Coast to Coast - Day One

Day One: St Bees to Ennderdale (14 miles)

David seems to have brought a lot of stuff. He has a large case, carefully packed by Joyce, which will become harder and harder to close as David's packing and repacking displaces its contents, also a large day pack, which is also full and rather heavy (I now understood the need for a very small pebble). When he was strapping on gaiters after breakfast, I wondered if I had packed too light.

This is where it all starts - the beach at St Bees

First job was to wet our boots, but we'd only gone 100 yards when I put my hand in my pocket and found the key to the B&B. Thank goodness I found it there and not at Ennerdale! After that false start, it was a straight to the sea for a paddle and then the first steps on our journey.

Unfortunately, those first steps are steeply uphill. A gentle stroll along the shore would have helped my breakfast go down, but we soon realised that Wainwright loved nothing more than a steep, uphill climb, unless it was an even steeper descent. If that man saw a hill, he had to climb it.

David and I had done a few training walks around the village, In Rutland and Norfolk and we have a similar pace, but we had not done any serious hill-climbing because there are no serious hills to climb. I found that David walks uphill slightly faster than me, so the trick is to get in front and set the pace if it's a steep climb.

The coast is quite stunning with steep cliffs and lots of nesting birds packed onto ledges. We'd been going a couple of miles when we were passed on the coast path by a man and woman, who we were later to get to know much better, called Karen and Jess. That first section along the coast took much longer than expected which was the story of the walk. A couple of miles around Toneham takes 40 minutes, but on the walk, we'd see a sign saying one mile to a particular point and after half an hour we might see it in the distance. Cumbria and (especially) Yorkshire miles seem twice the length of Cambridgeshire miles.

The path eventually turns inland through a couple of villages and then along an old railway track for a couple of miles. We found old railway tracks a little haven of easy walking later in the journey and this one allowed us to put on some distance with minimal effort. As we approached the first village (Sandwith) we were passed by two men and a woman, who were steaming on. As we came around a bend, I found a pair of gloves on the road obviously dropped by the woman. They were just about in earshot and she came jogging back. It turns out they were walking the C2C for the fourth time having already done it twice west to east and once east to west.

David is good with a map. His life as a farmer seems to have given him an appreciation of the countryside and he manages to get his bearings better than I do. We successfully navigated our first bog and ate some lunch at the church in Cleator sat in a little cloister on a stone slab. David went to his pack and pulled out a couple of foam pads to sit on - he is well prepared! We'd got a packed lunch from our first landlady and it was clear we were not going to manage to eat it all. I have found before that on a long day's walking, all I want in the middle is an energy bar or a biscuit and some fluids. Four rounds of ham salad sandwiches is too much.

The landlady at St Bees had told us there was a single woman called Juliet who would be completing the walk that day from east to west and so we spent the whole day looking (in vain) for Juliet.

David at the top of Dent Hill

After Cleator, we had our first major climb of the walk. At 344m, Dent Hill is not much of a challenge, but everyone talked about it. I enjoyed the walk up - a long, even climb with the views opening out around us. We had a good view of the sea, Isle of Man, the nuclear plant at Windscale and the Lakeland fells where we would be walking for the next few days. Frustratingly, after five hours walking, St Bees still seemed only a stone's throw away. On top of Dent Hill, we met two Liverpudlian women in their early 50s, who were doing the walk.

If the walk up Dent Hill had been comfortable, the walk down at the side of Raven Crag into the steep valley of Nannycatch Beck was less so. It is very steep and there's no clear path. Thankfully, the weather was dry and sunny; in the rain it would be a nightmare. David's right knee was hurting. He'd tweaked it on the walk down into Cleator before lunch and it was now troubling him badly. He had insisted on bringing his favourite walking stick with him, a beautiful long, heavy wooden stick with a twisted wood handle and brass tip. It's great for carrying around the farm, but (in my view) too heavy and unbalancing for long-distance walks. I lent him my poles for the descent and we made it down OK, but an injury like that was a worry on day one of the walk.

The last four miles into Ennerdale are an easy walk along the side of Nannycatch Beck and then alongside a minor road for a while. I stopped to talk to a woman with an old springer spaniel. She was providing some support to her son and daughter-in-law, who were doing the walk but camping and carrying (hardcore). She and her husband had a camper van and were providing the odd tent-free night for them. She was quite anxious that they hadn't passed two footsore old men as they were "very good walkers" and we left her worrying like only a mother can. Half a mile down the road, dad was sitting on a bench. "They'll turn up soon," he said.

In Ennerdale, the first building we came to was a new cafe that had opened only a few weeks earlier. We had been heading for the pub, but we decided a cup of tea would be better. The cafe would not have been out of place in Shoreditch, with more types of fancy tea than you could imagine and no tea-bags allowed. Teapots with a little pouch for loose tea were delivered (slowly) to your table and each came with a set of fancy sand-glasses which you turned over as the tea arrived. There were three timers, for weak, medium or strong. I'd have liked a spoon to give it all a good stir! Infusion needs agitation in my book.

That night we were staying at Rowrah Hall, about three miles from Ennerdale and the arrangement was that we'd call from Ennerdale and be picked up. Our landlady (Maggie) arrived in a Jaguar estate and we gave the two Liverpool girls a lift to Rowrah where they were also staying (in the Swan). Rowrah Hall was a lovely place and Maggie (another Liverpudlian) was living the good life - she kept hens, bees, grew her own veg and made her own cakes, biscuits and granola. Our accommodation was self-contained at the side of the main building and comprised a lounge and kitchen downstairs and bedroom plus bathroom upstairs. It was probably our best B&B of the trip. That night, at Maggie's recommendation, we ate at The Hound Inn (prawn salad) and downed a few pints of Black Sheep.

