Likely Moose

Day four got off to a bit of a bad start. In the night the wind going through the trees above us made one hell of a racket and kept waking me up. Also, god knows where the light was coming from, but there was a constant light coming through the canvas of the tent. It was like the sun never really set. It was odd, it really did seem brighter inside the tent than out.

Breakfast was a quick boiled pasta affair. Water bottles were filled up from the stream and Jonny and myself were taking our tent down when Gus finally got up (Gus was the name of the other camper in our little woodland squat). We left him to his breakfast at around half past eight, fully well knowing that if he walked at the rate he was telling us last night, he would probably overtake us in a few hours time.

The walk along the rest of Haweswater was not as bad as I had thought it was going to be. The worst parts of it were out of the way the night before and we were at the other end of the lake in around an hour and a half. In that time there was not much going on around the lake, but there was a lot of wildlife on the shore. The usual sheep which scurried up and down the hillside, but also of note was a stampede of about seven or eight stags which ran past me. Jonny said that he didn’t see them but did see a single deer. I dunno where they must have come from then?

I was hoping to see a huge dam at the end of Haweswater, but a wood blocks the view from the path and when the path moves round in front of the dam, then there is a small housing estate blocking the view. A short walk from here and were soon in farmland territory. The hills here are forgiving enough for a tractor to go up and for cattle to graze. The grass is green, the roads are wide and the paths are soft underfoot. It is also the edge of the Lake District. From here to Shap should have been a walk in the park compared to the ordeals of the Lake District, but I didn’t get a very good nights sleep and I, foolishly, did nothing about my blisters. They really should have been burst the night before, but they weren’t.

It was around 11 O’Clock that Gus predictably over took us. Then he stopped for a sandwich, then he overtook us again. There isn’t really much to say about the section from here to Shap. The way was easy but I was tired still and so I found it difficult anyway. It wasn’t particularly spectacular, which is why we forgot to take any photographs, infact watch any advert for Müller yoghurt and you’ve got the general gist of it: pleasant but nothing to write home about. The only thing of note at all way Shap Abbey, which wasn’t really that spectacular either.

Arriving in Shap at around lunchtime we decided to have a rest, eat something and stock up on supplies. I was eating my way through the heavy tins of food as fast as I could to try and relieve some of the weight from my rucksack and was replaced as much as I could with several days supply of sachet foods, anything with “just add water” written on it. While in the local co-op a nice lady commented on my shuffle of a walk, recognising me at once as a walker and not a local. I was quite amazed really how many walkers there were all congregating around a single shop, but then again it was the first proper shop on the route and there wouldn’t be another for several days.

Sitting outside the co-op, on a high street bench Jonny was having some lunch and I, a packet of sweets. The lady who I had been talking to in the co-op walked past. She asked if I had managed to find something for my feet. I told her that the chemist she had suggested was closed and there was nothing suitable in the co-op. With that she produced two packs of compeed plasters and gave them to me. I was a little bit shocked that someone would walk the length of the village and back again to make sure that I was all right for blister relief. If your reading this; many thanks to you blister relief lady. Jonny was not very happy about this because it meant that I had to get my feet out and play around with blisters while he was eating. The nice lady gave me two packs with five plasters in each, all gone by the time I was finished. I had no idea until I took my socks off that things had got so bad on my feet. I really was grateful to the nice lady after seeing the carnage that lurked beneath my socks.

The whole foot thing put us a little behind schedule and we finally left Shap at around half past two. After leaving the village both the main railway line from London to Glasgow (WCML) and the the main road from London to Glasgow (M6) are crossed over by foot bridges with quick succession. After these there is a steady climb up hill to an abandoned quarry, the footpath is followed to a small hamlet, where the footpath turns and follows across the top of some moorland on the plateau of the hill. The path has neither heavy incline or decline but is fairly rocky and quite sore on the feet. Me and Jonny had some discussions and both agreed that while not brilliant it was much more comfortable to walk on tarmac than on uneven rocks. I had looked at the map and seen that there was a short cut which would save time by being a little longer but on roads. This route also avoided taking a chance in a large bog that was marked on the map, after what happened outside the Black Sail hut, neither of us wanted to be going through any more bogs than we would have to.

The short cut seamed to work for a bit, it was, however, a bit of a mind-numbing route with nothing of interest at all. The section that was still on the moors was hard on the feet and I wasn’t joking when I said to Jonny that if we saw a taxi on the road I’d flag it down. I was at a bit of a low ebb, low on energy, painful feet and to top it all off the sun was coming out and now it was too hot and I was sweating like you wouldn’t believe. I know, too cold yesterday, too hot today, I need to make my mind up. I was grateful for every little breeze that swept past, even for such a fleeting moment.

When we reached the road we could here the church bells coming from the village of Orton. This was good because we knew that the camp site for the night was only a mile on the other side of Orton. Another look at the map showed we could save further time if we went through a farm, taking a footpath across its fields. We could see from the road that the fields had horses in and they were covered in grass. This would be good for the feet and so we went for that route over the road in the end.

The route itself would have been fine if the farm owners hadn’t have taken up all the way markings. We both, in absence if signs and a map which didn’t mark walls, followed what appeared to be a path in the grass, it was semi instinctive. Then we came to a dead end. We could see where we should have gone but to back track would have taken ages. We took the decision to cut across through the farm yard itself. It felt like we shouldn’t be there (probably because it was trespassing) but no one saw us and we were back on track.

