Day 2: Blacksail to Grasmere

We successfully woke up at around 5.45am (still dark) as we wanted to leave at around 6.45-7am when daylight would greet us. Chris's knee was painful as were his and Tom's feet with the blisters and they were sceptical about the day/rest of the walk. Anyway we had a generous portion of cereal each and we were on our way just after 7. The start of the day was cold and there were low lying clouds hiding the peaks of the hills were about to walk up. The hill started almost immediately and was very steep involving clambering up some rocks and stepping over a stream before a steep rocky ascent approaching the cloud line. After about half an hour of climbing we reached the top and we were in the clouds so could not see much more than the piles of rocks marking our route. However the cloud soon cleared offering spectacular views of the landscape (including a lake in the distance which had low lying cloud and we were higher than the cloud!!!) We then walked remaining at the same level using the rock piles to help us stay on course. After a while we reached a descent down to a slate/stone warehouse (we'd seen a quarry a bit earlier so this is where they cut and sort the slate/stone before selling). Anyway when we'd reached the warehouse Chris's knee's were very painful so we slowed to an easier pace. From here it was pretty easy walking to our scheduled break destination of Rosthwaite. We saw from the icon on our map that there was a place to eat there and managed to find a tearoom easily. I opted for a hot chocolate to warm up and a homemade pasty. I think Chris and Tom had a tea or coffee and also something hot to eat. The food and hot drinks were very good. After about 45 minutes we dragged ourselves out of the tearoom and continued on our way. The break was to long and we'd seized up and it took a little while to loosen/warm up again. The next section of the walk was lovely as we walked alongside a river at the foot of the hills for a while. The sun had come out which made it even better. Anyway eventually the river changed direction and our path carried on straight which took us up another massive hill which again offered amazing views from the top. The next bit was (against what the map showed) pretty hard to navigate/ stay on our path. After consulting the map and compass we crossed some boggy/mossy terrain to join back onto the proper path. There were lots of other hikers here (before now we had only seen the odd walkers but there were a lot here - maybe this was because it was a nice saturday afternoon or maybe it was a sign we were close to Grasmere (what we were hoping)). Anyway seeing hikers was a good thing as it meant we could see where we were supposed to be going more easily (by looking at others) and gave us the opportunity to ask for directions. The path was challenging and although we could now see Grasmere in the distance, but due to our tricky path, the fact we were descending for a long time and Chris's knees hurting it was taking forever to get there. Eventually we reached the foot of the hill, crossed a foot bridge and thankfully onto a much better track. Now Tom was the one suffering the most as his feet were extremely sore and he was seriously starting to struggle. Thankfully the outskirts of Grasmere were not too far away and after a few phonecalls we found Grasmere Youth Hostel which had spaces for us. Our original aim at the start of the day was to push on past Grasmere and wildcamp next to a lake a bit further on but due to the knees and feet this was out of the question. So we found the hostel easily and checked in (around £22 each for room and breakfast). The hostel was more like a hotel with washing facilities a kitchen we could use, drying room for wet stuff, lounge area and even a sauna!!! We didn't bother with washing anything (even though we really should have done) as this simply meant more to do, and didn't use the sauna as you had to pay for this). After a quality shower and change we were all up for going to the nearby pub to get a decent meal - the only thing was Tom was 100% not up for putting his boots back on which resulted in me giving him a piggy-back most of the way to the pub and him going to the pub in his socks. At the pub we got a pretty decent meal each and walked back to the hostel with the aid of the headtorch. Back at the hotel we went into the lounge area and watched a Peter Kay DVD whilst amending the destinations and altering the route a bit for the remaining days of the hike to make it more manageable. Then we went to bed.


Reviews

Blacksail Hostel - 8/10: Rather expensive for a hostel but free dinner/ 50p cereal/ helpful staff were great!!!
Rosthwaite Tearoom - 9/10: Friendly service, very good food, not overly expensive.

Lessons Learned

Don't stop for too long for a break due to seizing up/stiffness, again consult the map and compass more.

Day 1 - St Bees to Blacksail (26.5 miles approx.)