Rowrah Hall - possibly the best B&B of the trip

Coast to Coast - Day Two

Day Two: Ennerdale to Stonethwaite (16 miles)

First injury of the tour: I
break my tooth on a biscuit

This was our first day of walking in the Lake District (proper) and involves a climb of over 600 metres to a pass at Grey Knotts, which takes us from Ennerdale into Borrowdale.

There's the option of a high-level route over Red Pike and High Stile, but we had decided to stick to the easier track and, on the advice of Maggie, our landlady, we also took the slightly longer, but easier, north shore of Ennerdale Water on account of David's knee, which was troubling him.

The day began with a drive back to Ennerdale. Maggie's husband did the honours in another Jaguar and it turns out he's a policeman specialising in armed response. You wouldn't think Cumbria needed armed police, but of course, there was an incident in 2010 when taxi driver Derrick Bird went on the rampage with a shotgun and killed 12 people plus 11 more injured. Maggie's husband hadn't been on duty that day, but remembered it well and gave us a run-down of what happened, including lots of lucky escapes.

It was another beautiful day in the Lakes and the walk around Ennerdale Water was not without a climb and scramble, but was certainly easier than the southern path. It also meant we got to see Crag Fell and Robin Hood's Chair. Where the two paths joined, we met a lone woman hiker looking a little perplexed and I wondered if it was Juliet, still trying to find her way to St Bees.

Not Juliet, but Sue. We never did find Juliet.

We offered the help of our combined navigational skills and it turns out the woman was called Sue, she was from Australia and she was walking the coast to coast on her own. She joined up with us for the rest of the day and we spent the next nine days walking with her as far as the North York Moors.

The valley path takes you on a good track to a youth hostel called Black Sail Hut near the head of Ennderdale. From there, you can see a path that goes steeply up the head of the valley and over the top via Windy Gap. Sam and I walked that route maybe 18 years ago. We'd been up to Wasdale to climb Scafell Pike and the following day we were going to go up Great Gable but the cloudbase was too low and it was rather windy, so we decided to climb up to Styhead Tarn and then up the path (Windy Gap) between Great Gable and Green Gable, around the back of Great Gable and then down again into Wasdale. It was a steep old climb and I almost turned off down the path we could now see, which would have taken us into Ennerdale. Luckily, Sam proved a better navigator and we stayed high before dropping down into the right valley behind Kirk Fell.

Well Windy Gap was not for us this day, but we did have a steep climb to the north alongside Loft Beck and up to the side of Grey Knotts. Before that, however, disaster struck! We were eating lunch at the Black Sail and Maggie had provided us with some homemade biscuits. As I bit into it, I felt my tooth move. Quickly, I disengaged my gnashers but it was too late, my poor tooth (an old bridge) was hanging loose and I pulled it off and popped it into a little plastic bag supplied by Sue. So now I had no choice but to complete the walk either looking like a complete chav or not smiling - it had to be a front tooth didn't it!

David and I at Black Sail Hut

After Black Sail Hut, the route is indistinct and boggy in places, although spring has been quite dry after the rains of December, so we weren't in danger of going over our boots. It's a hard, rocky ascent and then a more pleasant walk across the top of the pass alongside Grey Knotts before dropping down into Borrowdale, via Honister. The views of Haystacks and down to Buttermere were good and, because it was a Sunday, there were quite a few people about. Heading north, we hit the course of the old tramway from the Honister Slate Mine and followed that down to the visitor centre (it's now a tourist attraction). It was already late afternoon, so we had tea and cake in the cafe before heading off to Stonethwaite where we'd stay for the night.

David had found the descent very tough and his knee was hurting, but we still had some way to go. The rest of the walk was downhill and easier. It's amazing how quickly the landscape softens and becomes more lush as you lose height; it's also amazing how long and hard those last few miles feel each day.

Our accommodation was in Stonethwaite, which is a mile further on than Rosthwaite (the standard destination for stage two), so with our extended walk around the lake and this extra mile, we'd probably clocked up 18 miles today. We found our landlady for the night sitting in the early evening sun in her front garden, so we said hello and then went to the village pub, The Langstrath, for medicinal alcohol. It turns out that Sue can down a gin and tonic like a suckling lamb. Sue was also staying in our B&B and we arranged to meet for dinner at the pub later. I wished we were staying at The Langstrath as our B&B was a bit more basic. The Langstrath was built in 1590 as a row of miners cottages and has been extended and altered over the years. Food was good and we met up again with Karen and Jess, who had passed us on the first day. They are good fun. Karen is in her forties and determined to stay fit; Jess is fit, but is quite a big chap and has a voice not unlike comedian Johnny Vegas.

There was a group of young people in the pub, who were very drunk. I got talking to one in the gents and he said they were from Workington and had been swimming in Stonethwaite Beck. Apparently, there are waterfalls and pools further up and he got his phone out (one handed) to show me the pictures. Nothing interrupts the flow of urine like looking at pictures on a stranger's smartphone. The only thing that spoiled their day was there was no Jagermeister in the pub for Jager bombs.

I'd like to go back to Stonethwaite one day ...