Devoke Water

Car to lake: 0.5 miles from Eskdale/Ulpha road

Round the lake: 2 miles

Time taken: 1 hours 20 minutes (including stops for photos!).

Elevation: Approximately 770 feet at start.

If Darwin's theory of evolution is true, then no West Cumbrian would surely ever leave home without his waterproof trousers. Even on the sunniest of days, some deeply embedded instinct, honed through millennia of soakings, would prevent him from the ludicrous optimism that allowed me to get in the car this afternoon equipped for nothing more than a light, intermittent drizzle.

Turning off the A595 at Gosforth I could see the clouds thickening over towards Eskdale and by the time the road over towards Ulpha levelled out on Birker Moor, it was raining. When I reached the crossroads where a left turn was signposted to Stanley Ghyll, and the unsigned road to the right led to Devoke Water, it was raining so heavily that I didn't want to leave the car. For a minute I sat and pondered but, secure in the knowledge that it could only wet me as far as the skin, and convincing myself that it had eased a little, I began my trek.

No question really, only a wimp would cancel a walk because of a few raindrops!

Once parked at the crossroads, the short walk to the edge of Devoke Water follows a fairly good, firm track with grass up the middle. Climbing only very slightly, the lake comes into view after only five or six minutes from which point the track descends again almost to the water's edge. I can't say it's a particularly attractive piece of water because it's not; the landscape in which it sits is fairly featureless fell and nothing much is visible beyond the lake itself as there is little rise in height before the land falls away again in the general direction of Ravenglass.

 First glimpse of the lake just before the road reaches it maximum height.

As you approach the lake, the reason for the hard road becomes apparent; a boathouse!

Ten or twelve minutes into the walk and the usual decision had to be made - clockwise or anti clockwise? The road seemed to make the decision for me and I followed it along the eastern shore, in a clockwise direction, as far as the boathouse. This appears to be a pretty sound structure right up to the water but, on its landward side, is a roofless, dilapidated part that looks as if it has been that way for some time. At this point the hard, relatively dry road comes to an end and you are faced with a wet patch that today resembled the bottom of a number of small streams all making their way into the lake.

 

The boathouse - presumably used by whoever owns the fishing rights. 

Being in possession of a good dry pair of boots, if not waterproof trousers, I picked my way across these raging waters and round to the south shore. The terrain then settled into a pattern; stretches of boggy, wet, grass punctuated by further streams of water emptying into the lake. Most streams were either shallow enough to be waded or narrow enough to be stepped over but one required a run and a jump which, I'm pleased to say, was completed without incident.

There was another party of walkers behind me at this point but they seemed to disappear in another direction and for the rest of the walk it was just me and a few herdwicks. Even they looked little brassed off with the day's weather!

A lone herdwick across the stream which had to be jumped!

Finally, at the extreme western end of the lake you reach a stream which actually flows out of the lake. Presumably it has to carry a quantity of water approximately equal to the sum of that carried by all the streams flowing into the lake so it was no surprise to find that it was considerably deeper and wider than any of those. Left in its natural state it may well have proved an insurmountable obstacle to any circumnavigator of Devoke Water who wasn't prepared to wade across up to his waist. Luckily, a set of very sturdy stepping stones had been laid just a few yards downstream and I was able to enter the last stage of my walk without difficulty.

By now, a very heavy shower of rain had soaked through my jeans and water had started to run down the back of my neck. It was not comfortable and I wondered if the cloudy but dry day, with bursts of warm sunshine, I had left at home, was continuing. I concluded it probably was.

By the time I reached the point where water flows out of the lake, the bad weather had worsened 

I think this was my third or fourth visit to Devoke Water over the last 30 years or so and this is typical of how my feet have looked on every occasion.

The path, if it can be called that, along the northern shore continued in similar fashion and the views across the lake varied little as I made my way back to its northeastern corner and onto the road which would lead me to the car.

As I made my way back, splashing through water, avoiding bogs (almost) and trying desperately to use my camera without getting water in it, the cloud lifted a little, the rain stopped and, for a moment I thought I might be rewarded with a little sunshine. Alas, it was a case yet again of ludicrous optimism; the glimmer of brightness spotted in the east faded, the rain came down and normal services was resumed!

A glimmer of hope, as the murk lifted a little.

The wet weather reminded me of a bit of Birker Moor trivia. 

It was but a few miles from here on a similar day in 1940 that German pilot, and escaped prisoner of war, Franz von Werra was recaptured. If the subsequent 1957 film, "The One That Got Away" is to be believed, he was so wet and cold that he was pleased to be caught. Von Werra was later transferred to a camp in Ontario, Canada but managed to escape again making it back to Germany via the USA, Mexico, Brazil, Spain and Italy. Some good shots of Grizedale Hall, where he was imprisoned, Ulpha and Crosbythwaite can be seen in the film which starred Hardy Kruger.

Escaping didn't do Von Werra much good in the long run; not much more than a year later, in October 1941, his plane crashed off the dutch coast and he was killed.(at least, according to his "wikipedia" entry)