Coast to Coast walk across England

Raring to go

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.

Partaking in the tradition of taking a
pebble from the West to the East coast

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.

Time for a "cuppa" on day 1

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.

Ennerdale Water

A nice cup of tea at Black Sails Hostel

We started on the 1^st 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.

Just missing the skis above Rosthwaite

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.

Road walking is hard on the feet

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.

Grasmere in the distance

Striding Edge - Is this really walkable?

After 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.

View of Grisedale

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.

Early morning leaving Patterdale

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.

Lots of new lambs

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.

Looking west over Haweswater

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.

Windy at Crosby Ravenworth Fell

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.

Hot walking up to Nine Standards

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.

How many stiles did we climb?

On the way to Richmond

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!

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.

One of the many rapeseed fields

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.

Path meeting Cleveland Way

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.

Beggar's Bridge, Glaisdale

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. 

We ate 17 of these in total!

Tea in Grosmont

We thought we might loose some weight doing all this walking, but with cooked breakfast every day, nice tea shops and tasty pub meals we were putting it on rather than loosing it.



 

Last farmhouse B&B

The North Sea

On the last day we walked through more woods, along one more beck and across another moor before reaching the spectacular cliff path by the sea and following the coastline until reaching Robin Hoods Bay.

iPhone app showing we've arrived!

We made it! The end at
Robin Hoods Bay

In light drizzle we arrived at Robin Hoods Bay. By this stage we felt tired, pleased and relieved all at the same time. We had crossed the country by foot!


Apart from Phil's blisters it had been a wonderful experience. We had walked through some beautiful scenery and met lots of nice people along the way. If we keep as fit as all the pensioners we met walking we'll have lots more walks in us yet!

After all this exercise we shall enjoy sitting around reading our books about South-America in preparation for our next trip.

Bath and "Constable Country"

One of the many hills in Bath

Phil’s dad, Douglas, is 80 this May. We wanted to spend part of our year off with him to celebrate his birthday as close to the actual date as possible. We were with him in Bath for two weeks. He spent his actual birthday with Helen and her family in Granada, Spain.

Douglas has become a keen painter since he retired and he particularly likes to paint in acrylic or water based oil paints. He likes to copy other paintings as a way of learning. One painting that he is particularly proud of is his copy of the “Hay Wain” by John Constable. This is one of the most famous paintings in England. It took Douglas about 3 months to complete it.

Douglas, Phil and John

He also likes many of Constable’s paintings that were painted in the south east of England between 1820 and 1850. We were trying to think what we could do to celebrate his birthday and thought that Douglas might like it if we took him to “Constable Country” and stayed there for a few days to see where Constable actually painted them. Not too far from Constable Country is Norwich. Norwich is where Douglas’s brother, John, lives. They haven’t seen each other for several years so we thought we should use the opportunity to visit John and his wife Erika and family at the same time.

Douglas's copy of the Hay Wain

How the "Hay Wain" looks today

The trip was planned and booked. First we drove to Norwich and visited John and his family in the evening. It was lovely to see them all again. The next morning we went round to their house for coffee before driving south to Dedham village to a cottage that we had rented for a couple of days. There were a lot of showers that day but it didn’t stop us walking around the area where Constable painted and to the actual spot where the Hay Wain was painted. Obviously things had changed in the 200 years since the Hay Wain was painted but it was still easy to see that it was done there.

Douglas and Iren happy in the rain

Douglas enjoying the view

There is a visitor centre and several other things to look at. Douglas really enjoyed seeing the area and so did we since none of us had been there before. The Suffolk and Essex borders are a very beautiful part of England and extremely quaint.

Out for a meal in Bath

After we got back to Bath we started to plan our next trip; to walk the “Coast to Coast”. This is a walk from the West Coast to the East coast of England and is just under 200 miles in length or 310 km. Before we started the walk we drove up to Glossop where Phil’s cousin, Julia and her husband Jim lives. We stayed with them for a night before the walk and 3 nights after the walk. We had planned to fly home from Manchester after the walk and since Glossop is very close to Manchester it was a great opportunity to visit Julia and Jim.

Visiting Phil's sister in Spain

Helen & Antonio and children

The Alhambra, Granada

We haven’t seen Phil’s sister, Helen, and her family for just over a year and that was only when our separate visits to dad at Christmas in 2010 coincided for a couple of days. So it was good to be able to spend a week with them in their flat in Granada, Spain.

It can be cold in Spain too

Eating out

We spent time just being together, wandering around the centre of Granada, going up into the Sierra Nevada and doing a half day walk with Helen. The
weather is nearly always hot in Granada but it was colder than normal. The Sierra Nevada area has snow until after Easter.

Making a snowman with the last snow

Cycling in the park

We all drove up to the Sierra Nevada for a walk around the area where one of the ski resorts is. It was over 3000 meters and there was still quite a lot of snow left. Not enough for the children to rent a sledge but enough to play around in.

The Monachil path got narrow in places

On one of the days, Helen had the day off whilst the children were at
school and Antonio was at work. Since it was a clear day we decided to
go for a walk on one of the trails from Monachil. It was hot when we left the car and Helen was a bit worried that she might get a headache as she sometimes does whilst exercising in the heat. She used the acequia water to cool her head down. Acequias are ingenious ancient water channels that the Moors built hundreds of years ago to transport mountain water down to their villages and towns. They are still fully working today.

Part of the cathedral in Grenada

Since we were going to be walking away from the acequias for the rest of the trail, Helen filled her empty water bottle with cold water for pouring over her head later. At the end of the walk we stopped in a traditional country bar for refreshments. 

Granada old town

Normally we like to visit the Alhambra when we are in Granada but this time we were unlucky. All the entry tickets for the day were sold out. Instead we spent our time wandering around parts of Granada that we haven't seen before. There are lots of narrow interessting streets to explore in the old part of town.

We tried to learn a bit of Spanish from Helen's children although they weren't too impressed with our efforts. We will be travelling to South America in a couple of months and hope to attend a Spanish language school to kick start our Spanish whilst we're there. Hopefully the children will be a bit more impressed the next time we meet.

Next we're off to Bath, England, to visit Phil's dad to celebrate his 80th birthday.