Gorge adventure in the Lake District

September 03, 2013

Gorge adventure in the Lake District

One of the benefits of my age and status as an independent student is that I didn't sign away the right to rent a car and go hog-wild around England, which the BYU students had to do. Plus most of them are under 25 so they can't even rent a car. Babies. A friend from one of my classes, Joseph, approached me one day, or cornered me rather, and pitched this great idea he had to go up to the Lake District and do something called 'gorge walking." He said it'd be hiking through the river climbing up the waterfalls, etc. Little did he know that I would never say no to an adventure of that caliber, but I had to pretend like I needed to be persuaded. They did require me to rent a car so we could get up there. So I let them sweat it out for a day or two before committing fully to our weekend trip. Renting a car was fairly easy and driving turned out to be manageable too. And I'm just as sharp parallel parking as I am on the other side of the car. Boo yeah sons. We all met Saturday morning about 4:15AM and drove straight to the Esk Gorge meeting point. It was about a 4.5 hour drive, which in England is a really long trip, its quite a span of the country to be honest. See map.

The gorge was beautiful and despite the 30% grades we were going up and down on very narrow roads, I was snapping pictures like crazy out the window. I handled it all quite well, or so the boys thought. Yes, did I mention it was me and 4 guys? What a time we had.

Richard, Craig, and Joe. Parker and I were in the front laughing at the synchronized snores and gaping mouths.

Yeah, 30% grades? No problem. However, it would've been had the car been a manual.

Oh clouds.

Don't we all look good in wetsuits? Nice legs Parker.

Ready to toss myself in to the river.

So we met Chris, our guide, at a red phone box in the middle of this beautiful country and put on wet suits and hiked in to the gorge. Chris was a fantastic guy and is married to a Kiwi. He started the company with his mate a few years back. Once we got to the gorge we suited up in helmets and jackets and life vests. Our first jump in was pretty cold and only about 10 feet. Luckily Richard jumped first and yelled back "it's warm!" so I momentarily tricked myself into thinking it couldn't be that bad. So it wasn't! Miracle. After jumping in, we would swim out of the way for the rest of our group to jump, then we'd climb out and scramble up the bank to another bigger jump. We'd follow Chris up rocky parts and across the pools. The water didn't necessarily get warmer, but we were moving around and climbing up and down stuff so we felt fine. It was extremely clean and refreshing water.

The biggest jumps we did were about 10 meters (35 feet). One jump was called "the intimidator" but no one was too intimidated to jump, so perhaps they should rename it. Since we had done everything so well, Chris showed us one last one before we headed out that was the highest. It was a bit nerve racking because you had to clear some ledges below that stuck out and clear a branch sticking out. However we all made it cleanly into the water.

Chris in the center. What a great head of hair he had.

We were all pretty excited the whole time. The guys couldn't get enough of it. It was unforgettable and I'd do it again! We drove out of the gorge and headed to our hostel a few miles away. We decided to go to Preston that evening, about an hour and a half away to see the British Pageant at the Temple. We didn't have tickets, but Parker, one of the guys, had served his mission in England, so we were hoping things would work out. We ate really gross indian food, which is always hugely disappointing, and then made it to the stand-by queue at the pageant. We got 5 tickets right away thanks to a really nice senior missionary. That helped me forget about the terrible indian food. A little. The pageant was amazing! Great music and story with a ginormous cast. It was about the history of the church in England and then the migration across the ocean to America.

Truth did prevail, as did the large head of the guy in front of us blocking part of the performance....

The next day we slept in as best we could before heading out to explore the Lake District. We visited Grasmere to see Dove Cottage, Wordsworth's home, and also drove out to the valley where Beatrix Potter lived. Such beautiful country.

Lake Grasmere

Just a couple of boys in white shirts wandering around on a Sunday morning.

We attended the ward in Preston that afternoon at 1pm which is right next to the temple and the MTC. After sacrament meeting we headed into Preston to see some historical sights like the River Ribble, where the first converts were baptized.

River Ribble.

Awesome Preston temple.

Little memorial to Latter-day Saints in Great Britain.

We were quite hungry by that point, since it was fast sunday, so we broke our fast at a Toby Carvery, a very British family restaurant that is kind of a buffet. We had all you can eat veggies and potatoes, which made me happy, and then we all ordered dessert, per Richard the desserteur's insistence.

On our way back to Cambridge we stopped at Sherwood Forest! Little did they know what a huge Robin Hood fan I am. I was super disappointed to learn that the Robin Hood festival would begin the very next day! Jousting, archery, roast venison. I missed it. But it was a beautiful forest with some really cool oak trees.