That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze." Willian Wordsworth, Daffodils
We saw the lake and the trees but wrong season for the daffodils. We acknowledge that this place inspired Wordsworth and have a new found love for his poem, and his daffodils. When we get home my daffodils will be getting ready to burst forth into a golden host. A great reminder of a memorable part of our walk.
The decision is made - we are off to conquer Kidsty Pike; 780 metres high! The weather is looking good according to our local guide, Ian Mosley who was our host for the night. His daughter Rachel, holds the record for the youngest person to walk the coast to coast. She was 7 years old when she first walked it. By the time she was 9 she had walked it three times.
Ian confidently told us to tackle the climb and come down the easier descent. We had to find four cairns (small piles of rocks) and then turn somewhere.... Well, you guessed it. We never found the fourth cairn and then we wandered lonely as a cloud o'er vales and hills....
This map was hanging on the wall at Oldwater View. Perhaps if we had taken it with us things would have been different.... We'll never know!
But I am getting ahead of myself. First we left Patterdale, the lovely village
sitting beside the beautiful Ullswater. 
The slate built houses sit beautifully among the mountainous setting. A very pleasant stay made more enjoyable by Ian's interesting stories about Julia Bradbury and the making of the Coast to Coast series. There was a thought around the walk that she didn't really walk the whole thing but Ian assured us that she walked every step, and most of it in the wet. Her back up was the make-up team who help make her look stunning after a long and strenuous day. We had no such team waiting for us each day.
Almost immediately we began to climb, enabling us to overlook the village one last time and more fully appreciate the gorgeous setting..
One last look at Patterdale.
Beginning the steep climb to Kidsty Pike, our final fell. Today is farewell to Lakeland so we are very glad to be able to walk on Kidsty Pike.
A beautiful way to view Helvellyn one last time along the way was at Angle Tarn, where we had a picnic. It was so hard to leave this beautiful spot.
Our first sight of Angle Tarn on the way up to Kidsty Pike. Absolutely beautiful!
Selah.. pause and mediate 
Leaving Angle Tarn. Could have stayed here all day. It has been one of the highlights of our walk so far. We had a lady comment to us while eating dinner that she had seen us sitting beside the lake and was envious of us. We asked her why she didn't join us, we would gladly have shared the joy with her.
As we continued our climb we looked down on One Farm Valley, named for obvious reasons.
Then there she was....
Kidsty Pike from Twopenny Crag 
Kidsty Pike, here we come.
We did a Julius Caesar - we came, we saw and we conquered.
Now off we go to find the alternate route across the plateau and then down the gentle slope that leads into Bampton... An easy afternoon stroll .... Not!
Graham, can you find that fourth cairn??
The answer is NO. Ian was right, it was a lovely walk across the top of High Street but local knowledge isn't useful to strangers to this locality. Graham had no waypoints in his GPS to guide us so we wandered aimlessly with Wainwright's words ringing in our ears.
"One should always have a definite objective, in a walk as in life - it is so much more satisfying to reach a target by personal effort than to wander aimlessly. An objective is an ambition, and life without ambition is.....well, aimless wandering."
Eventually we found our way down to a farm where we sought local advice re directions to Bampton. We were to cross over a cattle grid.... But where was it?? We discovered that making a U-turn on foot is a lot harder than in a car, which made us hesitant concerning walking down another road which may not be the correct one! Eventually we found our way to the main road into Bampton and stopped a local in his Range Rover to ask how far to Bampton. He told us about a mile.
We concluded that he meant a country mile which equates to about three real miles!! Not happy Joan..
And then the rain came PELTING down. At least we had time to kit up in our wet weather gear, not that it made that much difference. When we reached the village it wasn't Bampton! Really not happy Joan now. .
We eventually arrived in Bampton only to discover that we were staying in Bampton Grange, another half a mile due east. Somehow we lost Allan in the rain, so Ammie didn't want to go inside, choosing to sit on the seat, in the rain, outside our accommodation, waiting for Allan to arrive. Turns out he took shelter in a bus stop along the way and didn't get nearly as wet as the rest of us did.
Next problem - what to do with all that wet gear? As fortune would have it, they had a drying room so at least most of our gear could dry out over night. Not sure our boots will ever dry out! Have learned a new tip - always stuff your wet boots with newspaper, it helps them to dry out more quickly.
As you can see, no photos. With all that rain, my camera was well and truly hidden under my wet weather gear.
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