Back to the lake with Jie ♡

Justina came to visit before heading to Italy for her exchange!! 

First thing we did the morning Jie arrived - ballet class! ☺

We then went to Hula Juice Bar for brunch ☺

The rest of the day was spent walking along Princes street, chilling, packing, cooking dinner and then sleeping! 

The next morning, we got on the 10:15am train to Penrith and this marked the start of our 5 day trip to the Lake District 

The train ride there was stunning!! However, at some bits it got a little worrying as it was so foggy I could barely see past 15m. But thankfully, the fog cleared up as we neared our destination  

After getting off the train, we hopped on the X5 bus for a 45 min journey to Keswick

First thing we did was lunch at Kat's Kitchen which is a 100% vegan cafe in Keswick (the same place that Beverly and I went to when we had a day trip to Keswick to get on the 77A honister pass bus). I had the vegan breakfast and it was sooooo yum 

After lunch, we checked into YHA hostel which I highly recommend to anyone planning on visiting Keswick (which I also recommend). It was extremely clean, warm and spacious! The staff were very knowledgable about walks that you could do and really friendly and helpful when recommending things to do :) 

Justina and I decided to do the Castlehead walk before the sun set 

Views were amazing from up here :')

We then walked around the town for a bit, Justina did some shopping as she was not very well-equipped for the trip and so she bought a pair of hiking boots and a proper outdoor jacket. We then had Thai takeout for dinner (there was 15% discount as takeout meant no service charge) - I had a red curry and Justina had a pad thai and it was really delicious! 

The next morning, we did the Latrigg hike and boy was it beautiful! On the way to our destination, an old man who was walking his dog striked up a conversation with us and he actually told us not to go on the hike as the weather didn't look too promising. However, we just thought we'd try anyway and it turned out to be such an amazing hike in the snow!!

(take note of the weather contrast from here to when we started our hike 20 mins later)

The entire hike was just so breathtaking because snow was just falling everywhere!!! ❆

On our way down, the snow started to clear up as the sun came out, just to show how variable the weather was here (in the UK in general to be honest)

With frozen fingers and toes, we headed back to the town centre to have lunch and settled for pizza and sweet potato fries! It then started to rain and so we decided to just head back to the hostel to chill - I had a nap hehe and then because I wasn't feeling too well, I just had some granola that we bought the previous day for dinner and Justina had a tom yum soup from the same Thai restuarant that we ordered take out from the previous night. 

The next day, we embarked on a really long hike to Ashness Bridge and Walla Crag 

At the beginning of our journey, we came across a sign post informing hikers that the path ahead was flooded from previous days of rainfall and therefore was closed. However, Justina and I decided to just wing it and go ahead and turns out, the water had cleared, woohoo!! There were other people on the path as well which made us more confident that we didn't make the wrong decision 

It took us a good 2 hours to get to Ashness Bridge and to be honest, the journey there was so much more enjoyable than the end point. Justina and I hadn't planned on doing Walla crag immediately after the ashness bridge walk but we saw a sign post saying that Walla crag was just to the left of the bridge and took 1.5 hours, we decided that we might as well do it since we had come all this way already. 

and so we embarked on our journey to Walla Crag and it was just stunning!

We were rewarded for sure with stunning views during our hike but coming down was extremely scary. It was really slippery and there wasn't really a clear path down at the beginning of our descend. The descend was really steep as well and though a clear path did start to emerge eventually, it looked really dodgy and there was no one in sight and so we kept questioning whether we were going in the right direction but had no choice but to head down that path anyway. However, we did make it back to the town centre in the end thank goodness and we had to reward ourselves with a lovely lunch back at Kat's Kitchen! 

The vegan feta cheese tasted just like regular feta cheese!!

After lunch, Justina and I headed back to the hostel to chill for a bit and then went on a short railway walk before dinner at Chief Justice. They had a separate vegan/vegetarian menu which was just so amazing and appreciated. I had a terriyaki noodle, Justina had a quinoa salad and we ended the night sharing a bottle of Rekordelig☺

The next day, we took the 77 bus to Seatoller with a planned hike in mind but we had to cancel our plans because when we arrived, the weather was just horrid and we could not find the starting point for our hike. We then just headed up a path that had clearly been walked on before multiple times and decided to just go with the flow

Look how incredibly misty it was!!

Smiling through the winds and the rain 

Really so thankful and proud of my sister for agreeing to my 'crazy' (according to her) plans of wanting to hike everyday regardless of the weather!! Yes she does appreciate nature and loves hiking but not to the level of needing to do it everyday unlike me, so I am really so grateful that we embarked on this hiking trip together!

We were drenched by the time we got back on the bus to get back to Keswick 

We then went back to the hostel to change into dry clothes and chilled for the rest of the day! 

We headed to a cafe called Jaspers for lunch and tea as we both did some work ☺ Later for dinner, we ordered Indian takeout and it was so damn good!! This time, there was a 20% discount for takeout, which was just amazing. 

On our final day, we headed out for one last hike before we left and went to Castlerigg Stone Circle - basically the Lake District's version of the stonehenge. 

Tada! 

Honestly, it wasn't as special/stunning as we imagined it to be - was really just stones in a circle but I'm still glad we went there! We were listening to Disney songs on the way there and back and that was really fun hehe

We then got back to the hostel, got on the X5 back to Penrith and then hopped on the 2:43pm train back to Edinburgh ☺

Third time to the Lake District and will definitely be back for more!! 

It is hands down one my favourite places I have been too and I just love how much it has to offer (more than 200 peaks to be exact!) 

I cannot wait to be back for more hiking and to be rewarded with crazy incredible views :')