Unravel the secrets to having a brilliant budget adventure in the Lakes – Scotland on Sunday Travel

Author of a new book about hiking through the Lake District, Tom Chesshyre recounts a memorable low cost (and low temperature) stay in a bothy.

The Mosedale Cottage bothy in the Lake District. Pic: PA Photo/Tom Chesshyre.

It’s midnight and it’s freezing – literally freezing. The bedroom is minus 1C.

This isn’t quite the bothy experience I’d expected. My sleeping bag claims to cope with temperatures as low as minus 15C. But it doesn’t. Why is it so cold? The room is an icebox.

Staring at the cobwebbed ceiling of Mosedale Cottage Bothy, near Haweswater in the northeast Lake District, the temperature dips further still. I’m by myself; no other bothy dwellers that night.

Mosedale Cottage bothy in the Lake District, England. Pic: PA Photo/Tom Chesshyre.

It’s all my fault: I’d forgotten to pack a camping mat. You need a camping mat for a sleeping bag to work properly. So goes the penultimate night of a month-long ramble from Penrith and back via great swathes of one of Britain’s most popular tourist destinations; all alone and shivering in a bothy. Ullswater, Keswick, Cockermouth, Coniston: I had seen them all, along with Ambleside, Bowness, Cartmel, Grasmere and many places in between, staying at a succession of cheerful inns, friendly little B&Bs, small rambler-friendly hotels and private rooms at efficiently run hostels.

It had been a dream hike in April travelling in a big circular route. I kept mainly to the lowlands, climbing a few peaks that caught my eye: Haystacks, Blencathra, the Old Man of Coniston and Scafell Pike, England’s highest mountain at 978 metres. I was seeing the Lakes in a casual ramble.

I was more than 350 miles in, only 30 to go back to Penrith, where I started, after the night at Mosedale Cottage and another in the village of Shap. Despite the nocturnal difficulties, Mosedale Cottage Bothy, in the upper valley of Mosedale Beck, proves one of the trip’s highlights. It comprises a cluster of quaint whitewashed buildings surrounded by golden grassland and rolling fells. A burbling stream provides fresh drinking water, and a little yard includes a spot for barbecues.

Bedrooms may be basic, but they are clean and tidy. A sparse yet functional living room comes with chairs and a table with Lake District books and left-behind tea candles.

Lost In The Lakes, the new book by Tom Chesshyre. Pic: PA Photo/Summersdale.

Then there’s a fireplace-cum-stove. Had I brought my own fuel it would have been toasty and perfect, not that I had minded with an engrossing book and a good bottle of red wine. I may not have taken a camping mat or fuel, but I had not forgotten the wine.

Previous visitors had cooked delicious-sounding fish stews and hotpots. I knew this, as these gourmet evenings were described in a mouldy old guestbook. Other entries told of knees-ups with songs into the early hours beside the glowing grate.

Some of the stories were not so happy go lucky, though. A few former visitors had rotten times, arriving soaked from storms having stumbled through nearby bogs. Staying in remote bothies, it seems, can involve a steep learning curve.

Mosedale is overseen by the Mountain Bothies Association. In the Lake District, there are a mere five bothies (bothies really being a more common Scottish phenomenon). Mosedale is among the most popular, with room for about 20 people.

Mosedale in the Lake District. Pic: PA Photo/Alamy.

You need not book in advance, just turn up. It can be busy or empty, as when I went.

Done properly, bothies in the Lakes are a treat, plus a great way to keep down costs. But they are not the only way. Combined with staying mainly at hostels and limiting overnights at inns and hotels to weekdays when prices are lower – as I did – it is possible to become a happily frugal long-distance hiker in the Lakes, without resorting to camping.

Pitching tents would be a lot cheaper. But that’s a whole different form of travel, with a much heavier backpack.

Another way of preserving cash, I found, was always to pack picnic lunches. Save money by day, then by night, if you’re not staying in a remote bothy, live it up in the Lake District’s plethora of good value pubs, restaurants and fish and chip shops.

Yet the cheapest of all nights – in the bothy – proves the most memorable of my month-long trip. The tremendous sense of isolation out on the empty fells is both inspiring and haunting: the resounding silence so far from any roads; the constellations twinkling in the jet-black sky; the slow lazy rise of a gorgeous red dawn.

No tourist hordes: this isn’t Bowness or Ambleside. No tourists at all. Just remember to take a camping mat and some fuel… and you can stay in a bothy without any bother at all.

How to plan your trip

For further information, visit mountainbothies.org.uk and visitcumbria.com.

Lost In The Lakes: Notes from a 379-Mile Hike Around the Lake District by Tom Chesshyre is published by Summersdale. Available now