Walking the Millican way.

A Bank holiday weekend in the Lakes, fantastic weather and a guide to take you on a walk in the stunning Borrowdale valley. Our winners had all of this and more when they joined us to walk the length of Derwentwater and visit the famous haunt of Millican Dalton, the Professor of Adventure.

In the early 1900s’ Millican Dalton, self-styled ‘Professor of Adventure’, chose a cave in Borrowdale Valley as his home. He roamed the valley, canoed to Keswick across Derwentwater on his home built raft, the Rouge Herris and climbed Napes Needle – he earned his title. He inspired many would-be adventurers past and present, including the team at Millican, the Keswick Bag Co, so with the support of Millican the Bag Co we had Joe Faulkner from Nav4 to take us on the route from Keswick to Grange and the "Cave" on Castle Crag.

As we walked down the Borrowdale valley we encountered the sights as Millican would have seen over a hundred years ago along with things that did not , such as this coin covered tree trunk near Lodore Falls.

After passing through the campsite of Hollows farm, which was full of campers taking advantage of the good weather and enjoying playing in the River Derwent as Millican would have done, with his paying clients, as they rode the rapids on home made rafts.

Taking a path up from the river around the side of Castle crag we came to the famous "Cave". Here Dalton would spend his summers living and sometimes working on making lightweight tents,rucksacks and other outdoor equipment, that was seen as cutting edge in it`s time. Not so much a cottage industry, rather a cave industry.

Millican was famous for his consumption of coffee, so Millican the Bag Co have produced their own coffee which we took up to the cave and brewed up using a Kelly Kettle which is great fun and takes minutes.

Suitably refreshed we set off on the return journey back to Keswick. This time though we made a detour at Lodore to the landing stage and enjoyed a Launch trip back to Keswick. 

Here 2 of our winners were lucky to take home a Smith roll top bag each as well as some beer to quench their thirst from The Keswick Brewing Co

Join us hopefully soon for our next unique George Fisher experience.