Up the Duddon

Some things don’t change. When I was a child and we visited the Lake District, the river Duddon was one of our favourite places. Our favourite place on the Duddon is easy to find: travel on the winding road from Duddon Bridge towards Ulpha and park where you see this big rock on your left.

And there you are – everything for a perfect afternoon. We climbed the big rock and stared at the views of the river and the fells.

The river is about knee-deep in the middle at the moment – though I know I’ve seen it shallower, as I’ve waded across to the other side in previous visits. The river must be fascinating for geologists as there are many different kinds of rocks – they’re a bit slippy but you can wade about for ages if you’re careful (and I was, and I did). The water’s cold, which, on a hot day like today, was great.

Dragonflies hover nearby and sheep baaa at you. Grasshoppers chirp. Buzzards soar.

One of my strongest memories of this rock is that one day in about 1970 we made our usual encampment of rugs, chairs, picnic, waterproofs, swimming costumes, books, snow shoes - we never travelled light – on the downstream side of the big rock. We paddled, waded, wallowed - - and gradually noticed that wafting on the breeze from the upstream side was a very strange smell, so we climbed round to investigate.

Round the other side was a dead sheep in one of the pools off the main stream, half-rotten and black and wiggling with tadpoles.

No dead sheep today, just lots of live ones with lambs. People? Just one or two apart from us, and they were clearly loving it as much as we were. Weather? Perfect summer sunshine.

Was there anywhere better to be today? I don’t think so.

Tomorrow it’s back home to Leeds, and I’ll show you where I’ve been posting from.