Coast to Coast UK walk

I met the lovely hostel keepers this morning—a charming couple who clearly understood that the way to a hiker’s heart is through their stomach. Their two little hostel dogs had mastered the art of looking pathetically adorable while you eat breakfast, hoping for scraps. After a proper cooked breakfast (the last warm, dry thing I’d…

I woke up to the sun shining through my window! At 3 degrees, not exactly balmy, though the promise of 10 degrees later felt tropical by comparison. Although my bed had a few lumps and bumps I’d managed a decent night’s sleep, and breakfast was the usual carb-loading extravaganza—no artisanal homemade breads or precious jams…

I lucked out and got a ride from South Wales where I was visiting family to St Bees with my niece and family who were travelling up to the lake District that weekend. We arrived early afternoon and their dog and my great-niece had fun playing on the stones and beach. It was a little…

We were quite successful at drying a lot of our stuff from yesterday’s adventure, so by morning with dry socks and relatively dry boots, and filled with an again not so restrained breakfast of berries and granola and scrambled egg on toast with grilled tomato and mushrooms, I bid farewell to Helen and John. They…

I had a route plotted from Greenbank farm where I’m staying up the ridge via Hartsop and Hayes water. But I read the bridge is out there and OS maps app shows impassable due to flooding. So I am walking with my umbrella back up the road to Patterdale and taking the trail from there….

A nice comfortable sleep at Yew Tree farm and breakfast in the lovely dining room. I had resisted a little, getting poached eggs, tomato and mushrooms rather than the full English… But they also had grapefruit segments and a nice muesli and local jams and marmalades for the toast…. So I didn’t actually eat less….