deer and we met Tommy Topit and his long suffering wife.