The Peak & Lake District: Bike Trip

Introduction 💭

We scheduled this trip over the double Bank Holiday weekend in April. The guys booked 1 day off work and it granted 5 full days!

Two of those days were allocated to travelling; to and from the Lake District, although this didn't go entirely to plan.

Another day was dedicated to hiking up Scafell Pike; England's tallest mountain.

This left us with 2 full days for riding the route.

• Thursday: Travel north on motorways + into Peak District.
• Friday: Resume travel & arrive in Lake District.
• Saturday: Hike Sca Fell.
• Sunday: Ride loop. Buttermere Scale Force Waterfall.
• Monday: Travel south home.

The Routes 🗺

The entire GPX / map can be found here.

The Sca Fell hike GPX can be found here. I imported this to my Apple Watch and it worked perfectly. I've written how to do that here.

The main loop in the Lake District takes about 4 hours, so we had ample time to stop, visit places and generally just enjoy the local area rather than rushing around.

On the way, we would divert into the Peak District.

The People & Bikes

• Bill: 1983 Honda Nighthawk CB650
• Jake: 2022 Royal Enfield Himalayan
• James: 2021 Yamaha T7
• Me: 2020 Yamaha T7

Day 1

The original plan was to get up to the Lake District, via the Peak District, in one day. This would take about 9 hours, so it was bound to be quite the endeavour, but it wasn't off-road, it wasn't raining, and we were just following the sat nav - it should be fairly easy, or so I thought.

Intercom troubles 📞

Full of excitement, we set off at around 9:45AM and began nibbling away at the '320 miles remaining' indicated on the sat nav. Bill had fitted a new Cardo PackTalk Slim intercom in his helmet the day before, but much to his discomfort, it wasn't sitting correctly on his ears at all. Unfortunately, this was just the start of his intercom dilemmas.

Peak District + some dodgy guidance

Back on the road, we had passed Birmingham and were approaching Manchester. The northern districts of England were unexplored to us, so it was a great opportunity to divert from the motorway and head east into the Peak District.

Nearing 3PM, Bill's intercom died, so we didn't have him on the comms anymore. After a few attempts at reviving it, it was useless - it didn't even last one day!

Adding to the misfortune, I realised I imported the Peak District section of the route to my Garmin as a "Track", meaning the "Trip Planner" app couldn't display it correctly and started making up its own route. "Tracks" work well for off-roading on trails and low-speed country roads - which is what I'm used to - but not long, custom road rides. To this day, I can't believe how needlessly complicated following a line on a map has become, and why Garmin and its thousands of sub-apps have made it such a kerfuffle. They're great when they work, mind. No fault but my own; I should have checked it more thoroughly when planning - a lesson for next time.

We rode The Cat & Fiddle, Buxton A5004, and Winnats Pass. It was a pleasant break from the motorway, other than being stuck behind some buses and lorries. There's a notable amount of speed cameras in the Peak District, more than I've seen anywhere else in the country - really sneaky ones too, so I spent most of it worrying about what speed I was doing. It wasn't about going fast though, we weren't in any rush.

The angry man 😡

Time was ticking over 5PM, yet it was probably another 3 hours to the Lake District. My brother, James, had imported the route I made to his iPhone, but it began routing him the fastest way to a waypoint rather than the custom route - "Mine's saying go left here", "Mine's saying straight on" etc... Bloody modern technology. My brother's patience was dwindling thin as we went on some unexpected...unannounced.. rural detours. I was the only person with the actual route, and even mine was playing up, so it became a bit exhausting to focus on leading and keeping my brothers temper at bay. Ironically, and as if by supernatural power, we were nearing a town called "Hope" and my brother lost all of the sorts, as he shouted at me through the intercom. It seemed fitting to call it a day. We were on holiday, after all.

After some food and drink, spirits were much higher. Sometimes things just don't go to plan - that's life. Whilst looking for a camp spot on Google Maps, I saw a little parking area for a hiking trailhead on the Snake Pass road. There were images of some sort of creek and an evergreen forest. That will do!

We stopped in at a nearby petrol station for some camp snacks and headed up the Snake Pass. It was a beautiful sunset ride.

Halfway up the Snake Pass, we pulled into the car park. It was a 2-3 minute walk downhill from the bikes before we crossed a creek, turned a corner and set up camp, tucked away under some low-lying evergreens.