We passed through the village at what must have been gone 6 0’clock, because the post office was shut. The village itself was very nice, very quiet with the exception of the odd truck passing through. There was a nice pub/hotel in the middle which was begging for me to go in, but given the late hour I decided not to even suggest it. I was beginning to see that even Jonny had had enough for today and just wanted to get the weight off his back. We managed to walk the final mile very quickly.

We shuffled up the path to the farm house attached to the camp site where an old lady showed us where to camp. She agreed to let us charge our phones in her house for the evening and was very sympathetic to our tales of woe and foot ache and back ache. I had since found out it was Jonny’s back which was giving him jip. The weather by now had turned cold and windy again.

Curiously that night I lost the ability to use my thumbs about four times. They would just lock up and I’d have to wiggle them free with my other hand. I’m still not sure why that happened. It has never happened before or since. It was  definite inconvenience to lose the use of thumbs while trying to make a tomato and pasta dish from a packet, but I managed.

Waking up in a bed, two days in a row, I could get used to this. Hopefully though I wasn’t going to because we were planning on making up for the time lost yesterday and getting to Shap. If we could do that it would put us back on schedule. So we got up at half past six, got ourselves together and I was waiting for seven o’clock to roll around so we could be let in to the main building to fetch our clothes from the drying room and make breakfast. You might wonder why that was I and not we, well that is because Jonny had the key to the main building, let himself in to have a shower and then left me waiting outside in the cold for him to finish. The caretaker walked past the door before that and unlocked it for me.

Breakfast this morning I thought would be a safe bet of spaghetti and meatballs. A good brand name of tinned food, usually quite nice. Not today. I had a struggle on my hands to struggle to force down the little bit which I did eat, after about a quarter of the bowl I gave the rest to Jonny, which he polished off as well as his porridge and something else. God knows what was wrong with either it or me (probably me because Jonny ate it fine).

We left at just after eight. The weather was overcast, but not unpleasant. There was no wind or rain, just cloudy. The first half a mile was following a country road which lead towards a fell called Great Tongue. Crossing a main road we started the first climb of the day. A medium steep slope which although not easy, could be plodded up without taking my breath away. So I did exactly that. I took my time, one foot in front of the other, plodding slowly up the hill towards Great Tongue.

When we arrived at the base of Great Tongue we could go either way around it or straight over, after consulting the map and looking at the path ahead we chose the path to the right, this was probably a longer path but looked to be wider, more well trodden and less vertically inclined. Our target was Grisedale Tarn at the top of Grisedale Hause on the other side of Great Tongue. Here was the first major climb of the day. As we climbed higher the winds got stronger and the temperature lowered. Infact the temperature dropped significantly as we got near to the top. The path also thinned our nearer to the top, becoming the collection of stones that we had begun to recognise as what the lake district calls a path.

The cloud was hanging over the top of the mountain and we had no idea how far past the cloud we would have to go. Looking on the map we knew that we hadn’t got far to go on with regards to distance but all the contour line merged into a big mess and we had no idea how much higher we had to climb. Fortunately it wasn’t as far as we had dreaded. We reached the top after what seamed like a relatively short time. Unfortunately that was where all the wind had been coming from and now we were at the top of the pass and the wind howled past, cutting through my clothes like they weren’t there. We had got at this point the option to climb higher and take the route to the top of Helvellyn, followed by the striding edge path. We decided against it for three good reasons, firstly the weather being as it was, secondly we needed to make up for the lost time yesterday and thirdly the weather report that we had read when we were at Black Sail hut “Snow above 700 m.” Helvellyn is 950 m. We took the quick route down to Patterdale. I say the quick route, the path from Grisedale Tarn to Patterdale is a long and windy one and although it is wide, easily passable and  solid underfoot, we did not reach Patterdale until lunchtime.

After lunch we crossed the road at Patterdale near to the pub. Jonny pointed out a sign on the door. There had been a beer festival in the pub the night before. Jonny then unhelpfully remarked that had we made it to Patterdale last night we could have been at the beer festival. “Thanks for that, Jonny” I thought to myself as we passed the pub and slipped down another footpath.

Our route from Patterdale was supposed to be simple, up and over over mountain, following the contours at the top for a few miles, back down the other side and follow a path along to side of Haweswater, which I had read on another blog before hand was a wide path that could be walked down quickly and where good time could be made. If I ever find the person who made that comment and they ask me what is the best walking route in England, I’ll tell the bastard that the M42 is quite nice this time of year!

Anyway, from that I’m sure you can guess what is going to happen next. From Patterdale we could see the hill that we were going to climb up, it didn’t look so bad, although we were now well aware that looks could be deceptive. The part of the hill that we could see from Patterdale was climbed quite quickly, despite the narrow path. The path then turned away from Patterdale, there was a great view back over the valley which we stopped and admired for a few moments. We then carried on and it was here that the weather turned.

