This journal describes our walk, the Coast to Coast Walk, from St Bees on the west coast of England to the pretty fishing village of Robin Hood's Bay on the east coast - a distance of approximately 310 kilometres. The route was devised by Alfred Wainwright and is very popular with walkers. There were five in our party - Henk and I, our friend Neil O'Brien from Brisbane, Ron Donnelly from Manchester and his friend Chris Tordoff from Cambridgeshire. Henk and I met Ron three years previously on the Pennine Way when we were undertaking our Land's End to John O'Groats walk.
We started our walk by keeping to tradition and dipped our toes in the Irish Sea at St Bees and chose a stone from the beach to carry along the way. When we reached Robin Hood's Bay we dutifully threw our stone into the water. As one of the tourist brochures stated, "That should confuse geologists a few thousand years hence!"
The walk took fifteen days with one rest day through three major and contrasting national parks - the Lakes District, the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors. The walk is traditionally undertaken from west to east as it keeps the prevailing wind and rain on one's back. Unusually, this was not the case and we spent much of the time walking into headstrong winds, hail, sleet and very briefly on one occasion some snow high on the moors. Overall, the weather was not kind to us but this added to the experience and the exhilaration of the walk.
We averaged twenty-one kilometres a day with the longest being twenty-five kilometres from Rothswaite to Patterdale. This was the toughest and longest day as there were two major peaks to climb and the weather was quite bleak.
We mostly stayed in Bed and Breakfasts and occasionally hotels. Henk, Neil and I chose the company, The Sherpa Van Project to carry our luggage rather than carry heavy packs. They also booked our accommodation. Each morning we had our luggage packed by eight thirty ready for the pick up. Ron and Chris used another company, the Packhorse to transport their gear.
We had a wonderful time and we particularly enjoyed getting into our walking gear again and getting out into the challenging elements taking in the wonderful scenery.
Henk and Di.
