A personal journal recording and reflecting on my walks around the world.
My journey along Wainwrights’s Coast to Coast Walk from St Bee’s Head to Robin Hood’s Bay. Walking from the Irish Sea to the North Sea and through three National Parks this walk has everything, Mountains, Dales, Moorland and Ocean and is soon to become a National Trail. Click on the walk to read the post or use the interactive map to see the route.
Day 14 Glaisdale to Robin Hoods Bay 19 Miles
Day fourteen, the last day, starts with a wholesome farmhouse breakfast after a good nights sleep. Over breakfast we chat to the farmer about the weather and we all agree that it has been rather wet for the time of year. It’s a dairy farm and the farmer tells us that ‘even the cows are miserable’. This makes me wonder how you can tell a miserable looking cow from a normal looking cow but I guess I’m not with these cows every day for months and years. Continue reading “Coast to Coast Glaisdale to Robin Hoods Bay”
Day 13 Clay Bank Top to Glaisdale 18 Miles
The end of the walk, which for a couple of weeks has seemed so distant is now suddenly within touching distance and only two days walking away. They are long days though, seventeen to nineteen miles a piece depending on which book you read (I did this walk prior to possessing my very own GPS which no doubt would have given yet a different number!) We are dropped off at Clay Bank Top just after 9am and, like yesterday the day starts with an uphill leg and lung warmer, a steady six hundred feet of ascent from the road up onto Urra Moor.
Continue reading “Coast to Coast Clay Bank Top to Glaisedale”
Day 12 Osmotherley to Clay Bank Top 11 Miles
Having spent two days crossing the Vale of York we are now back in hill country and about to enter our third National Park, The Yorkshire Moors. We enter the Park just outside Ingleby Cross and the trail soon starts to head upwards at a steady incline through Arncliffe Wood. It is a still, silent morning and we are the only people around. As we climb through the wood, out of the corner of my eye I catch sight of a deer. It has its back to us and is munching away on some ferns about thirty feet away. Despite our best efforts all too soon it senses our presence and rapidly darts off into the undergrowth, it’s bouncing white bottom contrasting with the green foliage as it vanishes, magician like from view.
Continue reading “Coast to Coast Osmotherley to Clay Bank Top”
Day 11 Danby Wiske to Osmotherley 10 miles
We had breakfast with a couple who had stayed in the same B&B as us in Richmond, Michelle and Richard. They were fellow Coast to Coasters but were travelling light, they looked fit, had caught us up and would leave us behind today. Today will be the shortest day of the whole walk so we are not in any hurry to leave, finally getting on the road about 9.45am. It was another dry day with the sun breaking through the rolling clouds just occasionally. Continue reading “Coast to Coast Danby Wiske to Osmotherley”
Day 10 Richmond to Danby Wiske 14 miles
When I first walked this section of the Coast to Coast 26 years ago Gary and I walked (on the recommendation of Wainwright no less) from Richmond to Osmotherley all in one go, twenty three miles on a baking hot day. By the time we got to Osmotherley youth hostel our feet were throbbing from the road walking and we were pretty tired and dehydrated. Today will be a little bit more leisurely, we’re splitting the Vale of York in two and only walking to Danby Wiske. Richmond was quiet and the shops just opening as we pottered about a bit before setting off just as the church bells in Market square chimed for 10am.
Day 9 Reeth to Richmond 10 miles
After a comfortable night in the Dales Bike Centre we enjoy a leisurely continental breakfast in the bright dining room, surrounded by cycling posters and bike gear and feeling only a little out of place among the half dozen or so cyclists dressed in their Lycra. A relatively short stage to Richmond is the order of the day so we are in no rush to get out and we find ourselves in a bit of a holiday mood. Eventually we get ourselves moving, pack the rucksacks and head out into the fresh air. Continue reading “Coast to Coast Reeth to Richmond”
Day 8 Keld to Reeth 12 Miles
Keld sits right in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales. If you are a long distance walker, the chances are you have passed by this village on your travels as it lies not only on the Coast to Coast Walk but also the Pennine Way. Keld is a quiet, settled kind of place. Visiting it is a bit like going to your grandma’s house when you were a child, it’s safe, comfortable and reassuringly unchanging. Continue reading “Coast to Coast Keld to Reeth”
Day 7 Kirkby Stephen to Keld 12 miles
We don’t often consider it, but sleep is a powerful healer. Despite going to bed shattered and aching, this morning I woke up feeling renewed, the throbbing legs were feeling better and I was ready to get moving along the trail again. Like yesterday, we had breakfast with Bob and Alan who had also spent the night in the hostel. Apart from the four of us, there were only two other guests, two lads who I heard coming in in the early hours, drunk, loud and laughing. Denise the warden said they went around the country dressed as Spiderman but their car had broken down so they were stuck in Kirkby Stephen! Sounds like the plot of a road movie to me. Continue reading “Coast to Coast Kirkby Stephen to Keld”
Day 6 Shap to Kirkby Stephen 20 miles
Had a leisurely breakfast catching up with Bob and Alan who were also staying at New Ing Lodge. Gwen and I left at about 10am and as we stopped off at the Co Op to buy our chocolate supplies for the day my eyes were drawn to the newspaper headline on the billboard outside which read, “Gales batter the Lake District!”. Gwen and I of course didn’t need to be told this news, we had lived (and walked) through it. Continue reading “Coast to Coast Shap to Kirkby Stephen”