Off to Ambleside this week, for a walk through countryside that’s just tinged with the first autumn colour, even on a damp misty morning with the clouds looming over the fells.
We only had limited parking this time so couldn’t fit in one of the longer walks. Luckily Ambleside is strewn with shorter routes that are every bit as lovely, and steep enough to get the old lungs burning!
We walked up the Kirkstone Road as far as the turn off to Scandale, then chose the lower route which heads out through fields and a farmyard to the old pack-horse bridge over Scandale Beck known as Low Sweden Bridge. I believe the name has something to do with the Scandinavian miners brought in to work nearby quarries and mines, although I stand to be corrected on that.
There are frequent stunning views over the Ambleside rooftops to Loughrigg and the higher fells beyond, and the last little section of walk is through woodland where we’ve seen nuthatches hopping around before now. None this week, just an old abandoned gate to nowhere propped up against the wall. It made me think of Narnia. If I opened it and went through, I wonder where I’d end up…
FIONA GLASS 
I think I know where you mean – sounds lovely!
It’s roughly at the back of the university campus in Ambleside and well worth discovering, although High Sweden Bridge (further up the same beck) is even better!