From now on we were going up and down little hillocks and mounds, round interesting geological features, clambering over rock formations and trying to avoid falling into a bog of unknown depth. There was no one steep climb which kept on going that there had been on some of the other mountains, it was intermittent. A steep section for five minutes, then a section which wasn’t so difficult, but usually  unsheltered from the driving winds instead. Very few and far between were there any points where there wasn’t something to complain about, usually geology or meteorology. We must have left Patterdale at around 1 O’Clock, at well gone fourwe were still climbing, weaving through obstacles that the earth had laid out for us. Every now and again we would pass round a corner in the path and in the distance we’d see a lake of some kind. Then, I’d look at a map only to discover it was a tarn or a different reservoir.  Haweswater, was still so far away.

It sounds like I’m having a terrible downer on the Lake District. I hope to not put anyone off. The weather aside there are many views which are just spectacular. Along the way, from Patterdale to Haweswater alone there were many points where me and Jonny had to stop to take in the views. Angle tarn was one of them. A lake so far up in the mountains, which seamed to take on the colour of the sky and yet at the same time seemed to be very much a part of the earth. On a better day this would be a great place to stop for a picnic, or just to sit and watch the sky and contemplate the meaning of life. It was one of those places of such peace that even the passing by of a dozen ramblers an hour couldn’t spoil it. But as it was it was chuffing freezing up there, so we stopped, took a few snaps and carried on.

There was one point on this stretch of the walk where the map didn’t seam to line up with reality all that much, I knew that we would have to turn off of our path and take a left some time soon and when the path turned it seamed to be at a completely different angle to how it was shown on the map. Fortunately in the minute or two that I had stood by the turning, Jonny had noticed me stop and decided that he shouldn’t go any further ahead. While he waited for me to make a decision, a man walked over the horizon from where I thought we should be going, he pointed out the way to me and then he carried on his way. On his way he passed Jonny and told him to catch me up. This was the final accent to the top of the Kidsty Pike (792 m. What was that they said about snow over 700 m?). From the top of Kidsty Pike we were being battered by the cold and the wind and by now a little bit of rain as well. We hurried down the slope towards Haweswater as quick as we could. It seamed that with every step we took we got a little bit warmer and by the time we were out from under the cloud cover I was definitely starting to feel much warmer.

It had taken us over four hours to get to the highest point on this ridge and we descended to Haweswater from there in less than an hour. Here there was no wind to speak of, the ambient temperature was probably just into double digits and it was deathly quiet, save for when we interrupted a heard of sheep. By now it was well gone five and a look on the map showed us that we still had many miles to travel to reach Shap, another days target unreachable. Jonny was determined to to make it as far as possible, in fact last time I had spoken to him he still thought we could make Shap. I hadn’t realised that he had also resigned himself to not making it and was just trying to get as far as possible before night fell.

The decent from Kidsty Pike had had a catastrophic effect on my feet. I knew that the aching from yesterday had gotten worse and were now no longer mere irritations, but full blown blisters. The rush down the hill had meant that now I was walking even slower along the side of Haweswater. I limped on along the path that was as level as a see-saw and about as easy to follow as the plot of an episode from the Twilight Zone. A little way further on, there was a bloke sitting by the side of the path. He said hello and the two of us had a chat for a second, where we were each going, how we were finding the lake district, etcetera etcetera. It turned out he was doing the coast to coast walk as well and he was going to be wild camping. He suggested that because we had no hope of making it to Shap that we all camp together. I had resided myself to a wild camp already and by the time I had caught up with Jonny so had he, we walked back and made camp in a sheltered spot with a view of the lake, under a small copse of pine trees. A small stream nearby made for a water supplies and we had the food to last us for several days.

That evening we made pleasant small talk about the football, trying to get in to a Brentford FC game, the price of train fares from London to St. Bees (as it turns out it was a pound cheaper for our new friend to go first class than if he had been in standard, sometimes I really don’t understand National Rail) and the merits of cheap, boilable noodle food vs. heavy more nutritious tinned food. We had all turned in for an early night before the sun had set.

Everyone in the hostel had the same idea and we were all woken up at the same time by the chiming of alarms which were coincidently all set for the same time. I didn’t get up with the same spring that I did the day before. I was still quite tired, not fully rested but I knew that I needed to prepare for the day ahead, this was going to be the day where all the most difficult challenges were to come. Boy, I didn’t know the half of it.

A tin of Macaroni Cheese for breakfast, which was good because I needed some carbs and also I was shedding the weight of the tins which I was starting to regret packing. One of the Americans who was staying at the hostel asked what I was eating, when I told him he couldn’t believe it. Apparently its the wrong colour, quite how yellow can be the wrong colour for anything made from cheese I do not know, perhaps he makes his macaroni with blue cheese?

By just gone 8 Jonny and I were both ready for the off, we said goodbye to our hosts and made on our way.  It was a grey morning, the wind was blowing and there was a slight drizzle in the air. Not exactly what you would call pleasant, but it could have been a whole lot worse.We had not left for more than five minutes, the hut still in sight and Jonny put his foot into a deep puddle. His sock soaking already we had to stop to change that, fortunately Jonny had a spare set at the top of his bag and the drizzle didn’t get the new sock too wet.

