Coast to Coast Walk

I have just finished walking the Coast-to-Coast route from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin’s Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire.

It’s described as one of the top 10 long-distance walks in the world, just over 190 miles and first suggested by Alfred Wainwright, the man who mapped so many routes in the Lake District.

It doesn’t sound spectacular compared to the Tour de Mont Blanc or Camino de Santiago, but I guess what makes it special is that you have a sense of travelling through a landscape; it’s not all mountains or all coastline, the countryside changes from the rugged Lake District, through the Westmoreland Plateau, into the limestone of the peaty Pennines, down Swaledale from high valley to gentle countryside, across the Vale of Mowbray to the bogs of the North York Moors and on to a coast walk into Robin Hood’s Bay.

There are changes of agriculture, there are changes of fauna and the three areas of high land in the national parks are all very different.

It’s often quite tough walking, made all the more difficult this year because of the severe floods which hit Cumbria and Yorkshire last winter. This has caused a number of landslips, but has also washed out many paths and left others resembling dry stream beds. Where there were steps and a level surface underfoot, there’s now nothing but the bigger boulders – very hard on the feet!

Navigation is also a challenge. The route is poorly signposted throughout. In many parts, there are no signs and, in other places, signs are inconsistent and unreliable. You need a map with the route marked on and a good guide book. In the Lake District, if the weather closes in, you may need a compass. I think you’ll also need the moral support of a companion. You could always make friends en route, but I walked it with my near neighbour, David Jones.

We used Discovery Travel to book our accommodation, The Pack Horse delivered our bags to each B&B in turn and for navigation we had Harvey's special Coast-to-Coast maps, which have the route marked and split the walk into sections across two maps; also Trailblazer's Coast-to-Coast Path book, which has lots of information and also many detailed, sketch maps.

Neither is entirely sufficient - the maps in the book are somewhat too detailed and often hard to fathom, while Harvey's maps are a little small in scale and need more detail. The ideal would be an OS Landranger with the route drawn on, but I had the next best thing. I subscribe to the OS on-line service at £18 per year and they provide a free smartphone app which allows you to read maps on your phone and pinpoint your exact position using GPS. You can also insert your own routes and I found a .gpx file with all waypoints marked that I was able to import. This meant that when we were in doubt about our route or position, we could refer to the app for revision or re-assurance. It was very useful.

Poor waymarking and poor paths were an irritation. The Coast-to-Coast walk attracts thousands of people from all over the world and is vital for the economy of a wide corridor through northern England and yet it has not been designated as an official long-distance path. It should be given official status and it should have money invested on improving paths and on proper, consistent waymarking.

What did I enjoy most about the walk? The scenery was stunning, it was a challenge, I liked the variation, I loved the wildflowers and I saw lots of interesting birds.