Dipping your boot in the sea.

First thing at St Bees is to dip your boot in the sea. It should be one boot in the Irish Sea and the other in the North Sea. Be clear, the sea is a splashy salty thing with waves. Rock pools or wet sand don't count. If the tide is out, diddums, you're on a walking holiday, walk!  

Collecting a pebble. 

You must pick up a pebble in St Bees to skim into the sea at Robin Hood's Bay. A pebble is roughly the size of a scone. Anything smaller than a pea definitely doesn't count. You have to carry the pebble yourself the whole way. Not in your "baggage transfer", on your person. If you lose your pebble there are no ifs and no buts, you must return to St Bees, get another one, and start the walk again. 

Fat Betty

This is a squat white-painted memorial cross. No one knows why it's there or why the tradition for travellers to exchange treats arose. But it did and it's tradition. Give up a snack and take one in exchange. There is no equivalent value system but there ought to be. Use this as a guide...

Cereal bars = no value whatsoever. 

Free biscuits from B&B = a boiled sweet

Fresh apple = Mars bar

Crisps = crisps

"I am beginning to have second thoughts about "official" footpaths. I am not now at all sure they are wholly to be commended." He laments in his personal notes in the Coast to Coast guide. His objection was that official routes quickly become "a too popular parade" and "on some you don't need a map: just follow the trail of empty cans and orange peel."

Perhaps it is because of this stated distain for officialdom that the route avoids it's official status. Indeed, Wainwright was proud of sticking to existing footpaths and access land. Although unbeknownst to him he commited trespass many times. 

The route will remain without National Trail status for the foreseeable future. And maybe it's a good thing. To be truly following Wainwright's advice you should plan your own Coast to Coast route with maps crossing the UK wherever you fancy. 

"I want to encourage in others the ambition to devise with the aid of maps their own cross-country marathons and not be merely followers of other people's routes: there is no end to the possibilities for originality and initiative."

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"Richmond is a town unlike others, a place unique, rich in relics of the past, steeped in a long history that still lingers in the ramifications of it's castle and the narrow alleys and quaint buildings that huddle in the shelter of the massive Norman keep."

He's right of course, it's a nice place. Also, for Coast-to-Coasters it's unique as the only chance to buy a Gregg's for lunch or a gingerbread latte. The local Boots is doing a roaring trade in Compeed and ankle supports. 

A part of me feels that even sleepy Richmond is too much like civilisation for walkers. We've spent days and days, or miles and miles, traipsing through the countryside and we shouldn't be tempted by shiny things until it's time to go home. 

Ideally, enjoy looking at the outside of the castle. Then walk straight past. 

"Richmond being the only town visited and that by design."

But the route takes in many smaller settlements.

It's hard to believe Keld, in lead mining boom times, once had a population of 6000. The village now has no shop and it's just Keld Lodge that gives the place some life. Staying there is great with the food, beer and humour that Yorkshire is proud of. 

Muker, Gunnerside and Healaugh all have  remains of last year's Grande Depart of the Tour de France, raced in the Dales. Tatty old bikes, painted yellow, we're strung up on walls. 

Reeth is a place with a bit of character. For it's size it seems to be doing well to have three pubs. But it once had thirteen. Set on the hillside with a view over the valley, if you get here on a sunny afternoon it's the perfect picturesque place to sit and have an ice cream, sit on a picnic table outside a pub. Even the most ardent factory lover would have to concede it's quite nice. 

Julia is a Nigellaesque presenter fond of flicking her tussled hair. She has introduced the Coast to Coast to a new generation of middle-aged men. In short she's the walking man's crumpet. Rather than explain Wainwright's childhood in Blackburn, or the influence his loveless marriage on his solitary walks, what people want to know is where Julia sat in Kirkby Stephen fish and chip shop. 

But there is a controversy about Julia's walk. Apparently a stand in was used in some of the long shots and, gasp, she might not have actually walked the whole way. 

The goal, out of Kirkby is to get to Nine Standards. These are nine large cairns that no one really knows who built, when or why. They are centuries old and one theory is that the marked the boundary between Yorkshire and Cumbria. Another theory is that the Romans built them to look like approaching troops. I think some bored dry stone wallers had a competition and it got out of hand. 

Down from Nine Standards Rigg and White Mossy Hill, you walk past some grouse shooting paraphernalia to Ravelseat Farm. 

Julia visited the farm on the DVD and talked to Amanda, the Yorkshire Shepherdess. She's got a good tale of growing up in Huddersfield and meeting her husband when sent to the farm to pick something up.  She married him and moved in to start breeding sheep and children. They have about 8 free range kids that run about the farm and help out with the cream teas. You can sit outside the farm and get tea and a scone.  Just like Julia did!

