Up not too early, had breakfast and watched a bit of Sunday morning TV. Helen spotted a field mouse that lives in the stone wall making dashes out to pick leaves, I failed to get a photo.
We took plenty of water when we left the house at 09:45, as it looked like another scorcher, sun block factor 30 was slapped on and Helen even wore a white sun hat. The plan was to walk the tops of the hills over to the sea at Ravenglass then get the train back to the hut.
The path the hut is on leads towards a river but we took a right to take us high over Muncaster Fell with views of both Eskdale and the River Esk valley on the other.
The climb was tough but once up top it was rolling but no shade meant it was quite tough walking. We saw lots of birds, Yellowhammers, Skylarks, and Pipits. We also heard several Cuckoos, then when we stopped for a break at some rare shade we got great views of a close by Cuckoo being harassed (or is that the other way round) by a smaller Lark/Pipit. Eventually thje smaller bird chased the Cuckoo off. Further on we saw another or the same one again in another tree.
We stopped for a break, water and fruits bars, near a cairn over looking the sea view, Sellafield could be seen, as could an Inviting looking lake. Next stop would be the lake then Muncaster Castle for lunch/ice cream. We found the castle entrance, stopped for a comfort break at the car park toilets, and then had ice cream and lemonade, at the World Owl Trust cafe, the girl there also refilled our water containers.
We opted to not pay to see the castle as it was too hot and they wanted £12! We followed the public footpath through the grounds and “accidently” got lost and ended up on a better public footpath that closely follows the river, spotted Treecreeper, Woodpecker, Heron and Merganser.
Another rest for another snack bar and liquids was taken in the last shady spot, at the edge of the woods. Then it was off for the final leg past the lighthouse, Roman bath house and fort before Ravenglass.
We got a bit lost as the footpath was not well sign posted, we were not sure if we had followed the path or not. We had a look round the Roman bath house, there was not much of it left.
We arrived in Ravenglass at about 14:40 just in time to catch the 14:50 train. We had planned to look round the seaside but it was hot and we were tired. The train is quite swift and 20 minutes later we were at Irton Road Station literally 100 yards from the hut.
We had not had any lunch so we had an early tea of my pasta sauce and garlic bread, and settle in for an evening watching telly and an early night. We had a lovely day even though it was hot and hard work.