Coast to Coast Walk

The Coast to Coast walk is a 190 mile route from St. Bees on England’s west coast to Robin Hood’s Bay on England’s east coast. The walk passes through three of England’s best national parks: Lake District, Yorkshire Dales, and North York Moors.

For the second leg of this summer’s walk, I’ll join the Coast to Coast path at mile 38 in Grasmere. Although I’ll miss the first 38 miles, I’ll be walking through much of that area (and more) when I return to the Lake District in a few weeks.

I previously walked the Coast to Coast in 1999 -- my first long distance walk, and my first walk in the U.K. I enjoyed it so much that I have returned to the U.K. several times. As of now, I have walked more than 2,500 miles in England, Scotland and Wales, and if all goes well, by the end of the summer the total will exceed 3,000. I can’t say I’ve enjoyed every mile as much as I enjoyed the Coast to Coast, but I’ve enjoyed enough miles to keep on returning. 

Day 8 -- Grasmere

Today I hired a guide Guide, Ian Carter,  to lead me on a hike in the fells (hills) around Grasmere. He took me on a loop walk over the high ridges, approximately a thousand miles and a million feet elevation gain. I have a poor connection right now, so will add more to the post along with fantastic images soon.

Now that I've got a Wi-Fi connection I can continue this post.  Perhaps the irst paragraph was a little exaggerated. The images aren't all that fantastic, but here they are.

 Guide Ian Carter at Helm Crag

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Day 7 -- Grasmere

My arrival at Windermere marked the end of the Dales Way and completion of the first leg of my walk. The second leg begins Saturday with the Coast to Coast walk, a walk I did 17 years ago. Back then, I didn’t have any time to spend at Grasmere, a pretty little tourist village in a beautiful part of the Lake District. This time I allowed time to walk around the village today by taking a bus from Windermere to Grasmere. I’ll hike the nearby hills (or “fells”) around Grasmere tomorrow.

Although Grasmere village and most of its infrastructure are many centuries old, there are a few modern conveniences. Take this lovely car, for instance. I wanted to, but it was closely guarded.

 

 

One learns a lot walking around tourist villages. For one thing, where there are tourists, there must be toilets, and money is to be had by providing them.

 

Out in the countryside, there are lots of trees, so toilets aren’t actually necessary. But what I realized today is that you still have to pay to use a tree. That explains the money tree I saw a few days ago. I’ll need to buy a hammer at the next hardware store (“ironmonger”) I pass, so I can hammer my coins into the trees whenever I use them. I drink a lot of coffee so as the song says, “… I’ll hammer in the morning, I’ll hammer in the evening all over this land…” And a beautiful land it is.

 

 

Day 6 -- Kendal to Windermere, 9 miles

Kendal is home of the world famous Kendal Mint Cakes – not nearly as famous as my PB&J sandwich, but respectably famous nonetheless. Why, I suspect there are dozens of my readers who’ve never heard of Kendal Mint Cakes, but everyone’s heard of PB&J. I thought I might consult with the mint cake manufacturers and assist them in developing a peanut butter variety. But I realized that I will be in a better bargaining position if they contact me rather than if I contact them. So I’ll just wait until they contact me – shouldn’t be long now.

Shortly after leaving Kendal, I entered the Lake District National Park. National parks in Britain are quite different from those in the U.S. In the U.S., the government owns everything in a National Park (although sometimes there are pockets of private land that existed before the park was designated). In Britain, the government does not typically own the land. I presume that the major impact of national park designation is more onerous development regulations. I reach that conclusion because of an brand new gate I saw today. The homeowner apparently wants easy access to the property, but instead ended up with easy access to a 100-year-old stone wall. Go figure.

 

 

A heavy cloud cover was present the entire day, making the day perfect for walking. The clouds filtered out the sun, resulting in a low UV index. More importantly, the clouds kept the weather cool (upper 50s to low 60s F.), especially important since the humidity was 80% or more.

I met Ingrid, from Australia, several days ago in Ilkley during breakfast. She started walking after I did, passed me, and I never saw her again that day. Several days later, she started at a village about 3 miles behind where I started, and she quickly made up the distance and swept past me again. In Kendal, we stayed at the same B&B, and made arrangement to share a taxi to Burneside in order to avoid repeating several miles of road walking. I decided to keep up with her this time – and I did for at least 25 yards. Then she turned on the after-burners and quickly left me in the dust – or rather mud, because there is no dust on these trails. From a ridgeline I could see that in 10 minutes she had gained almost a half mile on me. I think she’s a “destination” person.

Ingrid waving goodbye

With nobody to talk with, I decided to take a picture of myself in the countryside. Why not, the countryside is magnificent. With all humility, I’ll withhold comment on myself.

 

 

 

 

Day 5 -- Sedbergh to Kendal, 14 miles

At breakfast, I learned the proper pronunciation of the town's name, at least so far as the server is concerned: Setburr -- no hard "D" in the middle and no berg or bruh at the end. So there you have it from someone who lives there. I'm sticking with that, for all it matters, because I left town thereafter.

 

Despite the reasonable distance, today’s walk was extremely slow. Bad footing due to wet rocks, roots and mud combined with difficult route finding, numerous stiles and gates, and an unintelligible diversion due to a bridge closure, all slowed my pace to a crawl – and I didn’t even stop to talk with anybody. That’s because I met only two people during the entire walk.