The first challenge of the day was to get out of the valley which we had spent the night in. Having walked practically the length of the valley the night before we knew this meant only one thing: up. A small stream was out waymarker. The stream had carved a notch in the hill side and the rocks which it had uncovered made the basis of the footpath that we were to be following up the side of the valley. Also this was by far the steepest of the hills so far. I decided to use the old keeping the head down method, not looking around and seeing how far I still have to go. Also to keep my mind focused I decided to count my steps going up. There were exactly 1,900 steps to reach where the hill mountain began to level off.

It was a bit of a slog and a harsh way to begin the day but it did blow away all the cobwebs and I was quite refreshed by the top. I really wish the weather had gotten slightly better at the top, from here I guess on a good day you can see most of the mountains of the lake district and also Buttermere in the distance. That would have made a great panoramic shot on a nice day, but as it was, cloudy, windy, grey, overcast and generally quite drab, not to be.

Going over the top and back down the  abandoned slate tramway to Honister pass, I began to feel quite good about myself, I had none of the breathlessness of the first day, my legs were not aching, in fact nothing ached, I was walking fine. Only my knees began to give me a little bit of jip on the steep downward parts of the tram line, which used to send slate to be cut at what is now the Honister Slate Visitor Centre. We stopped in the visitor Center for a cup of tea. Jonny also got a panini. While we were having our break we talked to a Dutch couple who had also spent the night at the Black Sail Hut.

We left the Dutch pair to their tea and we carried on down the road. The footpath followed the contours of the next valley with little climb of fall, the paths were well trodden and easy to walk. The views of the valley below were great with the village of Seatoller in the distance. We passed Seatoller very quickly and ended up in Jonny’s Wood. This had nothing to do with my friend, the wood really is called Jonny’s wood. The map showed that we would not be in the woods for long, and I got quite concerned as the path continued for what seamed like hours through lush deciduous woodland. There was one section where the path went over a rocky out crop, the rocks were very slippery and both of us nearly went for a Burton on that section. The path eventually dropped and we were on the valley floor. It was lunchtime and we stopped outside the village of Rossthwaite. Rossthwaite is a tiny village in the middle of nowhere and yet it manages to support several B ‘n’ B’s a Youth Hostel, camp site and tea rooms. I guess that’s what you can do when your in a national park of such standing.

After lunch we carried along a nice, quiet, footpath, gravel underfoot that helped us make good time. The path followed the course of a fast flowing, wide river, which was nice to look at. Across the river, near the village of Stonethwaite, there was a campstie, which I remarked to myself must be a nice place to stay with the river so close, on second thoughts though, I bet on a hot day the midges would tear a man limb from limb.

The path began to climb after we passed through a gate. It was clear that this gate marked something,but I’m not quite sure what. From that point on the stones underfoot were more prone to shift and slide. There was less attention paid to keeping the walls maintained until after about half a mile they crumbled away and became more of the path material. There was no one moment where I noticed the change in the gradient as we went up the side of the valley, although I did look back at the river to find that it had stopped being as described before and just become a trickle of a thing, no more than a mountain spring.

Eventually I realised I was getting tired, I looked ahead and saw the path ascending in to the clouds, “ah crap!” I thought to myself. This one is starting to wear me out already and I can’t even be half way! Knowing I had no choice in the matter and that I just had to keep going, I concentrated on one step at a time and not how far I had to go. This worked for a while, until I had to stop to allow a group to pass who we going the other way. When I stopped and looked back at how far we had gone and how far we still had to go my heart sank. I thought we would be nearly at the top. I could see Jonny further ahead and I could see he was going to go over the edge so I couldn’t see him any more, but this was no indication that he was any closer to the top.

It took us several hours to reach the top and when we did we were in for a bit of  surprise. The top plateau was a huge bog which we some how had to cross. There was no path to follow, no rocks laid down by previous walkers, much like the climb up Dent the day before it was a mad scramble of everyone for themselves, no matter how much we churn up the bog and make it even worse than it already is. Trying to find a path across took us the best part of an hour, probably only covering a couple of hundred yards. It would have been much quicker but the cloud dropped at one point and we had really just a compass to work with because we could see hardly anything. When we got to a point which we could see a clear route across the rest of the plateau we stopped for a quick snack and a Dextro tablet to keep going.

From here we thought that we would have a clear run into Grassmere, just down this hill and its at the bottom. We had forgotten that this is the lake district, and in the lake district you have to do all the walking you think you need to do and then on top of that there is another valley that you will inevitably have forgotten you need to walk the length of. After having scrambled down the other side, passing the worst of the bogs, the path began to show itself again. There was a bowl of pure green wilderness below us, where the only things to see was sheep and a footpath. We descended the bowl and back up the other side, which compared to the previous incline was nothing. From the top of this hill though, we were thinking we would see the town, but it wasn’t there. A look at the map confirmed that we had to go all the way don this hill and then follow the valley floor  for a couple more miles.

On the way down the mountain we realised the time. There was no way that we were going to make it any further than Grassmere by the end of the day and out target of reaching Patterdale had been completely blown out of the water. Looking ont he map we found no camp sites anywhere near Grassmere. All there was, was a single youth hostel marked on the map. Apart from this I knew that out options were B ‘n’ B’s or wild camping. I could tell that Jonny had had enough for today. He was lagging behind and when he did catch up he kept suggesting  a wild camp, which to me meant he wanted to just stop. We did keep going for long enough to reach the edge of Grassmere. I suggested that we at least have a look for the Youth Hostel which according to the map can’t be far off at all. We did eventually find it and after the day we had, the cold, the wet, it would be nice to not have to pitch a tent and curl up in a sleeping bag. £20 sounded quite reasonable for that pleasure.

