‘I’ve found mine,” said Alan with delight. In the palm of his hand was a small grey pebble. It doesn’t take a genius to find a stone on St Bees’ rocky shoreline, but this one was special. It was the one he’d chosen to carry in his pocket to the other side of the country. He held it in the air like a tiny trophy, while Tom and I hunted for ours. Finally we each settled on one. I gave mine a quick kiss and dropped it into my rucksack. “See you in a week,” I said nervously. A few photos, a shake of the legs, and we were ready to begin.
Anyone familiar with Alfred Wainwright’s 192-mile coast-to-coast walk will recognise this tradition. The great (and by all accounts fabulously grumpy) fell walker and guidebook writer plotted the route in 1973. It meanders from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay near Whitby, traversing the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, the North York Moors and all manner of peaty bogs, rock-strewn hills, rivers, quarries, meadows, trails, tracks, farms and derelict mines along the way. And anyone undertaking this epic adventure starts by dipping a toe in the sea and choosing a pebble.
In his beautifully illustrated book, A Coast to Coast Walk, Wainwright describes the trail in 12 stages. Each ends at a settlement with some overnight accommodation and, ideally, a pub. The journey makes for a perfect fortnight’s walking holiday with a couple of rest days along the way. Tom, Alan and I, for reasons no one cares to remember, have decided to run it in half the time. This means an average of almost 28 miles a day.
As the week wore on, however, the verb run became increasingly euphemistic and was replaced by jog, trot, stumble, walk, walk more slowly, walk even slower, crawl and, for one agonising section, bum-shuffle. It’s a tough challenge: we ascended (and of course descended) more than the equivalent height of Mount Everest. And that was just the running. It’s also a “navigational” challenge. There are few signposts. The route has the distinct dishonour of being one of the longest unmarked footpaths in Europe. You need a compass, guide book, map (there is no mobile phone service across great tracts of it) and a lot of luck. We were often lost or worried about getting lost. Or both.
If this all sounds a bit arduous, it was. But we’re not total idiots. In a master stroke we decided to let someone else carry our kit. We signed up with Sherpa Van, a baggage transfer service, which collected our overnight bag each morning and dropped it at our destination each evening. It cost £8 a day. On behalf of our knees, hips and shoulders, I’d like to thank them very much.
The day we arrived in St Bees, the Lake District was already in the grip of this unprecedented hot spell. A local told us that if you got two dry days in Cumbria you’d won the lottery. This summer they’ve had two months and counting. The place was burned golden brown. We started to think twice about all the wet-weather gear we’d packed. We checked into the Tomlin guesthouse, which we chosebecause it used to be a school and Alan’s father was evacuated to it during the war. We stayed in a dorm room in the attic, feeling the warmth of nostalgia drifting up through the floorboards.
The next morning we walked down to the sea. Mile Zero. Most coast-to-coasters traverse the country from west to east so the sun and the prevailing wind is at your back – both duly obliged. From St Bees the path heads straight up a long, grassy field before following the edge of a towering red cliff towards the lighthouse. We passed bored sheep and banks of wild flowers. A sign told us the cliffs were 750m years old. Within minutes we were all sweating and within half an hour we’d all tripped and stumbled on the uneven trail. We laughed and joked, but we also began to think it could be a very, very long week.
That first section took us through Cleator and over Dent Hill to a lunch stop at Ennerdale Bridge – 14 miles done and 14 to go that day. In the afternoon, fortified by sandwiches and sweets, we skirted Ennerdale Water and lurched on towards Haystacks – the bleak mountain where Wainwright’s ashes are scattered. The valley has no road access whatsoever and perched at its apex is Black Sail. It’s one of the most remote hostels in Britain. We gratefully fell through its open door. There was tea and biscuits and an honesty bar. We luxuriated in having the place – and it seemed the entire valley – to ourselves.
That evening we eventually arrived in Stonethwaite. We decided to start a tradition of our own: three pints each night and every one had to be different. We toasted ourselves with a pint of Wainwright’s ale – what else?
Day two took us through Grasmere and Patterdale, past Angle Tarn and over Kidsty Pike (at 2,560ft it’s the highest point on the trail), then down to Haweswater. We passed the aptly named Sprinkling Tarn – the wettest place in England. It usually receives a staggering 5 metres of rain a year. But not a single inch last month.
