From Jane McCarthy…

Coast 2 Coast: St Bees, Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire.

A conversation with fellow Harrier Matthew Kennedy a couple of years ago sparked an interest in this iconic route, him saying he was off to do it as a ‘training run’ before a longer event. The format of multi-day, and carrying my own pack solo from start to finish, would be a new and proper challenge. Plus the route appealingly covers three of our delightful National Parks in the North of England. A train from Burley-in-Wharfedale to St Bees in Cumbria for the start also only costs £26 booked in advance, and seemed a little more environmentally sound than some of my overseas excursions. Fortuitously I had bumped into Matthew again at the Trail Race and he very kindly offered to send me his kit list which saved me a lot of time and effort, and was absolutely spot on. Rather worryingly though he said he had taken 6 days to complete it, and I had planned to do it in 5, but he assured me it was doable and also sent me approximate timings for each day. So, with a 30l Montane pack (generously lent by Jann Smith and Paul Carman) I set off on a dry, cool and overcast Monday morning from St. Bees, picking up a pebble from the beach to (hopefully) deposit in the North Sea on Friday evening. At Ennerdale I spoke to the first obvious C2C’er – a Dutch lady who was camping along the route and so carrying a heavy pack. I had booked into a mixture of pub and hotels to ensure a good night’s sleep, which I had decided was my new requirement for doing anything super long, and meant I could move much faster with a much lighter pack. She was the first of many walkers, with who I enjoyed brief chats along the way – Germans, Canadians, Americans and many Australians. I thought it was pretty great that people were coming from so far and wide to enjoy our beautiful countryside. With plenty of refuelling opportunities my first day of 37 miles to Easedale felt comfortable. Day 2 was a longer slog of 43 miles to Kirkby Stephen. Having been told the pub kitchen closed at 8pm I was pretty pushed for time that day, had struggled to find places to refuel and had blister issues by the time I arrived, after 12hrs 30mins moving time, and hadn’t sat down once! This was the only low point of the week, wondering how I would get up and do 33 more miles to Richmond, then 44 to Blakey Ridge on the North York Moors and a final 28 to Robin Hood’s Bay. But….. sleep, food and plenty of footcare/K-tape have an amazing effect on the human body… and mind! Each morning my feet felt better and my head was ready to go again. I was more careful to seek out refuelling opportunities and made more use of my headphones on the only other ‘dull’ section from Richmond to the start of the North York Moors. Other than that, the whole experience felt like an absolutely wonderful adventure. My legs were still strong and while I was only hiking the uphills, my steady pace throughout meant I could run quite comfortably over the final clifftop miles down to Robin Hood’s Bay to chuck my pebble, and where I was met by my husband and son, ready with the requested ice cream. I probably should have got the train home but had had no idea what state I would be in. Next time……