One year ago today, my husband and I started the Coast to Coast Wainswright Route across Northern England, walking from the Irish Sea in St. Bees to the North Sea in Robin Hood’s Bay. This route averages 192 miles, give or take, depending on which towns you choose to stop and which deviations of the trail you choose to take.
Starting in St. Bees, we made our way down to the Irish Sea, to dip our feet and take a rock. Some take a rock to leave at Robin’s Hood Bay. I believe that St. Bees is secretly trying to get a smooth sand beach, so they get people to trek the rocks for them across country and dump them on Robin’s Hood Bay’s nice sandy beach! 😂
The first day, there are a number of routes you can take to get to get to Ennerdale Bridge, the typical first stop. I used a list provided by one of the baggage couriers (a service I highly recommend) that lists each of the towns you can stop off along the way. It lists the distance from the start (St. Bees), which allowed me to calculate daily estimates of how long each trek would be.
I recommend not relying on a list like this and instead get the map book of the entire trek, so you can visually see where towns are in relation to the trail, where the trail splinters off, or where there are other right of ways cutting through. The list above was highly inaccurate versus being able to use the map book to better estimate distance. We also missed a lot of villages we could have stayed in that were not provided on the above list.
That said, the list of towns stated our first day would be 13 miles to walk to Ennerdale Bridge; it turned out to be closer to 18 miles! We were hoping to ease in with an easier trek on the first day, but we crawled into Ennerdale Bridge by the end of the day!
Walking across northern England, you walk through three major national parks: The Lake District, The Yorkshire Dales, and The Yorkshire Moors. Transitioning between parks can be tedious and boring, the worst, in my opinion, being between the Dales and the Moors.
However, the first day walking to Ennerdale Bridge is also a transition day, but a really lovely one. After dipping your toe in the Irish Sea and grabbing a rock to support St. Bee’s plan to get sandy beaches in the future, you head up your first steep embankment to hug the coast for about 5 miles. Our first day was cloudy, so I’m not sure if you can see Ireland from the cliffs. However, we could see the wind turbines out in the water, allegedly killing all the birds and giving people cancer.
It was very therapeutic walking along the cliffs hugging the Irish Sea. There were a couple of moments when we weren’t sure if we should be turning off of the cliff path. I think some other hikers turned earlier than we did. There’s a turn off about halfway along the cliff and then another turn off by the lighthouse. However, if you keep hugging to the left, you can continue along the coast until you pass the quarry, at which point there is a small country road to turn onto.
From here, we traversed a lot of small country roads and passed through several small villages. When walking through right of ways, having gaiters over our hiking boots was a life saver. They help keep your boots drier and cleaner, which you’ll appreciate the next morning when your boots aren’t sopping wet.
When you get to Moor Row, picking up the path again can be confusing. Make sure you orient your map book in the direction you are facing. When you get to the T in the road, turn right. You’ll be walking on a road with tall hedgerows on either side. Once the road curves to the right, you’ll see a hole in the hedgerow to your left, with a step to cross over.
For most of the first day, we walked through rolling green meadows. About a mile or so out of Cleator, there was a detour because of logging operations. I’ll warn that the C2C trail is really well marked… until it isn’t. And when it isn’t, you need to make sure you know how to read a map and you know your directions. I became more and more familiar with my map book as we walked. In hindsight, I wish I had studied it and understood what all of the different symbols and lines meant, as well as knowing how long a mile was, approximately, along the map.
When we hit the detour, there was a sign that pointed to the left. When we got to Nannycatch Road, there was a C2C sign pointing right, but that was the last of the signs we saw so we stopped often and checked our maps to ensure we were still heading in the right direction. We saw other hikers continue past Nannycatch Road, as they opted to walk the roadway the rest of the way to Ennerdale Bridge. I think we may have been the only ones to venture off into the woods.
At the end of Nannycatch Road, we started up this gravel road that entered into the woods. It was just beautiful, and so serene because we couldn’t see anyone else. It was so intimate trudging through the woods together, not another person in sight.
As we got to the top of this hill and saw we had yet another hill to walk up (we were knackered at this point), we examined the map. Looking on Google maps, my husband saw a path cutting off to the left, but nothing was marked in our map book. We decided to give it a go… we’d get there eventually!