As we neared our night stop we get lost – again. We were aiming for Bampton Grange (where much of Withnail & I was filmed), but somehow we’d arrived in Bampton. We’d been on our feet for 10 hours, and had a sudden and fairly dramatic loss of morale. But at that moment a wiry old pensioner named Keith popped his head out of his bungalow and offered us a lift. We didn’t need to be asked twice. That evening we started another tradition: before every pint we toasted “Keith”. Before bed we were so tired that Tom accidentally put Savlon on his toothbrush.
From Shap we crossed the limestone pavement of Westmorland and then on to Kirkby Stephen. We paused by the Nine Standards Rigg. The origin of the “stone men” is a mystery, but they mark the main west/east watershed of England. The row of 10ft columnar cairns looks like bony vertebrae protruding from the country’s spine. From there we dropped into the time-lapsed village of Keld. Wainwright says: “There is a sundial here that records the hours, but time is measured in centuries.” We sat on a bench and wolfed more sandwiches. For us, time seemed to be going in the opposite direction. An hour flew by in seconds and we soon had to drag ourselves upright and stagger on.
The path was so ragged and rugged that in parts we found it impossible to walk let alone run. Students of running who are interested in times and personal bests might like to know that to cover one mile on a particularly treacherous section took us 47 minutes. We weren’t about to break any records.
After Keld we left the craggy mountains of Cumbria behind us and ran on with the vast, never-ending bleakness of the moors unfurling ahead. The green valley felt like nature’s buffer zone: between the savage, stony beauty of the west and the more placid charms of the east. It’s also the start of Swaledale. To me, this was the most sublime 30-mile section of the whole trip. It’s a spirit-lifting blend of satanic mines and heavenly pastures, of crumbling stone barns and age-worn paths, and all with the tumbling river Swale weaving through it.
We arrived at that night’s pub in the pretty town of Danby Wiske. As usual we dragged ourselves to the bar for the first of our restorative pints. They aren’t inventive with their pub names round these parts. Through the week we stayed in two Black Bulls, two Lions and one Swan. But in all of them, the welcome was the same – warm, humorous and very Yorkshire. We often met walkers who were traversing the same paths as us. The camaraderie was infectious. We shared stories and too many pints with people from New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Germany, Washington State (“What’s a curry?” asked the bewildered young American) – and two brothers from Huddersfield.
Many of our friends had never heard of the coast-to- coast (until we started bleating on about it), yet the trail has a worldwide reputation. Most of the walkers we met had come to England with the sole intention of hiking it.
Another hearty breakfast and off we went again. Flower meadows and fields of crops. The old stiles we clambered over were worn smooth by the clumpy shoes of so many hikers; the wire fences snagged with trailing clumps of sheep’s wool. We stopped outside yet another tiny pub, usually hunkered down against the winter weather but now bursting with flowering pots and with all the windows thrown open. We stroked a giant St Bernard puppy tied up in the yard. “This is Douglas,” said his owner, a young woman with blue hair. “He’s just been done, so now he’s Nutless Douglas!”
Onwards across classic moorland covered in purple heather and up through shaded and wooded hillsides. We put our chins down and ground out the miles along a ramrod straight abandoned railroad. Glaisdale and Grosmont came and went; Clay Bank and Blakey Ridge; Egton Bridge and High Hawsker. The names of the little villages rolled into one.
The last few miles curl along the coastal cliffs from Whitby, before plunging down the hill into Robin Hood’s Bay. We got to the slipway. The tide was out. Typical. We rummaged about in our bags and dug out the pebbles we’d carried from St Bees. We flung them towards the sea and hugged each other. A man on the harbour wall clapped. “Well done lads,” he shouted. Alan unfolded his palm guiltily. “Sorry, but I had to keep my little stone.”
Follow the path
Three more great long-distance trails to hike in the UK
Great Glen Way, Scotland, 73 miles, Fort William to Inverness, 6 days
Opened in 2002, this superbly waymarked trail follows the Great Glen, the diagonal valley that runs from the west to the east coast. You’ll take in three beautiful lochs, and between them is the Caledonian Canal.
Offa’s Dyke Path, Wales, 177 miles, Prestatyn to Chepstow, 12 days
Following the length of the English/Welsh border along much of the 8th-century Offa’s Dyke, this National Trail takes you through a patchwork of fields, over windswept ridges, past castle ruins and into old market towns.
The Ridgeway, England, 86 miles, Overton Hill to Ivinghoe Beacon, 5 days
This is reputed to be one of the oldest footpaths in Britain, with sections dating back 5,000 years. Along the way you’ll see neolithic tombs, the White Horse at Uffington and beautiful views from the Chiltern Hills
Email Martin at martin.love@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @MartinLove166
