It has been a long held ambition of mine to walk the route from St.Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood's Bay on the east side of the country, a distance of around 194 miles depending on the exact route taken. The Coast to Coast walk, and informal route across the country from west to east, was described by Alfred Wainwright, a prolific walker and writer in 1973. Since then, the route has been followed by many people in a variety of ways, from carrying everything themselves and camping, to staying in hotels and having luggage carried from place to place. I opted for the latter and booked to do half the route with The Ramblers Holidays ending at Kirby Stephen after 7 days of walking.
I took photos along the way, and as a way of remembering this special route taken, I'm going to add the best of the photos onto the blog, remembering a day at a time. It was only a year since I'd last visited St Bees and written about it here.
On our first day we walked from St Bees where we had stayed at the beautifully situated Seacote Hotel right on the front. We followed the tradition of picking up a pebble to throw into the sea when we got to Robin Hood's bay, in fact many of us picked up 2 pebbles, one to keep. We also dipped our feet in the sea and took photos of ourselves in front of the sign advertising the walk:
I was keen to get started, but there was lots of fiddling about to be done with taking photos of each other and wandering about the beach.
Above a photo of Jane Milner-Barry, the friend who kindly agreed to come on the walk with me, and
some of the standing about.
Below the route outlined with a bit about Wainwright.
At the start of the walk, we walked over St Bees Head, close to the cliffs before cutting inland beside a quarry and along to Sandwith village where the local pub is probably too close to the start of the walk to attract many customers.
We passed this rather fine statue of Alfred Wainwright erected by Moor Row residents association, 'Coast to Coast', is by Colin Telfer.
A bit further along the route, we had lunch in St Leonards Church covered area in Cleator
My mother's family lived in Cleator when she was growing up, so there's a fair chance that she sat where we were sitting, a lovely thought.
It's rather a fine sandstone church
From Cleator, we walked over Dent hill, our first elevation and view:
Ending up in the pub at Ennerdale Bridge
I took photos along the way, and as a way of remembering this special route taken, I'm going to add the best of the photos onto the blog, remembering a day at a time. It was only a year since I'd last visited St Bees and written about it here.
On our first day we walked from St Bees where we had stayed at the beautifully situated Seacote Hotel right on the front. We followed the tradition of picking up a pebble to throw into the sea when we got to Robin Hood's bay, in fact many of us picked up 2 pebbles, one to keep. We also dipped our feet in the sea and took photos of ourselves in front of the sign advertising the walk:
some of the standing about.
We passed this rather fine statue of Alfred Wainwright erected by Moor Row residents association, 'Coast to Coast', is by Colin Telfer.
It's rather a fine sandstone church
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