This was one huge sheep pasture, and the path was visible but not well defined. The weather was misting and cloudy. As we topped the hill and looked down the length of the descent, the valley was thick with fog, with small windows exposing the forest below. It felt like we were standing on the ledge of the world and were about to fall off. Our photos couldn’t fully capture the surrealism of feeling like your feet were meeting the edge of the world and the fog was the great abyss.
At this point, staring into the abyss, we’re questioning whether we made the wrong move taking this “shortcut.” Then, we see this man and his little dog bounding past us. We asked him if we were going the right way, and he ensured us we were. And like a jackrabbit, he hopped down the hill and was gone, as we were slowly and painfully trudging down the hill. I’m not going to lie; I slipped and fell on my ass halfway down because the hill was so steep and muddy! If you look at the map above, you can see the elevation lines and how smushed together they are, notating how steep the descent was down this hill.
Looking back up the hill, I could see my husband trailing far behind me. Once we got to the bottom, it was just beautiful. It was still a few miles to Ennerdale Bridge, but the rest of the way was pretty even ground, except for one last small incline. After that, we were walking along the road the rest of the way into town.
The loooong and wiiinding road 🎶.
TIPS:
Train, train, train before going. Some sites will tell you to be walking 10 plus miles a day. We were fine with several mile hikes each evening and at least one long hike each weekend. In hindsight, I wish I had done weighted squats to build up my quads, which would have helped with all the ups and downs. This, I think, would have been more useful than long hikes.
Get good hiking boots. I opted for a lighter day hiking boot. Make sure you break them in well before you go.
Gaiters, both for your legs and your neck. Gaiters will help keep your boots drier and cleaner. They’re easier to wash and dry each day. Your boots will get wet. They’re likely to get sopping wet. Finding B&B’s that have drying rooms is a godsend and something we never even considered beforehand. Neck gaiters that have insect repellent is very convenient for keeping gnats away. But, you will also encounter different weather throughout the day and from day to day. The neck gaiter was great for keeping my face and ears warm, or for keeping my hair from wisping into my face.
Waterproof covering for your backpack or for the things inside your backpack. I don’t care if your backpack claims to be waterproof (ours did); they’re not when you’re walking in torrential rain for 10 hours.
Cut your toenails one to two weeks before starting the trek. Seriously, you don’t want to cut your nails mid trek and cut them too short where they’re uncomfortable and painful walking.
Moleskin and duct tape. Starting to get a blister? Don’t walk it out. Stop, dry your feet complete. Put on moleskin and tightly wrap in duct tape.
Always carry an extra pair of dry socks!
Water. I carried a Hydroflask that I had filled with ice and water each morning. Then I carried an empty GRAYL Geopress 24 ounce water purifier. This works soooo much better than the LifeStraw. Rather than suck potentially contaminated water through a filtering straw, you fill the canister with water and then push the filter into the bottle. The filter stops at the bottom, leaving fresh clean water above. They claim you can grab water from any fresh water source, moving or not. We were extra careful and only took from moving water, but even water running through sheep paddies was filtered into fresh, clean water, which I poured over the ice in my Hydro Flask. This allowed us to have fresh, cold water all day. Honestly, the water was delicious! I will say, however, that water sources are not as abundant in the Moors.
Reduce plastic and reduce litter! Tell your B&B’s and inns that you don’t want bottled water. Carry reusable water bottles. Hydro Flasks are great for keeping your water cold.
One or two walking sticks. It’s England. The ground will be wet and muddy at times, and when you are going up or down a steep incline, they are essential.
Rain jacket. We set up a way to roll up our rain jackets and clip them on to our backpacks, so we didn’t have to stop and pull them out of our backpack as well as not having to shove a wet jacket back in with all of our other things.
Consider where your B&B is in relation to your dinner options! After walking 15+ miles, you don’t want to have to walk another mile and back to have dinner.
Snacks. I found individual bags of trail mix and small bags of peanut M&M’s. These really help give a boost of energy. And when you’re having a “Snickers moment” with your partner, a little sugar kick really helps.
I’m sure more tips will come to me as I reminisce over the next two weeks. This is the closest to international travel I’ll have for a while 😢.
Til tomorrow 👋🏻
