When the northbound road leaves Keswick, it skirts the head of Derwentwater, curves into the picturesque village of Portinscale and then runs more or less straight up a broad and level valley until it arrives at the little, mountain-shadowed hamlet of Braithwaite. There is a fair amount of traffic up this valley, particularly in the summer; tourists wending their way into the Buttermere valley are bound to take this road, for the very simple reason that there’s no other road to take. It also links up the inland Cumbrian towns with the coastal towns of Whitehaven, Workington and Maryport.