After arriving and putting down our things we sat in the dormitory by ourselves, no one else was with us, a room to ourselves. We lounged around for a bit, I tended to my feet which were starting to hurt a bit, before going back to the main building to make dinner. While in there we had the use of a proper drying room and a microwave (what luxury!). The good people who worked the hostel were very good and when I told them that we had not made it as far as we would have liked to they were soon on the phone on our behalf to make sure the camp site in Patterdale wasn’t waiting for us. And on top of that they had a local brew on tap, Keswick’s Thirst Run, which I nursed in the corner of the common room while I charged my phone. Not even dark outside, we went to bed to prepare for day three.

The alarm went off in the tent at 7 a.m. and we both woke up a little bleary eyed. There was no rush, no train to catch and no one to meet. We just had to get up and get on with it. We opened the door to the tent to let a little air in as we came to. The day outside was fantastic. The weather was beautiful. The swallows were out in force, swooping around, the sheep were bounding around in the next field and best of all the sun was out with just a little breeze to stop it from getting too hot. I thought to myself that this couldn’t possibly have been a better start.

Breakfast was done with fairly quickly, I had tomato pasta which was thousands of times better than the noodles which I had eaten yesterday, despite only being about 20p more. A quick was and then we packed away the tent, splitting the tent up to share the weight between us.

We left the camp site and made our way down tot he starting point on the sea front at St. Bee’s head by the RNLI building. Here we performed the rituals which have become part of the custom of doing to coast to coast walk. Firstly we went right down to the sea front and made sure that out boots were made wet by the sea. We then both picked a pebble from the beach to take with us along our journey. I had picked a silly part of the beach to descend and then struggled a lot to get back up the steep pebbled bank.

Eventually after scrambling to the top, in a most undignified manner, we had nothing left to do but to set off. And so at 8:45 …ish that’s what we did. It seemed a little bit odd. There was no drum roll, no one to wave you off, no officials. It was all a bit of an anticlimax to the start line I think (I don’t know what I was expecting though, fireworks perhaps?).

The very first thing which you come to after reaching the end of the sea wall at St. Bee’s is straight up. A huge hill which takes the footpath up onto the top of the cliffs and from there several miles of up and down as the path follows the sea north, which is a counter-intuitive way to start a  190 mile eastward journey. I had got to less than a quarter of the way up the first hill when I realised I was breathing very heavily. A few yards further up and I realised that it wasn’t a healthy pant as I made my way up a steep hill. I was out of breath already and still within view of the start line. What. The. Hell. This wasn’t even a mildly steep hill compared to some of the things which were to come, I knew this from other blogs and reports I had read before I left. If I couldn’t do this how in the world world would I cope with some of the big boys?

I worried about this in my head as I struggled my way to the top of the first hill. Jonny had made it to the top without anywhere near as much fuss and was waiting for me where the slope began to flatten out. This was basically the pattern for the entire journey. Jonny would storm off ahead, get to the top of a hill, or round to the next bend and then I would catch up. We carried along the sea cliffs without a problem. I got over my weazing and we both made fairly good time for a few miles going along the top of the cliffs. There were a few ups and downs in the cliffs but every time I went back up the other side I found my self with a little bit more breath than the time before. Just before we reached the end of the cliffs we stopped for a short break, here the first of our many encounters with other coast to coasters took place. A Canadian couple walked past us while we were stopped and had a short conversation with us. They had flown all the way over the Atlantic Ocean to do this walk, it was their main holiday for the year. I know a lot of people like walking but me and Jonny were quite stunned by the fact that they would go to all that trouble to walk in England. Surely there were places to walk in Canada? The couple soon carried on, only for us to catch them up later. We would play leapfrog with them for the majority of the day.

Turning our backs on the sea we passed a huge hole in the ground, I guessed it was some sort of mining operation. After that we took the fairly easy going undulating hills that made up the farmland which spaced the lake district from the sea. From here we were looking directly at the lake district and could see the mountains on the horizon. With every step the hills got closer, pretty soon we knew that we would be climbing over them.

We passed through several small villages including Cleator. Cleator is well known for its pie shop and it was around about lunch time that we passed through the village, putting the two together you can see where our thoughts were taking us, right up until we saw the sign outside… “NO PIES”. Gutted, we carried on through the village and stopped on the other side for something to eat from out packs. It kept us going, but it was no meat pie.

After lunch we made our way to the first of the big hills of the walk, we had been thinking that the hills by the sea were big and now we were going to get our first taste of a proper big hill. The hill in question is called Dent. The accent starts at the edge of Cleator and begins gently, after a little while the slope gradually begins to get steeper and steeper. After crossing a small road the path eventually winds its way through a wood where the gradient gets to its most extreme. I was feeling full of energy and vigour after lunch and decided to put my head down, not look too much at the route in front of me and just plough on. Jonny was, of course, way in the lead and he made it to a junction in the path several minutes before me. It was a good job that he noticed the path because with my head down I would have walked straight past it.

