Lake District - day 2; Tarn Hows

We ended up spending so long at Holker Hall that my plans for the rest of the day had to be revised. It was now early evening and too late in the day for either a long walk or any attraction with 'opening times'. We'd vaguely had an intention of visiting Tarn Hows though, and this was still do-able. 

This is a place we discovered accidentally on our first visit to the Lake District, over 40 years ago. I'm not sure how we stumbled upon it as the roads are narrow and twisty, and not really the sort you'd explore on a whim. I wonder if, rather oddly, it was better signposted back then when there were fewer holiday-makers in the area. What I hadn't realised back then is that, like Glencoe lochan in Scotland, this is a man-made landscape rather than natural.

The place itself has certainly changed in forty years. Instead of the rough footpath we'd discovered before there's now a wide firm path circling the tarn - it didn't seem either as flat or as short as our AirBnB hosts had described it as though, especially after a day spent mainly on my feet.

There's also been damage to the trees. Some, I've read, have been felled due to disease, but some, with their roots waving in the air, had definitely suffered in the high winds of early spring. (There were warnings about fallen trees and ongoing work to clear them at Grizedale too, but we didn't see so many there)

Maybe as well, early evening, with the sun already setting behind the mountains, wasn't the best time to visit. With the sun shining and the water reflecting blue sky, it would have looked quite different, but as it was, it seemed a somewhat dreary spot.