The Derwent Water walk is a circular walk around Lake Derwentwater of distance around 9 mile. The walk is flat all the way and should take approx 3 hours.

The starting point is at the Lakeland town of Keswick. There is plenty of parking places in the town itself.

Starting at Moot Hall in Keswick, walk westwards down hill along Main Street to the bridge crossing over the river Greta. After crossing the bridge turn immediately left along a trackway following the river and pass through the first gate on your right on to a broad pathway crossing two large fields to a roadway. Here turn left to a suspended footbridge. (1 mile).

Cross over the bridge and continue straight ahead into Portinscale Village. At the "T" junction at the village shop turn left and continue along the road till you come to a driveway signposted as leading to Nichol End. (1/2 mile).

Follow the driveway to the lakeshore and then continue along a trackway to your right leading behind Nichol End Marine. This crosses over a surfaced driveway and then leads past Fawe Park House and gardens to another surfaced driveway. (1/2 mile).

Cross straight over this driveway and continue through the gate opposite onto a pathway clearly signposted on the gate as leading to Cat Bells. The pathway leads through a woodland and an open meadow and to yet another driveway. Here turn left. The driveway immediately branches in two. Follow the righhand branch signposted for Haws End. No more than fifty yards along this drive, on your left, is a metal kissing gate. (1 1/4 miles).

Pass through the gate and follow the path leading from it to the lakeshore. Here begins a lakeshore path. Veering a little way from the lake this path soon links into a trackway, which in turn soon reduces to a path as it moves back to the lake. The path then stays very close to the lakeshore all the way to the Brandelhow boat landing. (1 1/4 miles).

From the landing keep to the waters edge along a very gravelly shoreline. Round the curve of the shore is a wooden fence stile crossing over that the route continues between the house and the outer shed just ahead, at which point is the start of a trackway. The track almost immediately splits in two. Keep to the right branch leading to a slate cottage called the Warren. Directly opposite the cottage is the start of a path signposted for Lodore. (1/4 mile).

This is a distinctive path though at one point it begins branching into several directions. It is probably best here to take the branch nearest to the lake. You should soon come to a wall. The path continues through a gateway in the wall fifty yards from the water. The path now continues over very boggy terrain for which the National Trust have provided a very unusual solution - a series of duck boards. These not only make the route feasible, but also provide excellent waymarks leading to a wide arched footbridge spanning the river Derwent. (3/4 mile).

From here a broad path leads to the Borrowdale road. Here turn left and follow the road north. Roughly a hundred yards past the Lodore Hotel on the right look for a sign for "Strutta Wood" from which begins a path paralleling the road signposted as rejoining the road further on. Where it joins the road a constructed path follows the lakeshore soon linking onto a pathway skirting round a delta of land projecting into the lake and returning back to the road. (1 1/4 miles).

From this point it is possible to keep to the lakeshore though it is very gravelly and stony and not too easy to walk along. So despite the traffic, it is easier to walk along the road, which within a few hundred yards is provided with a roadside pathway. Where there is an isolated sign saying "No Parking on Footpath" a path leads down to the lakeshore and continues as a firm lakeshore path to Stable Hills. Surprisingly though this route involves a slight amount of scrambling, to avoid which continue along the road another hundred yards to a break in the wall from which a broad path leads down to the lake. (1 1/4 miles).

From Stable Hills follow the access track leading to the building a few hundred yards and branch off the track to the left onto a path through a small gate next to another six bar gate. The path leads through a small wood known locally as "Dirty Wood" emerging from which it continues along the lakeshore, eventually leading into a surfaced roadway. Continue along the roadway back to Keswick. (1 1/4 miles).