Taking the path to the left and following the sign which was for Dent Fell we carried on. The path was not as steep as it had been on the gravel path before, however this path was not so solid underfoot. It was more of a bog than a footpath and one which had over time been made into a quagmire as other walkers had trampled through the solid bits, making the entire path completely impossible to pass without sinking in at least a bit. The challenge had become how to navigate through the path while sinking in as little as possible. I was glad that I had decided to buy a pair of gaiters as my feet plunged into the murky swamp waters.

At the edge of the woodland the hill began to climb more steeply again and from here we could see on the map that it was one straight path all the way to the top. All the way back at the sea front you could see dent on the horizon and I knew that the views from the top were going to be good. I said to myself that I wasn’t going to look around until I reached the top. That was going to be my treat for getting there, to see the whole view all at once and to not spoil it by looking before the top. I kept my eyes either on the floor or on the path ahead. From the woods edge the path probably only took 15-20 minuted to climb and in all from Cleator about an hour or so, but it did seam longer than that at the time. One hill down, god knows how man to go, and here was the view from the top…

We didn’t hang around on the top of Dent, the wind was picking up and standing still was making us both sightly cold. We set off back down the other side of the hill. After a little while on the top, Dent began to slope back down at more or less the same rate in which it had sloped up. About half way back down the woodland had covered the path once more, truly a mirror of going up in nearly all respects, just without the bog. When we reached the tree line we met two cyclists who were taking a break and sheltering from the wind behind a bank on the side of the path. One of them saw me looking at my map and without saying anything gestured in one direction. Without thinking we both followed the indicated route. Five minutes later we had doubled back on ourselves and was right behind the bank which the cyclists had been sitting, furthermore there was a path which round the bank which would have saved us those five minutes. Why would anyone want to send someone off course like that? It beats me. We did not see them again so we never found out.

 The route from here to Ennerdale Bridge was most uninteresting. We walked back down through the woods on the other side of Dent. From here through a valley, sticking close to a river. It was odd that for some reason when I saw the river on the map I expected it to flow the other way to the way it did in reality, I’m not sure why. This preoccupied my thoughts until it came to climbing up the side of the valley to reach a fairly major road. This road would take us into the village of Ennerdale Bridge. Along the side of the road there was a stone circle which the guide book had said we should remark upon (even though it was a hoax), we nearly passed it without notice because it was so unremarkable.

I had suggested to Jonny that we stop for a cheeky pint in Ennerdale Bridge. I could see that he was in two minds about this right up until we reached the edge of the village. When we passed the sign welcoming us to Ennerdale Bridge a car pulled over and a voice shouted out,

“Alright lads, need somewhere to camp tonight?”

“No thanks”, I replied, “We already have somewhere booked”.

“Oh, ok then, well if you need a rest you can always stop at the Fox and Hounds for a quick pint.”

And with that the car drove off. Jonny, who was slightly ahead didn’t hear the conversation and when I repeated it to him he said that it would be rude not to go in for at lest one pint. When we arrived at the Fox and Hounds the car which had pulled over was parked outside, as it turns out, it was the landlord trying to drum up some business for the camp site in the garden of the pub. We explained to him that we were already booked into a hostel further on. He seemed slightly amazed by this but then said “Well two strong chaps like you can do it by night fall”. Most people who follow the guide books adive stop the first night in Ennerdale Bridge, we were carrying on for another 8 miles to Black Sail Hut, a hostel on the other side of Ennerdale Water. We left the pub at around Four O’Clock.

Walking round the side of Ennerdale water was, for me, the least enjoyable part of the day. It started OK but soon turned bad.I had assumed that it would be a fairly easy part of the walk, after all its going along the side of the lake, there are no contours to cross, there is bound to be a path, right? Wrong. The “path” was a collection of loose rocks which were slippery and liable to move underfoot. The level was all over the place, in many places unwalkable. Some of the rock formations which had to be climbed over were at best dangerous, especially with a heavy backpack which was liable to unbalance a person. This carried on for several miles. We had hoped to reach the Black Sail Hut by around 8 O’Clock but all the up and over, down and round of the path set us back a lot.

Fortunately the end of the lake was found and a walk through a field which was soft underfoot and most welcome. As we walked through the field we heard a rumbling, followed by barking, it got louder and louder. I couldn’t understand the rumbling until a dog leapt over a fence, followed by another and another. In all I would have said a stampede of about thirty Beagles jumped the fence in front of us, ran past and then jumped the gate which we had just come through and were gone again. At no point did we ever see any one who could have possibly been their owners. There must just be a pack of wild Beagles in Ennerdale, that is how it seamed.

After the wild dogs we passed what was going to be the last signs of civilisation until our stop for the evening. It was another youth hostel, with signs up saying, drop in for a cup of tea. As tempting as that was we knew we only had a few hours until dark fell and we had to get a move on. We passed a sign which said that we were 3¾ miles away. Now that doesn’t seem too bad. We know that its all on gravel pathways, that the going isn’t too exhausting with regards to the climb. We didn’t think about how little energy we had left though. We trudged up the path, sometimes I was in front, sometimes Jonny (a sure sign that Jonny was getting tired), the walk was getting tedious now. We had spent most of the day walking through evergreen forests and were we were on another footpath through an evergreen forest path which seemed to never end. We could see the end of the valley ahead above the trees and we knew that the hut had to be somewhere between here and there. Every time we walked around another bend we would be hopeful of finding it, but we didn’t. Time and again we’d pass a bend and only discover more trees. When we did eventually find the hut it was nestled right into the corner of the valley, out of sight, out of the wind, out of the way, it made you wonder who would have wanted to build a place this far away from civilisation anyway.