Day 2 🦦

It was like waking up in Skyrim. It became apparent how much more daytime is available when camping. We went to sleep when it got dark (9PM-ish) and woke up when it got light (5-6AM-ish).

This would be the start of my ever-growing fondness for the infamous "Wild Poo". I'd heard a great deal about this toil in my 26 years on planet earth. For certain, it remained far out of my comfort zone. I'm usually hesitant to "go number 2" in airport and restaurant toilets, but for some reason, on this chilly morning at the bottom of a valley, balancing precariously on a dead tree, it was my time to shine! And shine I did.

We tidied up after ourselves, leaving no trace behind (other than a few smells) and set off by about 9:30AM. I remember thinking how great it was that the teething issues we had the day before, resulted in us finding that amazing spot. Does everything happen for a reason?

We resumed our journey north and entered the Lake District at lunchtime.

Wrynose Pass

Heading west from Ambleside along narrow country lanes, we were approaching the Wrynose & Hardknott passes.

This car was a rather frightening thing to come across. We played detective here for a while. The keys were still in the car, no airbags deployed, with doors ripped off from the force. No one nearby.. ouch!

Hardknott Pass

At the top, we parked and walked around to see if we could camp. It was about 4PM already - the day had flown past! There were actually too many choices for camp spots. We were getting hungry, so we hopped back on our bikes and rode down the other side, into the neighbouring village of "Boot". We ended up stopping at "The Woolpack Inn" for a meal and drinks.

There was an affable biker family on the bench next to us, we conversed with them for a while about surrounding roads, other areas of the UK, David Knight, and various other motorbike topics. I should have asked for their names; a personal note for next time.

Afterwards, we, along with our new friend, a hitchhiking bee, went to a local shop to get water and snacks to take to camp.

Back up the pass we go. This pass was the first time I'd ever experienced acceleration & braking bumps on concrete! I had heard it was bumpy, it really was.

I expected more cars / other campers to be parked in the various little parking spots along the pass, given that it was a bank holiday weekend, but there were only a couple.

We got the wild poo scared out of us before going to bed. We were pitched just a short 1-2 minute walk up from the road when some random villain parked below and started howling. Jake, a moron, started howling back, which kicked off some sort of primal yelling war. Bill and I prayed to umpteen different gods for the banshee to leave and eventually it did.

Day 3

At about 7AM, Jake and I scouted out a place to go and have a proper "shower". It was so incredibly cold - feet numbingly cold, but afterwards we felt great and, oddly, warmer.

Okay, maybe more of a small bath than a shower. But we still got our hair and bodies refreshed.

We left Hardknott at around 9AM, had breakfast at a petrol station, and arrived at Wasdale National Trust Car Park at about 10:30AM.

Hiking Scafell Pike & Sca Fell 🥾

We got quite lucky with parking our bikes at the national trust car park - there was quite a queue of cars to get in - it was just shut due to being full, but because we were on bikes, the marshall at the gate let us in. After parking and locking our bikes by a bicycle rack, we changed into more comfortable clothes and began walking at about 11:30AM.

After about an hour of hiking up steps, to our right, we saw a cloud passing through the middle of a gap in a huge rock face. We had no clue we would be scaling up and through it later on.

We continued to follow the traditional route; lots of steps, and people.

Eventually, we reached the peak of Scafell Pike; with poor visibility and blowing a gale, but not raining!

Heading down a different way, we followed the route on my watch. We could see Sca Fell in the distance.

This is where we deviated slightly from the route.

Lord's Rake ⚠️

We decided to go two by two, in case any boulders got dislodged and started hurtling down the hill.

It felt like we were near the top, but we turned left up another shute which went on and on.

I recommend doing this segment, but it's not for the faint-hearted. We couldn't believe we were doing it, it did not feel particularly safe at times. The locals probably do this on their commute.

The top of Lord's Rake is Sca Fell - Scafell Pike's slightly shorter brother. From there we made our way back, which involved 2 hours of loose rock descents and steep grass banks. At one point, jogging / sliding down the loose slate, my GoPro jumped out from my backpack, over the top of my head and landed in front of me. I was really lucky to have seen it and put it back.

We got back to our bikes at about 4:30PM. Neither the bikes nor our gear had been stolen, result! There was a shop that sold souvenirs, I got some fridge magnets and Bill got a Scafell Pike fabric patch.

