Down The Pipeline
The Thirlmere Way

The story of the Thirlmere Pipeline is told in Up The Pipeline.  Its subsequent pages relate our story, progressing from the Lune to its source at Thirlmere.

That was some four years ago. In October 2019 we (Cynthia & Ian, Margaret & I) decided it was time to undertake the next stage.

I remember when we first considered our route for the Thirlmere to Manchester Pipeline walk, we had a big debate about whether to follow the flow (i.e. go south) or to treat it more as an expedition to seek the source of the water, (i.e. south to north), which was what Mr Cappelli did in his book.  We opted to follow his instructions.  However, we didn’t stick slavishly to his route as evidence by the fact that we started from the River Lune and not from Manchester.  Also, it covered territory that we knew well, so we were not greatly in need of guidance.

This time we hardly had the debate at all,  Despite his instructions going from south to north and despite it being over territory with which we would be increasingly unfamiliar, we opted to travel in the southerly direction.

I nearly named this journey “Down the Plughole” till I realised that would be following something less salubrious than drinking water!  

The pages that follow record our journey Down the Pipeline.