We eventually walked into the hut just as the last half an hour of light faded for the evening. We walked through the door to a round of applause, clearly it was known by all of the other guests that two more were expected and it was getting late. We were told what’s what and we went to make our beds and put our stuff down for the evening. I sat in a chair in the dormitory and just could not get up. Those last few miles had pushed me over the edge and I just didn’t want to move. I guess I was sitting there for a good quarter of an hour before I got up, made my bed and rummaged around for a tin if something to eat. That night I bought a bottle of Jennings Sneck lifter, which went down really well after a tin of meatballs. After that I went to bed, leaving some of the other hardcore walkers who were staying there to talk about their past adventures.

For anyone who doesn’t know I would impress upon you just how remote the Black Sail Hut is. Nearly four miles from the next building, only accessible by foot or with special permission of the forestry commission by one licensed land rover, which stocks the food. Electricity? Diesel generator which runs for three hours a day. Water? From the stream which runs off the hill. Communications? Walk to Ennerdale Youth Hostel and use there phone or Ennerdale Bridge for mobile reception. Heating? Bottled gas for the cooker and a log fire for the room. This place is about as basic as it gets. Even the toilet is only accessible from the outside of the building and has a note about filling the septic tank saying “If its yellow: let it mellow. If its brown: flush it down”. That being said, everyone inside is very friendly and talkative. No one feels left out unless they want to be and you are practically guaranteed a good conversation with someone, although it will almost certainly be about walking.

I had a good nights sleep at Black Sail Hut, with the exception of needing the loo in the middle of the night. This meant putting shoes on and wrapping up warm to avoid the freezing winds in the night to get to the outside loo. A small price to pay for such a nice, remote, unique hostel.

A short walk across from St Pancras and we boarded train #2 bound for Carlisle at Euston. It was a much nicer train, a new, modern, clean train that was quiet and comfortable and, unlike the previous train, didn’t sound like it was powered by three men with lawn mowers on the roof. This section of the trip was even less eventful than the first, what did you expect me to say? Although saying that we did have the map out when we were going though Shap and we were able to point out which footbridge we would be going over in a few days time.

We arrived in Carlisle at just gone 10 a.m. and caught the final train from there to St. Bees. It was a slow train that was very loud and which I forgot to take a photo of. There was nothing impressive about the train at all, but the sea views were great. From the window we could look across the sea and see both Scotland and the Isle of Man.

A quick look around and then we walked from the station to out campsite, only half a mile. We checked in and pitched up quickly, putting to bed my worries that Jonny was going to supply a tent that leaked like a sieve. It turned out to be a very good tent for our purposes, sorry I doubted you Jonny! The campsite was nice, clean and quiet and we were the only campers. There were fields of sheep next door and swallows swoop low through the camping field. Now all we had to do was wait for tomorrow do we could set off.

Bored we went for a walk along the sea front. We then had some lunch, an apaulling packet of noodles, but what was I expecting for 11p? To take away the taste we went for tea and scones at the sea front cafe, which wasted a few minutes. After which we went for another walk and, inevitably, wound up in a pub.

The weather has been variable but has really warmed up now. Deciding that it probably wasn’t a good idea to get completely clattered before our first days walking we left the pub after just one drink.

We sat around looking out to sea for most of the early evening just sitting on a sea wall. We watched as a RNLI training mission was launched from there, quite a site to see a tractor reverse so far into the sea that the boat it was towing floated off of its trailer. Me and Jonny joked about who comes to rescue the tractor when that gets stuck out in a stormy sea at night. Although I’m sure they have that all figured out.

As the night began to draw in and the air began to get a slight chill we went to the hotel across from the camp site. We had a few pints in here, a couple of games of pool, fish and chips and listened to a local lady with an acoustic guitar massacre some Beatles classics. I have always been a fan of pubs putting on live music to bring in the crowds, I would like to say that this is only the case when the person can actually sing. I was even more shocked when I saw a poster saying that the lady in question was on the bill twice a week. This can’t be good for getting repeat customers, can it?

Just as the last of the of the sun was fading behind the Irish sea Jonny and myself decided to turn in for the night and get  good nights kip for the morning. Tomorrow was going to be the start of the big walk.

I woke up this morning at just gone 10, I looked at the clock, noted the time and rolled back over. Then the date registered. I thought for a second, what day was it we were going? Tuesday? Was that the 14th or 15th? Have I got another day or is this it? Today is the final day before we set off on our Coast to Coast trip, we being myself and Jonny, who is best described as old school mate and drinking buddy.

I got out of bed and got dressed, no messing around. I need to make sure I have everything for tomorrow, and if not I’ve got until tonight to get it. So into the loft I go and get down my trusty rucksack that has seen me through bronze, silver and gold Duke of Edinburgh awards as well as several camping trips with friends and the occasional music festival. Last time I went camping I made sure that I had put all of my equipment inside the bag so when I needed it again I would know where it was, the sensible thing to do. However, and you’ve guessed it, all of the equipment that I was hoping to just tick off has gone walk about. Great.

