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| Raring to go |
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| Lots of energy at the start |
We'd talked for a while about doing a long
distance walk during our year off. After walking up Kilimanjaro we decided
that we wanted a different type of walk without a guide, carrying
our own luggage and sleeping comfortably.
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Partaking in the tradition of taking a
pebble from the West to the East coast |
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| The Irish Sea |
When we lived in England we enjoyed walking in
the Lake District so when reading around, we were delighted when we came across
a walk that goes through this area and more besides; the Coast to Coast walk. The nearly 200 miles (320 km) walk was the invention of Alfred Wainright.
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| Time for a "cuppa" on day 1 |
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| Beautiful Ennerdal |
It starts on the west coast at St Bees by the Irish Sea and finishes in
Robin Hoods Bay by the North Sea passing through three national parks, The Lake
District, The Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors.
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| Ennerdale Water |
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| A nice cup of tea at Black Sails Hostel |
We started on the 1st of May and
booked B&Bs for only a few days at a time so that we could take a break when we felt
like it. This worked really well and we were able to find accommodation fairly
easily Later in the season everything is booked up and more pre-booking is
necessary. We stayed primarily in different types of B&Bs which were all very
good and some outstanding.
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| Just missing the skis above Rosthwaite |
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| Woods above Grasmere |
In the beginning we carried our own luggage, but after
a few days Phil was really suffering with blisters so we enlisted the help of a
company called Packhorse to carry our luggage via the road from one place to the next meaning
we could then walk with one large daypack and a bum bag for the rest of the time.
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| Road walking is hard on the feet |
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| Walk from Grasmere to Patterdale |
We were very lucky with the weather especially through
the Lake District. We had a couple of days with a lot of rain, but apart from
that it was sunny with the occasional shower.
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| Grasmere in the distance |
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| Striding Edge - Is this really walkable? |
A
fter leaving the coast the first part of the
walk is through The Lake District. This is the most demanding part of the walk
both in terms of views and hills going over mountains, down valleys and by
lakes and rivers visiting lovely villages such as Rosthwaite, Grasmere and
Patterdale.
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| View of Grisedale |
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| Farmhouse B&B |
The scenery is wild and beautiful reminding us of a
gentler version of Norwegian mountains. It brought back a lot of happy memories
from visits previously taken, but we felt more engrossed in it by walking from
village to village instead of having a base and taking day trips.
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| Early morning leaving Patterdale |
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| Changing weather |
The special attraction of this walk is its
variety in terms of landscape and how people have settled and influenced the
landscape. The walk leads you through small, picturesque villages with old churches,
farms and stone houses that haven’t changed much for centuries.
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| Lots of new lambs |
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| Kidsty Pike is the highest point, 780m |
Much of the land is divided by dry stone walls which
keep the different herds of sheep separate and creates a criss-cross pattern of
green fields. The sheep are very much part of the landscape and is the reason
that there are very few trees giving an open feel to the countryside.
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| Looking west over Haweswater |
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| Picnic at Haweswater Beck |
We are quite slow walkers and enjoy our breaks. We
stopped in a lot of nice places for a rest or a picnic. Even so we would have
liked to take even more time lingering in the beauty of the landscape.
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| Windy at Crosby Ravenworth Fell |
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| There were a lot of Wild Primroses |
After leaving the Lake District the scenery became
flatter and it was windier. The second part of the C2C walk crosses the Yorkshire Dales. This is gentler walking than the Lake District. After leaving the Market Town of Kirby Stephen we climbed uphill to the Nine Standards, nine large cairns, on the top of the moor.
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| Hot walking up to Nine Standards |
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| Large open moors |
We then crossed a large open expanse of boggy moorland with nothing
in sight except the flat moor seeming to go on for ever. We were alone up
there enjoying the solitude before walking down to the small village of Keld and our B&B. We left the next morning in the rain.
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| How many stiles did we climb? |
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| On the way to Richmond |
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| How do I keep my nose out of this? |
This was our first day of continuous rain. The path followed the very swollen River Swale all the way to Reeth. There were several places where we had to find an alternative route since the path was flooded. We found out that Phil's waterproofs were not as waterproof as we thought!
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| Phil in Richmond |
It was drier the next day on the flatish walk
from Reeth to Richmond. We needed a day off in Richmond to give Phil’s feet a
rest and just enjoy looking around the pleasant old town.
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| One of the many rapeseed fields |
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| View from escarpment at Cringle Moor |
The third part of the walk is through the North York Moors. However to get there we walked across the boringly flat, farmed Vale of Mowbray to Ingleby Cross. Then we walked the up the steep escarpment to join the Clevland Way, another long distance path.
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| Path meeting Cleveland Way |
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| I can't go any further....... |
From there it was a lengthy, but scenic walk
along the top with wide views and where we could glimpse the North Sea far off in the
distance.
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| Beggar's Bridge, Glaisdale |
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| Towards Glaisedale |
After the moors the walk took us down to the beautiful
village of Glaisedale and through quiet woods to the old steam train village of
Grosmont.We were now nearing the end of our long distance
walk and were trying to savour the lovely, lush green scenery.
