At around 2.30am after fidgeting around feeling itchy for hours in my tiny one man tent failing to get any sleep, I decided to go outside and walk around for a bit. It was bitterly cold but I did not want to go back into my tent. So the only alternative was to go for a run. I went back to my tent to get out my Ipod and started running down the road wearing layer upon layer of clothes listening to 'The Very Best of 2 Unlimited' on the ipod. I was loving the feeling of isolation (there was noone or nothing to be seen) and freedom (not being confined to the tent) of running in the dead of night going nowhere in particular. I saw a sign saying it was 6 miles to the next village so decided I'd run there and then walk back. It was an awesome clear starry night and despite no sleep felt awake and relatively energetic. After about 15 minutes I was warm and the hat was off/jacket unzipped. The entire way to the village was one neverending road with maybe two smaller roads joining onto my road the whole way and probably saw 2 cars in the couple of hours it took to get there - I couldn't have been more in the middle of nowhere. When I finally arrived I went into a phonebox - the only place I could see anything on my person to sort out more music for the ipod and unzip more clothes. Then the long walk back started almost immediately. The clothes were soon zipped up again but I remained warm enough by maintaining walking at a steady pace. I stopped 3 or 4 times staring at the sky and even saw some shooting stars (which living in London I'd never seen before). There were a few more cars now (maybe 1 every 10 or 15 minutes) and I could see them approaching from probably at least a mile away. It started to get light at around 6am and shortly after ran the final half mile or so back to Lion's Inn to warm up. I got back at around 6.30 and got what I think was a ham baguette that I had saved from Richmond out of the tent and ate this outside the pub (it wasn't open yet) overlooking the wilderness - awesome. The pub opened it's doors at around 7 (they were preparing breakfasts for the guests staying in the B&B) and I was straight in to warm up. Shortly later I went outside to tell Chris and Tom (who were still in their tents) to come inside into the warm. I went back inside and found myself dozing off when Chris and Tom joined me. We then ate (or attempted to eat) our awful pork luncheon meat baps that we'd bought in the petrol station the previous day. Chris ate both of his and didn't mind them whilst me and tom could only endure maybe had one or half of one each. Chris and Tom as I expected were in pain again after the massive day yesterday but we were all in good spirits as this was the last day. We were in no urgent rush to leave as we had until 10pm to get to Robin Hood's Bay where Ellie had very kindly offered to give Chris a lift back to Peterborough with her and give me and Tom a lift to Whitby where we would catch our coach back to London in the morning. So we stayed in the pub until about 8.30 and then dragged ourselves outside to pack up our tents. We eventually left at around 9.10. The start of the day was very easy walking with roads and decent tracks (no boggy crap), was relatively flat and the weather was sunny but fairly cold with a breeze. We were walking at a pretty good pace and Chris had his ipod on and was in the zone. I soon got my Ipod out and put it on speaker - this lasted about 10 minutes before the battery died - great. Shortly later we bumped into an older guy who lived in Glaisdale (this was the next village and where we planned to stop for lunch). We had a long chat about the walk and he told us that people came from all over the world to do the coast to coast he had met several foreigners doing the walk earlier in the summer (Americans, Brazilians and New Zealanders amongst others) and that the coast to coast was the second most popular walk in the world. He also told us that we had until 12.30 to get to Glaisdale as this was when the shop shut - this was cutting it very fine. So after the long chat we moved swiftly on (aching at first as we'd stopped for too long). We entered Glaisdale at around 12.20, then we saw the same guy again and he told us where the shop was. We managed to get there with about 2 minutes to spare - massive relief. The shop had quite a good choice of food and we had £9.10 left between us to get food to last us to Robin Hood's Bay this evening. This led to a lot of deliberation as to what to get (to the annoyance of the impatient shopkeeper who wanted to go home). We eventually chose everything we wanted and spant every penny of the £9.10 we had. Up until now we'd been sensible with what sorts of foods to buy (healthy sensible options that would give us energy) but this time we indulged in massive cakes/rolls, crisps and chocolate. We ate most of this on the bench outside the shop and set off maybe just after 1pm bloated and stiff. The initial way was a steep downhill which was painful (for the first time I was aching/finding the walking a real struggle). The walking until the end was thankfully still mostly fairly easy with minimal bog aside from a couple of big hills. By about 5pm I thought that it could be doable to get to Robin Hoods bay before dark and really wanted to try and do this as I wanted the photos/video of us dipping our boots in the sea whilst we could still see. Chris and Tom were really struggling so it would be very tight. About half an hour before dark we reached the top of the hill looking down to the bay and could see the beach and waves breaking. I tried to urge Chris and Tom on and they did the best they could but by the time we'd got to the bottom of the hill we were still maybe a mile from the finish/beach and darkness had set in. The last mile was across fields/down paths which I wasn't expecting but didn't care as we were so close to the end. We soon arrived and went onto the beach. The tide was way out so we dipped our boots in the puddles in the sand rather than having to navigate around the sand puddles in the dark to reach the sea. We had a group hug and were all elated to have finally got here. We took pictures next to the coast to coast finish sign before going in search of a pub that accepted credit cards and served food. All the pubs were full by the beach so we had to trudge up a long steep hill to the main town area - not what we needed. We eventually got to a pub that someone had recommended. This again was full but we managed to get a spare chair each and sit in the corner. We ordered a few rounds of drinks (these few drinks had more of an effect than a few drinks normally would have done) and got some crisps. A live band then started setting up which meant we had to find another pub to get a meal as Tom didn't have his ear plugs. Thankfully we were able to grab a table at the next pub and order a meal each and another drink each. The food was pretty decent (nothing was gonna match up to the Lion's Inn meal yesterday) and probably tasted better as I was a bit pissed. Chris then called Ellie (the one phone we had between us that had any battery was dying meaning calls had to be quick and turning the phone off when not in use). Thankfully the phone didn't die and Ellie found us easily enough. After a brief chat in the pub we went out to Ellie's mini and squeezed ourselves and massive bags in to the smallish car (thankfully it was a new mini and not an old mini). Ellie kindly offered to let me and Tom stay in Peterborough at her's - we wished we'd thought of this before we'd ordered our coach tickets. Soon later me and Tom said goodbye to Chris and Ellie as we were dropped off in Whitby.
Lessons Learned
Dont but pork luncheon meat from petrol stations
Ratings
Meal at the Lion's Inn - 10/10: Quality food, massive portions, nice warm and cosy environment.
Camping at the Lion's Inn - 6/10: Didn't have to pay but no toilet facilities during the night. Setting the tents up in the dark was awful. On the plus side sitting in the pub in the morning was awesome.
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