Great days in Grasmere

At Thorney How: ready for those hills

There are so many dreadful ways of spending the May Bank Holiday in this tourist mecca village in the Lake District: trying to get a car park within 4 km of the town; standing in a long long line at the Famous Gingerbread Shop; standing in another line to visit Wordsworth’s Dove Cottage only to find that it is being renovated within an inch of its life in time for the 2020 bicentary and all you can see are container offices, scaffolding and hoardings; being charged $8 for a dreadful English coffee....

Coast to Coasting #2: Gear failure - Boots (Again)

On top of Raven Crag - but watch those boots.

I have bad boot karma, no doubt about it.
My Zamberlans peeled their soles on the last day of the Northern Tongariro Circuit so I ditched them. My Scarpas peeled their soles on the last day of the Rakiura Track last year but I persisted, had them reglued (at great expense) in Brisbane, restitched (at very little expense) in Ladakh, and gave them away in Dharamsala because I just couldn’t trust them to last.
I bought a new pair of Mammut boots in January for this hike. Carefully broke them in till they were wonderfully comfortable. But then…