From Ravenseat to Keld you pass by many of the distinctive stone barns common in Swaledale called Laithes.  The idea was to have a small barn in each pasture rather than big ones by the central farm house. They are two story with a hay loft above stalls for cattle. In this way there wasn't far to take the hay from each pasture and it could be forked down to feed the cattle as needed. Also the cow manure could be collected and didn't have to be transported far to fertilise each pasture. 

When you arrive in Keld and relax for the night, spare a thought for poor Julia who had to be helicoptered away to other filming commitments. 

Millions of years ago, Shap was underwater. Corals and molluscs died and formed sedimentary layers on the sea bed which formed the rock called limestone. 

"...as every walker knows, a limestone footing invariably means easy travelling on velvet turf."

I've a feeling AW might have over estimated the general knowledge of the average walker...

He goes on to describe the limestone pavements you walk past on the first part of the walk:

"Crinkled, fissured and often grotesquely sculptured...a delight to the eye always."

Once your eyes have been suitably delighted by the limestone pavements keep them peeled for granite boulders sat on limestone. They were brought here by an ice sheet!

Throughout the walk today are several working and disused limestone quarries and lime kilns. The best example is in Smardale. 

Wainwright wouldn't have been keen. He rarely drank. Sometimes he'd have a half pint after a long walk. Maybe the 20 miles to Kirkby Stephen would deserve a whole pint? "A walker on limestone is well favoured."

The best day of the lakes is saved for last. Angle tarn, Kidsty Pike and views back to the rest of the lakes make for terrific scenery. 

After the steep descent from Kidsty Pike you walk along side Haweswater which was dammed in the 1930s to supply drinking water to Manchester. In doing so the village of Mardale was destroyed. A new village, Burnbanks, was created at the far end of the lake. I find it feels a bit creepy with its identical bungalows. 

At the top there is a treat with Grisdale Tarn, a nice spot for a brew or a bite to eat. 

Wainwright describes the transition down Grisdale as going from "savage desolation to pastoral loveliness." This comes at the end of an epic sentence that fills a quarter of a page. He had a tendency to purple prose and I expect he had a thesaurus handy at all times. 

Day Three of the Coast to Coast takes you out of Borrowdale with great views of Eagle Crag. It seems imposing until, by morning tea break, you are looking down on it from the top of Lining Crag. 

Like much of the Lakes this is an area run wild with Herdwick Sheep. These hardy sheep are prized in the Lakes for their hardy nature and ability to live of foraged food. The name comes from old Norse: herd= sheep herd, wick= farm/pasture. 

These sheep have a debt of gratitude to Beatrix Potter. She spent the latter part of her life, and a lot of her wealth, championing the breed. On her death she gave 15 farms to the Natural Trust. 

Walkers need to do what we can to help out farmers. If 100,000 people walk across your land, and just one in a thousand forgets to shut a gate, that's 100 times they have to round up their sheep. 

Walking along Ennerdale Water on day two of the Coast to Coast walk you go past Robin Hood's Chair. It's the first of a trio of RH related things. You pass Robin Hood's Grave on day 6 and of course you finish the walk in Robin Hood's Bay. 

Also on day two you walk past 4 youth hostels. Several of these leave out cakes that Coast-to-Coasters can buy so it's worth having a few quid in your pocket. Black sail hut is probably the most interesting. An old shepherds hut in a dramatic location at the head of the valley and a welcome lunch spot for many. 

The Coast to Coast walk was devised by the intricate and devious mind of that curmudgeonly bugger Alfred Wainwright. 

It was a follow up to his successful guide to the Pennine Way. He'd been pretty depressed when writing A Pennine Way Companion, as he was going through a messy divorce, but for A Coast to Coast Walk he was all loved up. It shows in the writing. 

Day one of the walk packs in huge variety of scenery, just like the last day. There is a cliff top walk (also like the last day), some quiet roads, a few small villages and Dent hill and a stroll along the lovely Nannycatch Beck. 

There are several bookend features on the walk. For example, you enter the Lake District beside Ennerdale Water and Leave it beside Haweswater. 

The old man liked walking alone. But eventually let his new love, Betty, come walking with him. But she wasn't allowed to talk and had to walk 10ft behind him. 

Wainwright expected the C to C to be compared to the Pennine way. He says in the book: 

"If there happens to be something in your temperament that makes you like the ladies the odds are that you will prefer the C. to C. You may not meet any but you will be reminded of them. On the PW you will never give them a thought...well, hardly ever. 

I finished the Pennine Way with relief, the Coast to Coast with regret. That's the difference."

Presumably he wasn't expecting many women to read/walk the C to C. 

Beer of the day: In the Shepherds Arms in Ennerdale Bridge I had a pint of Keswick Bitter 3.7% very smooth and drinkable dark brown beer. ****