Coast to Coast Day 1
Sunday 29th September 2019 Ennerdale Bridge
The day before starting the walk, I had travelled down on the train from Glasgow, where I had had a horrible night’s sleep; some guy arrived around 1 a.m., waking me with all of his pre-bed malarkey, then he proceeded to fall instantly asleep and snore very loudly – consequently I ended up wandering the hostel in the middle of the night and lay on some chairs as I couldn’t sleep. Needless to say, I felt sleep-deprived the day I arrived in St. Bees. The hotel I had booked smelled of ancient cigarettes, and there was some function going on. That hotel did not serve food, so I wandered to another for dinner. When I got back, I sorted my bags ready for the morning, and then went to bed. That’s when the music started.
Strangely, despite the noise, I had a good sleep. Perhaps it was because I had little the night previous. After an 8 a.m. breakfast I was away into the rain. I wandered the short stretch of road down to the sea, and finally found the official start.
The climb up and around the St. Bees head coastline was slippery and windy, and with the rain still coming down made it somewhat tricky. I got no pies at Cleator. Apparently the shop there, when open, has a sign saying “No Pies” that is always displayed. Today it needn’t have the sign as there could be no customers either.
Eventually I came to a diversion, that resulted
in a very long road walk.
When I finally left the road, I chose to further divert from the trail by circling the left side of a hill, rather than the sanctioned right side. I am not sure why I made that decision now. Anyhow, once around the hill and along a farm track, I found the farm that I was to stay at for the night. It was down a muck-covered driveway. I did get a cup of tea and biscuit upon arrival, which was nice. After a shower and a bit of a read, I walked another 2km of the trail into Ennerdale Bridge. Along the way I initially was following, and then caught up with, Mark Reid (from Team Walking who I had met once last year, and several times earlier this year – see my Dales High Way walk post, and my Reeth post) and the group of 10 people he is guiding on the C2C. I went to the hotel they are staying in for dinner and dessert, then Mark joined me and bought me a second cider and we chatted for a while.
Then it was a walk in the dark, back along the road up the hill to the farm and my bunk room to read and use the internet before sleeping. I was the only occupant, which was nice.
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