Goat Scrambling at Linhope Spout

A perfect day for our visit to Linhope: sunshine, a gentle breeze and good company.
The road walk from Hartside to the hamlet of Linhope gave us amazing views to the
south with its smoothly glaciated landscape.
As we climbed up from the farm some of us remembered when Linhope House had
been an old folks home, where Harry and Molly Gibson had worked, along with their
lovely black labrador. All lovely gentle characters. Quite a journey to St James’s on
Sundays!
It was definitely a scramble down the rocky path to the Spout, but we proved we
could still be as nimble as goats as we negotiated the rocks. Once down we
admired the water gushing down into the pool below where a few lads were making
the most of jumping in and enjoying the water. We found a nice little patch with a bit
of breeze for our early lunch and relaxed in the sunshine with the sound of the
waterfall behind us.
Our return route was, in places, another goat scramble, but generally easier than our
descent. The general feeling was that it was an easier route up but would have been
quite challenging going down. Back at Linhope we had a happy sit on the bridge
before walking back up the road to the cars. Most of us then enjoyed a cuppa and
cake back at Ingram Café before returning home, knowing we had had a really good
day out.