Farewell to the Lake District

Day 32: a beautiful morning put a spring in our step as we left Keswick to climb Skiddaw, our second and last 3,000 foot peak. We had fabulous views of Derwent Water and all the mountains around as we ascended, but the summit was in cloud, with occasional glimpses of view to tantalise us.

Beyond Skiddaw the landscape softened, but there were still some challenges ahead - notably the ascent of Little Calva, where the path was so steep as to have us clutching at bunches of heather to save ourselves from sliding all the way to the bottom. After all that toil, the summit was a small pile of stones in an almost flat morass of peat bog, with only a broken stile and some bits of old iron to relieve the tedium. Not one of the finest. However, all these northern fells have extensive views across the Solway Firth to Scotland - our first sight of it.

So farewell to the Lake District, and farewell (for now) to Sandra and Sarah, who have returned home for a couple of weeks to do jobs, connect with mothers, rescue shrivelled-up plants and generally keep life moving while we are on our quest, slaying imagined dragons.

Track of the Day is about day-to-day work in this seldom-visited part of Cumbria: it's The Hired Man by Howard Goodall based on Melvyn Bragg's novel.