We left the car park and returned passed Wastwater and Illgill Head before rejoining our loop. After approximately 30 minutes, we saw a pub.

The owners of the Stanley Arms were really friendly & ever so funny. We wondered if we could just camp in the pub garden for a fee. Bill did ask, but sadly the owners had a funeral to go to first thing in the morning so unfortunately, we couldn't. It began to get dark, but we felt no matter of urgency.. we were pretty tired and not fussed about where we ended up. We followed the loop for 20 minutes, to get out of harm's way, and pitched up near the Blakeley Raise Stone Circle.

As I drifted asleep in my tent, I was startled awake by Bill shouting "STOP SNORING!". There was nothing to be heard. Was it me? I definitely snore at home. Oh god. I will roll onto my side.

Day 4

The phantom snorer turned out to be Jake, much to Jake's amusement. Bill utilised the same earplugs that he wears to block 70MPH wind noise on the M6 and went to sleep.

There was nothing particularly spectacular about this spot; a subtle, damp bog on the crest of a hill.

We were on the road by 8AM, enjoying a peaceful ride around the northwestern corner of the loop - through Kirkland and Mockerkin - which consisted of cute countryside villages, quaint cottages and farms. We then passed Loweswater and Crummock Water before stopping at Buttermere for breakfast. Nothing was open yet!

I spoke to a farmer, who kindly told me the best place to go was Syke Farm.

Syke Farm Tea Room, Buttermere 🍰

Syke Farm is a very tranquil spot; a cafe, a farm complete with loudly-mooing cows and a sheepdog that seemed to patrol, and control, the car park visitors. We sat outside, waiting patiently with the calm patrol dog until the people working at the cafe opened the doors and welcomed us in.

Scale Force Buttermere

When planning this trip, I heard of a well-known waterfall called "Scale Force Buttermere" which was supposed to be wicked. It was about a 2mile hike to get to it. Rather over-encumbered by breakfast, we got back on our bikes, rode around the corner to get out of the way, got changed and began walking!

There was a body of water at the waterfall, deep enough for full submersion, so we all went in!

James cut his foot on a rock here. I had been gloating about bringing a first aid kit on the trip, but I didn't even have it on me when we needed it (plonker!). Another lesson for next time.

Honister Pass

The ride out of Buttermere was lovely. We went up and over Honister Pass & it's slate mine. Down to Keswick (don't pronounce the 'w'), around to Ullswater, then made our way south, up the Kirkstone Pass, for our final night.

Kirkstone Pass

We drove up from the north side of the Kirkstone Pass and parked our bikes opposite the Inn. I had planned for us to walk our luggage to the top of the Red Screes for the final night, it looked walkable on Google Street View. It's HUGE in person. We were not taking our camping gear up that in full bike gear, maybe halfway. The guys stayed down at road level looking for spots to camp but that seemed far too boring. It's the final night! I thought maybe after a pint or two they'll be easier to persuade.

After the breakfast we had in Buttermere, we shouldn't have needed food for about 4 days. We ended up having a full Sunday Roast at the Kirkstone Pass Inn.

Bill loved the Kirkstone Gold, so much in fact that he was far more inclined to hike up the Red Screes afterwards.

It was nearing 8PM, we left the Inn and began scrambling up the steps and rocks in full bike gear. We were carrying helmets, backpacks, side bags, tents, the whole shebang. We got maybe 1/4 of the way. LOL. It was funny getting the guys to get up there with me. Not so funny was the rain that came in fast and unexpectedly!!

We got our tents pitched in record timing and, as it was beginning to rain hard, we sheltered inside. I had never been in the tent I had in the rain before. I had so much stuff all over the place. It was quite exciting because it was the only rain we had on that trip.

What's a Lake District trip without rain?

Day 5

Home time

The rain had cleared. All of us, apart from Bill, had the best night's sleep of the whole trip. Bill's tent, the one that I lent him, seemed to have sprung a leak - he had actual puddles in with him. I had no clue about the leak, sorry mate.. haha

We completed the loop and left the Lake District, onto the motorways all the way home. It was a smooth trip home. We lost Jake whilst we were deep in traffic, filtering for about 25 minutes! We pulled in at a Services for lunch but couldn't spot him. Sorry, Jake!

It was a fantastic trip. I wouldn't have changed a thing!

Next, I think we are all going to go to the New Forest to visit the Sammy Miller Museum.