 

 

 

 

 

One was a farmer who shouted from his passing tractor that I was headed in the wrong direction, “Wrong way, fella, you need to cross the bridge and turn left.” No matter that the footpath sign pointed where I was headed. I thanked him and courteously followed his advice, and when he was out of sight, I checked my map. He was right, the directional post was wrong.

 

Diversion notice (unintelligible)

 

As I neared Kendal, I reached a point where I had a choice: either follow the most direct route along a busy A road that may or may not have a verge, of follow a slightly longer route through pastures that may or may not have decent footing. As I pondered the decision, a local farmer stopped, got out of his car and explained that the A road would not be interesting (I knew that already) but the route crossing the farmland would be better. He assured me that the farm route “had good footing underneath” and that the grass had been mown last week. I followed his recommendation and had a better walk.

 

Shelf fungus growing on tree

Kendal is a large city with too much traffic, but a nice town center. I will take some form of public transportation tomorrow to escape the city limits and avoid road walking.

Day 4 -- Ribblehead to Sedbergh, 10 miles + train

I’ve admired the Ribblehead viaduct since I first saw it during My 1200 Mile Summer. Janet and I drove to it the following year, but as I recall we had difficulty finding a parking space so we could get a good photo. Or more properly, I had difficulty finding a parking space, probably because I was in a right-hand-drive car. But yesterday, I had no difficulty seeing it, and this morning I actually walked over to it. It’s essentially a stone trestle built to span a gap – there is no river underneath.

Ribblehead Viaduct

 

Today’s walk was supposed to have been 17 miles, but at the last minute I decided it would be fun to take a train across the viaduct. It was. I tried to take some pictures from the train, but it was moving at 60 mph, so I didn’t have the time to frame the images. This is the best I could get.

 

From train -- Penyghent in distance

I boarded the train at Ribblehead, and disembarked at the next station in Dentdale. The trip took exactly 10 minutes, covered 7 miles, and reduced the length of today’s walk to 10 miles. I needed a rest day anyway.

The walk followed the River Dee, descending the western watershed. It was perfect in every way. No wind, no bogs, gradual descent, and no route-finding issues. It was the kind of walk that makes you thankful to be in the countryside. It was the kind of walk you would want to take your wife on. It was the kind of walk that makes you think that if anything goes wrong, you’ll be totally embarrassed. And best of all,  there were other people along the way.

 

 

I met the first chap a short distance from the railroad station. He was a homeowner putting out the garbage, and was obviously enchanted by my accent when I told him this was a lovely area.

“Be perfec widdow thuh moor bice,” he replied.

“The moor bice? Are they like midges?” I asked.

“No, thuh miggies are in Scollan. Here itsuh moor bice.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The moor bice. The moor bice.” He took two steps toward me, and demonstrably reached out his hands as if gripping handlebars, and flexed his right wrist. “The moor bice. Yuh moo to thuh cunry to geh way from traffih, and moor bice kee racin’ dow thuh row. Mosely on wee enz, buh alla time. Weah yuh headeh?”

Not wanting to appear like a novice, I gave my destination the English pronunciation. “Sedbruh.”

“SeDberG,” he corrected me.

I nodded, wished him a good day, and moved on.

A little later I met Alan and Jo. They are walking the Dales Way in stages, as the British frequently do.

 

Alan and Jo

Brenda and Deryk are in their 80’s. They’ve walked from Land’s End to John O’Groats in stages, over a period of 16 years. But more importantly, they’ve been married for 62 years. So there you go, Richard and Teresa – another challenge for you.

Brenda and Deryk

 

 

Brenda asked where I was going.

“SeDberG, I replied with my newly acquired knowledge of pronunciation.

“Sedbruh,” she replied. “It’s a lovely walk.”

“Yes,” I thought to myself, “unless my legs get tired and I geh a moor bigh.”

 

 

 

 

Day 3 -- Buckden to Ribblehead, 13 miles

Today’s walk ascended the length of Wharfedale, crossed over the watershed divide, and descended into Ribblehead. It was a delightful walk to experience, except for the cold winds, the unforgiving bogs, the relentless ascent, and the difficult route-finding. There was no one else – absolutely nobody – in sight the entire day. Initially, I could see a few cars on a distant road, but before long, there were not even distant roads. It was the kind of walk that makes you thank your lucky stars that you’ve experienced all those conditions before (although maybe not all of them at the same time) and then to doubly thank your stars that your wife wasn’t with you. It was the kind of walk that makes you think if you can handle this, you can handle anything, even if you really can’t. It was the kind of walk that makes you think that if anything goes wrong, all of your other worldly concerns will never again bother you. And I loved every minute of it.

Those of you who followed My 1200 Mile Summer may remember the bad grades I gave to the Pennine Way, and that I vowed never to walk it again. Today’s walk eventually joined with the Pennine Way. I was never so happy to see the Pennine Way as I was today.

There’s no way I can possibly share the experience or the range of emotions, so I’ll just tantalize you with the scenery. But don’t be misled. Viewing the scenery in person is only for professionals – don’t try this at home.

Field of flowers
 

Alongside the Wharfe

Drystone walls

Shrinking stream

So remote that payphones still exist

Deserted trail

Nobody around

"I've been here before"

Weather rock

Un-ending moors

Nobody there