What a wonderful group of women this was. We had come from a range of places around the world and the UK, from many walks of life and varied in age from mid seventies to mid twenties.

What was amazing abut us was that we got on like several houses on fire.

In the evening we chatted about our journeys, discussed what we wanted from the holiday and began our look at maps and an orientation to the Lake District. We all agreed that learning more from whatever our individual starting points would make a successful holiday.

We started the day looking briefly at different map scales, symbols and grid references.

Everyone was very enthusiastic about working these out.

Some women admitted to loving maps so much that they read them in bed whilst others had no idea where to start.

Our walk took us to Little Langdale where we scrutinised maps and realised just how much information you can collect from one about your route.

We did lots of discussing and digesting of new information. We laughed a lot.

We stopped at a lovely farm for morning coffee, feeling that our legs had walked miles because we had been thinking so much!

Each short section was lead by a pair of women and everyone else checked their maps too.

It's a brave thing to do when you are just starting out with maps.

It was a beautiful short valley walk with a great clear view of the Langdale Pikes. We walked from Skelwith Bridge to Slater Bridge and along to Elterwater.

Some women beetled off to collect vehicles for the return trip so that others could take their time and enjoy the end of the walk at their own pace.

This morning the mysteries of the compass were explained and we practised using them to take bearings to find direction.

We walked along Loughrigg Terrace overlooking Grasmere, stopping to orientate and take bearings.

The benches along Loughrigg Terrace were much appreciated by some, while others sat in the bracken!

We orientated ourselves as far as Rydal Cave - a wonderful quarried cave that shows on the map.

You can cross stepping stones to get into the cave.

One woman unfortunately slipped and got her trousers wet - so we fashioned a survival bag into a changing cubical by tearing open the bottom!

I'm not sure Rydal Caves has seen such hillarity before!

We then continued up onto Loughrigg Fell from where we could see Lake Windermere & Ambleside, before returning for tea at Glenthorne.

This morning we talked about timing and distance and how to use these to help on a walk.

A couple of people decided to stay lower down and practise what we had learnt yesterday.

We had a walk up onto Silver Howe looking at the land features and choosing routes for ourselves.

We were rewarded with a beautiful view from the top, over Grasmere and Rydal water and we could see Glenthorne way down in the valley- small enough to hold in a hand.

We practised back bearings which can help you to work out your position, we used road junctions and pubs in the valley.

On our last day we were keen to walk together and share what time we had left.

We walked through Grasmere village and around the near side of the lakes to Rydal Hall where we had our last tea shop stop together.

Those who missed Silver Howe had a chance to find out about and practise back bearings - its great when a group says " wow so that's how it works!"

From there the group walked along to Ambleside where several people needed to leave so heartfelt goodbyes were said and we returned by bus to Glenthorne.