Blogs from Cumbria, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 6

24 August 2019, Saturday. Day 5 on Coast 2 Coast, day 8 of travel. The guidebooks and the Google maps indicated that the day would be about a nine-hour walk. Janet was joining us for her first long-distance walk. From Seatoller this started with a gentle walk up the stream through Rosthwaite. Then we started our climb over the mountain. Along the river there were many tent campers and other campers who were out enjoying a walk along the trail beside the river. The further we walked the steeper the climb became. Near the rock outcrop called Lining Crag, it became an upward scramble over the rocks. We were moving at a significantly slower Pace than we had anticipated. At this point I took Janet's backpack in hopes of giving her more stability and easier climbing. ... read more

21 August 2019, Wednesday Short walk on the C2C from St Bees to Cleator. Second day on coast to coast but my 5th day overall. As I mentioned it yesterday we set out about mid-afternoon to walk around St Bees cliff. This proved to be a much longer hike than we had been led to believe. Completing only the Coast to Coast trail before breaking off and heading back to St. Bees was 7.6 miles. So this morning we retraced some of the route along the railroad tracks from St Bees to the tunnel crossing under the railroad tracks where we joined the Coast to Coast trail again. From this point we had about a four mile hike into Cleator. We are staying at the Ennerdale Country House hotel in Cleator. There were seven other hikers ... read more

Back in 2016 I wrote my first account of a challenge I took part in during the summer. This is my account of our National Three Peak Challenge. As I have just started this blog I thought some of you would like to read it. Steve. (October 2018) Preface It was a familiar feeling in recent weeks. My head was spinning wildly and I was in serious danger of collapsing. Nausea was building to the point I was holding vomit back and I felt like I wanted to shit in my shorts. I leant my head on my poles and took several deep breaths. I was scared this would happen. I fucking knew it would after all this work to get on top of it. My knees uneasy under my body weight were struggling to hold ... read more

Day 2.. I After a busy wet and eventful first day in the Lake district and most of the itinerary already done we decided today to headed up to Bassenthwaite Lake, hoping that the flow of the river would be in our favour. Once we had packed our tent and checked no rubbish was left behind we headed out onto the now calm waters and head north. Stopping firstly at the Nichol End Marine for a nosey, we ended up being drawn in by the strong aroma of coffee wafting out, so fuelled up with coffee and Croissants plus the use of their facilities for the usual ablutions. Once we had finished looking round we got back into the kayaks and carried on to the mouth of the northern end of Derwent water and headed up ... read more

The day began with the drive through Keswick to the turn-off onto the road that would take us up and over the 454m (1 489 feet) Kirkstone Pass, a mountain pass in the Lake District. In places it has a gradient of 1:4. We stopped numerous times to take in the scenery and to even walk into a few fields to take photos and enjoy the freshness of the mountains. We also stopped near the summit at the 3rdhighest public house in England, Kirkstone Pass Inn. The road, as has been the case throughout the Lake District, was windy, narrow in many places, enclosed by stone fences and having steep, cliff like drop-offs, numerous blind corners that required 100% focus when driving particularly when vehicles approached from the opposite direction. Before hitting the M6 we came ... read more