We all woke up good spirits after a very comfortable night's sleep in our room. I had another shower just for the hell of it as I anticipated that the opportunities to have a shower would be few and far between over the next 9 days. We went down for breakfast at our previously arranged time of 7.30am and were very pleasantly surprised when we were greeted with cereal, toast and delicious porridge. After devouring all of this we departed at a pretty slaggy 8.30 after leaving the B&B lady a fiver tip. I was wearing my standard tank top and running shorts. The weather was very fresh and windy but thankfully not raining. We made our way down to the beach to dip our boots in the sea as this is what we heard was the traditional thing to do at the start of the walk. All of us were in even better spirits now as the start of the walk had finally arrived and we recorded a video/ took some funny videos of the beach on my camera. After leaving the beach we made our way north up the side of the cliff and immediately realised that the walk would be harder than I anticipated with the muddy/slippery path and lack of signposts. Chris almost straight away managed to tear a hole in his expensive ski jumper brushing past some barbed wire fence. After reaching the lighthouse after maybe an hour or hour and a half we made our way inland - this was a relief as this meant (at least initially) walking on roads rather than muddy fields/paths as well as escaping the cold coasterly wind. Then maybe about half an hour or so it started raining - I was already pretty cold by this point and this was the final straw - I stopped under the shelter of a farm outbuilding and got out my tights (which ended up replacing the shorts for the rest of the trip), raincoat, hat and gloves. We polished off the remaining donuts from the coach yesterday to give ourselves a boost. Thankfully the rain didn't last long but soon we were presented with a challenge - jumping over a stream as we couldn't see a bridge that was meant to be crossing the stream roughly where we were. So we found the only point which looked jumpable (still a big gap). Tom jumped first, didn't quite make it and got soaking boots, the same happened to me next. Chris then launched over the massive backpacks and managed to clear the gap. Bastard. Then we had to clamber our way up a steep overgrown embankment and walk over a very boggy field which left us all with wet feet. We eventually came to a road and started walking up a hill. When we got to the top of the hill we saw a signpost so we got the map out and realised that we were going the wrong way and had to go back down the hill - not the start we needed. After this we paid more attention to the map/compass. We then walked on the road for a little way which I was again happy about this time as it meant faster progress as our detour/stream crossing had set us back a few hours. We were then presented with a massive hill which we powered up still having a lot of energy with it still being the first day. On the way up we walked through a wooded area which was meant to have red squirrels in - we didn't see any just the first of many many sheep in the fields after the wooded area. The top of the massive hill greeted us with the first spectacular views of the walk which gave us all a boost. As this blog is being written a few weeks after returning I can't remember everything but I'm pretty sure there was a very steep, slow descent, walking alongside the stream at the bottom and following some signposts as well as relying on the map to get to the side of a massive lake - the first of a few big ones along the way. I thought walking alongside the lake would be pretty easy going - I was wrong. It was alright at first but soon involved clambering up rocks and some pretty steep inclines (it started to rain again here) and a long section of wet, slippery rock/tree roots and the odd patch of more boggy ground). We enjoyed some cough candy's along this section which I especially needed as already had a cold. By the time we had finally reached the end of the lake we were pretty tired and must have covered around 16-20 miles and time was getting on ( I think it was around 5-5.30 with proper darkness starting at about 7. Thankfully we soon reached a big track and we could see that this continued to Blacksail (meaning fast progress and easy navigation) which was at least 5 miles away. I took up my role as pacemaker as we set a decent pace for this last stretch. After around 22 miles my Garmin GPS watch ran out of battery so couldn't really grasp how far we had to go after this point which was annoying. 6.30pm, then 6.45, then 7pm all past and we were still not there and the track was starting to head up into the wilderness - not great as visibility was getting low. This tension amongst us quickened the pace. Thankfully we soon saw a light in the distance so we had Blacksail in sight. We eventually got to Blacksail at around 7.30 just before complete darkness set in. Our initial impressions of the hostel weren't great as we has to pay £21 each for our room, the room was very basic and having a shower involved having to go outside and around the side of the building before opening what was little more than a shed door meaning being cold drying off from the shower or using the toilet. We were lucky to get a bed as we were told that if we had arrived tomorrow there wouldn't have been any space for us. However Blacksail redeemed itself as we were given a big dish of Shepherds pie (or something similar) for free as this was leftovers. Also the young couple running the hostel were very helpful with looking at potential hostels, maps and the weather for the following day as well as offering us a 50p per person cereal breakfast!!! Chris and Tom's feet were pretty badly blistered already leaving a question mark if they would be able to complete the entire walk. Luckily for me my feet were fine - just slight rubbing on my achilles which a couple of blister plasters sorted out. So after our pie/ map looking we went to bed pretty exhausted.


