Walking in the Lake District - Watendlath Tarn and Dock Tarn

We camped at Chapel House Farm in Stonethwaite where we camped earlier in the year. Most of the time there were only a few other tents and on one day, we were the only tent there.

Today was cool but dry and mostly sunny and we went for a shortish walk directly from the campsite starting back along the road towards Keswick as far as the minor road leading to the Youth Hostel. Next we followed a footpath through fields to Rosthwaite village. Leaving the village, we crossed the Keswick road and then followed the route of an old packhorse trail which nowadays is a bridleway.

The bridleway passed Yew Crag and gradually climbed upwards until we reached the lovely Watendlath Tarn where we had a short stop sitting on boulders by the tarn watching a small group of ducks of a variety of types and a fisherman launching his boat onto the tarn to go fishing.

Leaving Watendlath Tarn we continued along a really nice path which soon brought us to another tarn, called Dock Tarn.

We had lunch sitting near the tarn on some rocks and afterwards followed a path which dropped in height and followed a long section of rough stone steps. The steps ended as the path levelled out and passed between drystone-walls which forms a short section of the Coast to Coast Long Distance Path.

Continuing along this route we soon arrived back at Rosthwaite again and had some coffee and cake in the “Flock Inn” tea room.

The walk back to the campsite was very short from here.