This means that my plan of just walking round to Tesco and getting some food has gone sailing out of the window. I knew there were a few things that would be missing but these were all little things which I thought I could do without, but now I don’t even have a roll mat. Things could get a bit serious. I thought I’d go to Tesco and get my food anyway, while there I got a text from Jonny. He had already planned to go into town and buy his last minute supplies today and so for him it was no extra panic. I replied to Jonny, saying that I’d meet him at the station.

Jonny and I went round town, looking in all of the cheaper shops to find the bits and bobs that we needed. I found a roll mat in a 99p shop, this could be an error but I’m willing to give it a bash. While in there we both decided some cutlery would be good, so we didn’t have to eat like animals with out bear hands. Jonny found a reasonably priced hydration bladder in Sports Direct and while we were in there I found a new hat which, Jonny reliably informs me, makes me look like a complete berk. A final quick check in Blacks to make sure there was nothing that we were forgetting and we went back home. A quick stop in Tesco to get the food and we parted ways.

Also on our way back from town we decided to pick up the train tickets. These had been bought in advance to save as much money as humanly possible. Our tickets cost us £20 each. I looked up today to see what it would normally cost and I am pleased to say we have saved more that £90 per  person, just getting there. Jonny told me he had used the service before and it is a doddle, all you do is put your card in the machine and it spits out tickets. What he didn’t tell me was you also need a booking number, which is in the email they send you confirming the payment. By the time I’d got the email up on my phone the machine had timed out and I had to start again. The second time I hit the wrong button because the machines touch screen is badly aligned. Third attempt, the email has two different reference numbers quoted, obviously I chose the wrong one and therefore had to start again. On the fourth try,  it finally spat out the tickets. Well thank god for that.

While on the subject if train tickets, can I also make it known that we are leaving from one local station, going all the way to London, walking across London because the tube isn’t open at that time in the morning, and then getting another train which is going to go through another station not 10 miles from our start point. When I queried about starting at this station I was told the fair would be three times more! For a shorter journey! I have no idea how that works but can I just say if you are planning a long journey by train it really does pay to try all the search options.

All I now had was the unenviable task of packing everything into my rucksack. It didn’t really take very long and despite the fact that it is full of tins the pack isn’t very heavy. I still have to add to this my share of the tent, which Jonny is bringing, and currently all my bottles and hydration bladders are empty but that shouldn’t be a problem.

On other blogs about walking the coast to coast it is usually this post where the writer talks about the contents of their pack, so here goes:

Most of the clothes I am taking are everyday run of the mill clothes, similar to what I wear every other day of the year. I have replaced my usual jeans with black cotton trousers, which were £7 a pair from Primark. I have bought two pairs with me. Lightweight jackets and fleeces which I already own will be protected from the rain, where necessary, by waterproof poncho’s and a crushable pair of waterproof trousers. This should keep me, and hopefully my pack, dryish.

I have, however, splashed out on a pair of Hi-gear men’s trekker gaiters. I will not be wearing these on the train because after buying them online and seeing what arrived in to post I am not sure that the strap which goes under the shoe will survive the concrete London streets. Only time will tell if they will survive at all, but at least they were quite cheap and even with the bottom strap gone, they should still provide some protection.

A new pair of walking boots. These were the Hi-Tec Scarfell walking boots. They have been bought some time now and I have been using them when ever I can to make sure they are well and truly broken in. I have been on several long walks in them so far in and around home, only one time did I get any blisters, but that was a truly long walk and they did get wet inside, from water coming over the top. These boots so far have kept their waterproof abilities in all but water being soaked by my socks in long grass. The gaiters should stop this problem.

Other little bits and bobs which I have splashed out on include a walking pole, a new hat (wide brimmed to protect both face and neck), a solar panelled mobile phone charger (which should keep me in contact with the outside world, ever when we are staying at hostels with no electricity) and a new hydration bladder.

Other things I’m taking include the Harvey strip maps of the entire route. This has been printed on PVC sheets so it is completely impervious to the rain. The entire route is on just two maps as well, this means that  I haven’t got to carry lots of ordinance survey maps. As well as all the essentials for just-in-case survival (first aid kit, whistle, compass etc.) I have also upgraded my mobile phone with a battery which has a much longer life. This means I can use the GPS function on it much more freely without the battery running down. Included on the phone I have the viewranger app, which I will hopefully be using to track the progress made each day, this app shows where, how fast, altitude, when and many other useful features which can be plotted on graphs. GPS essentials is another app which is better for real time tracking of data, with a head up screen showing all the current GPS data in an easy way. It also has an interface with the camera to help lead the way if you tell it where you are trying to get to. Grid Reference is probably the most simple app, and is likely to be the most useful in navigating. Using the GPS it converts the Long. and Lat. co-ordinates into a UK grid reference, which can be checked against a map. This will help tell us exactly where we are when we, inevitably, lose our way. A final app which I have got, which although not strictly relevant, to survival and map reading, is Mountain Navigator. Simply pointing the camera at the horizon should in theory tell you exactly what the mountain you are looking at is called. We shall see.

Tomorrow, the adventure begins…