Reviews

The B&B in St Bees - 9/10 - Great value, very friendly service, Nice bed/room/shower, excellent breakfast (especially the porridge which was the best we had during the trip)

Lessons Learned:

Leave earlier, consult the map/compass if you are not 100% sure of where you're going and don't rush this, make sure the watch is fully charged before leaving, try to plan/book accommodation before arriving if possible.    

Introduction

Me (Ashley Middlewick) and two mates (Chris Thomas and Tom Smith) have recently embarked on the challenge of completing the Wainwright's Coast to Coast Walk in 9 days. I personally have never done any proper walking/hiking whatsoever but decided to do it as it would be a nice way to see the Lake District, Peak District and Yorkshire Dales. I had run 5 Marathons before and had done a few training walks around London so thought this would be easy in the given timeframe. Chris had done a bit of hiking before (the Duke of Edinburgh awards back in his school days) and Tom had also done some but none of us had done anything on this magnitude.
 Tom organised most of it (getting the Ordinance Survey (OS) maps, sorting out coach times/ emailing anyone who was potentially interested in doing the walk. It was tricky to find dates which suited everyone due to work commitments, other holidays etc but we eventually agreed on getting the National Express coach up on 04/10/12 from London Victoria, starting the hike the following day, finishing the hike on 13/10/12, then coaching it back home the following day and returning to work the day after (Monday). Unfortunately one of our mates (Matthew Binks) had to pull out due to our constantly changing dates. Eventually probably about 3 weeks earlier we all agreed on dates and on our £200 per person budget, and that was pretty much everything sorted bar a few items. Then 2 days before Tom realised his boots, sleeping bag and sleeping mat had been thrown out so had to go and buy these things the day before we left - awful. Anyway Tom managed to get what he needed and then we went mental in Sainsbury's getting food for the 9hr coach journey the following day.

The journey up (London Victoria to Whitehaven, Whitehaven to St Bees)

Me and Tom got to the coach station at around 10.55, 5 minutes before our coach was scheduled to leave. Chris was already there but not particularly happy as he had to fork out an extra tenner to buy his coach ticket at the station rather than online like me and Tom had done. Anyway we set off just after 11am and immediately set to work demolishing our £40 worth of food. Me and Tom had done a 6 mile warm-up walk earlier that morning and had not had any breakfast so were more than ready for the massive food intake. About an hour later and a few thousand calories later we were pretty full and spent the next few hours just talking about what lied ahead. After a very long 5 hours or so I started to feel a bit sick and regretted eating so much earlier. I spent the next hour or so concentrating on breathing/getting off at each stop for some fresh air. At one point I felt really bad and despite being pretty cold turned on my air conditioning positioning the little grill so that it blew straight at my face and put my warm top on - good call. I soon felt ok and we eventually reached Whitehaven at I think around 7.30 in the dark. We were fortunate enough that the taxi rank was right where the coach stopped and we were able to get a taxi to St Bees immediately for a reasonable £10. We asked the driver if he knew any cheap B&B's in St Bees as none of us fancied camping anywhere which was suggested between ourselves on the coach. Luckily we found somewhere reasonable straight away and managed to get the initial group quote of £60 down to £50 and managed to blag cereal, toast and porridge for the morning- massive result. The lady showed us upstairs to our room which we were very pleased with. We were initially gonna go to he pub but that soon out the window as soon as Chris and Tom got into bed. So it was a pretty early, sensible night (between 10 and 10.30pm) before the big start and big breakfast in the morning.