You could do worse than...

What is the best way to spend the day?  You could do worse than...

To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,

To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;

To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;

Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;

This is not solitude, 'tis but to hold
Converse with Nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.

 

(extract from Solitude, Lord Byron)

The Need for National Parks

Looking down to Buttermere and Crummock Water on a hazy summer's day

 

 

“The tendency nowadays to wander in wilderness is delightful to see.  Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilised people are beginning to findout that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.  Awakening from the stupefying effects of the vice of over-industry and the deadly apathy of luxury, they are trying as best they can to mix and enrich their own little ongoings with those of Nature, and to get rid of rust and disease.  Briskly venturing and roaming, some are washing off sins and cobweb cares of the devil’s spinning in all-day storms on mountains; sauntering in rosiny pinewoods or in gentian meadows, brushing through chaparral, bending down and parting sweet, flowery sprays; tracing rivers to their sources, getting in touch with the nerves of  Mother Earth; jumping from rock to rock, feeling the life of them, learning the songs of them, panting in whole-souled exercise, and rejoicing in deep, long-drawn breaths of pure wildness…Wander here a whole summer, if you can.  Thousands of God’s wild blessings will search you and soak you like a sponge and the big days will go by uncounted.”  

 

(John Muir) 

 

 River Esk flowing from its source among the Scafells