During the weekend of March 12th-15th I went on a school trip to the Lake District, in northern England. I already mentioned a tad about it, but it's a national park that has amazing outdoor adventure potential. We left Thursday night and got to the hostel called YHA Ambelside in the town of Ambelside. I was a in a six person room with some other harlaxtoners. It was a very nice hostel...I judge this by the sheets coming a bag. That's always nice...it makes it seem a little cleaner:) And there were families staying there, so that made me feel better as well. Since we got there late, we couldn't really explore much. We found the dock outside our hostel, and pestered the swan that was chilling there for a bit. A few of us a walked down the lake shore a bit, but after awhile we hit the sack to be rested for adventures the next day. 
The hostel
My big purchase for the weekend...a buff...Friday morning we got an excellent breakfast, ham, eggs, cereal etc. A few friends and I took off around 10am for a hike. We started with a pretty large group, but somewhere along the way we split off into 5-which was much calmer. We followed a 6.5 mile hike which led us through a forest, then up this huge mountain, then back around a different town, through another forest, and back to our hostel. The mountain was freezing cold and rainy, but still fun because it was so rewarding to climb all the way up. Even though it was so foggy we couldn't see the ground...We didn't stay up there for too long (apparently my rain jacket isn't actually waterproof...hmmm?). We made our way down the mountain and unto another path. We ended up in a little village and took a tea break at a little pub there. We warmed up a tad and ate our bag lunches. After that we walked on through the path and was lead through some great places. We returned to the village around 4pm. We changed and then headed into town. I got some fish and chips for dinner with a friend, and then at 6pm a bunch of us ended up at the local movie theater to see Slumdog Millionaire...which was so good! I recommend it to everyone! After the movie we just chilled with some others and had an early night to get ready for the next day of activities.
On the way up the mountain
Friday morning we had breakfast again, and then I was convinced to do some organized activities. I was just going to independently hike with people, but since some people couldn't come, I decided to take their place mountain hiking (we did have to pay for the activities...but it was worth it:)). It was a great hike, and we are so lucky with the weather here! It was beautiful blue skies, and I had some great photo ops! On the way down the mountain, I was convinced to do another activity for the second part of the day. So I stayed around and joined a group for Ghyll Scrambling which is basically waterfall hiking. It was incredible. We got soaking wet, but we knew that going into it. We try to wear waterproof clothing, but it doesn't really help much, you get soaking anyway. We made our way up the fall, and end activity of climbing this super high waterfall. Like, in the middle of it. We were tied on obviously, but we were legit climbing it. It was freezing mountain water, and though it was a great hiking spot (easy to find spots to climb etc) you couldn't feel your fingers ATALL! It was so scary, but exhilarating at the same time. It was great. Then we made our way back down...at some points he would lead us to a special spot and say, OK let go, and we would be totally submerged in this pool of water. SO COLD! EEEK! After we were back down, we changed into warm clothes and made our way back to the hostel.
View from hiking
Our own personal mountain man
Crossing the river
Ghyll Scrambling gear
We could see the first ghyll scramblers from hiking
One of the waterfalls we climbed...this is just the beginning!We were so dead when we got back to Ambelside...but we found a great little place to have pizza for dinner. The plan was to eat, and then stay for some live music. But the music sucked, and we were basically falling asleep in our chairs. So we pulled another late night and I was so excited to sleep. We left the next morning around 10am!
It was a great weekend! I still have a bit to catch up on here....but i'm getting closer!
Love to all:)
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