Thoughts at the end

Well -it's all over -we made it! Here are a few photos from our last day and arrival in Robin Hood's Bay where we joined fellow walkers at the Wainwright bar for a local brew in the Bay Hotel. As everyone has done before us since Alfred Wainwright first did this walk in 1971, we went down to the beach, dipped our boots in the North Sea and threw in the pebbles we had carried with us from St Bees. Yeah!!

My feelings at the end? For me the walk was an odyssey, conceived and planned for over a year -something that I had to do. I loved every moment of it, wind rain, sore feet and all and I feel so privileged to have had this chance to walk through some of England's finest countryside and meet such lovely people and raise money for Yes to Life at the same time. I found my walking legs - painful at first but they became stronger and stronger and carried me all that way without too much grumbling. Another really big thing to be grateful for. I managed to be chief map reader and not get us lost too often - a big surprise I must say! I loved having the opportunity to spend two weeks with Imogen who inspired me to challenge myself and to enjoy an outdoor life whatever the weather. Imo went in the sea for a dip after the walk - too chilly for me! That's my main feeling - gratitude for having had this amazing journey with Imogen, David and Vidya and gratitude to all of the people who supported us with their donations and good vibes. Thank you all and thank you Alfred Wainwright!!
Jo

first day of summer!

and it was sunny and beautiful! we had a delightful 5 mile stroll today(our shortest day yet) and arrived at a lovely farmhouse with lot's of cats, cows and lambs and a classic friendly farmers wife. Today we had cute male company with a white fluffy dog-a friend of Immos(the boy not the dog). Then the day before we had some of the Daly family as Jo said. All this was sweetly distracting.
The day before was the biggest challenge.....trudging for miles and miles(22 to be precise)through extreme weather(gale force winds and freezing rain)across the bleak and potentially beautiful Yorkshire Moors.....there was nowhere to shelter, my waterproof pants leaked yet again and I was cold and soaked through and felt like i was walking in a wet diaper! We tried to stop to eat our cheese and branston pickle sandwiches in the rain but we got too cold and had to eat walking. It was a test to say the least but we all survived!
Today we really saw the sea on the east coast and it looked so amazing like a deep blue mirage. We were looking down on Whitby which is where dracula arrived in England(I didn't know he came here but apparently he did). Today is the summer solstice so we plan to do a little ceremony. Immo has sparklers and I have a twirling thing that lights up when you throw it in the air plus we are going to do a debriefing. Tomorrow is our big day....eleven miles to Robin Hood Bay. I think we are going to make it yeah!!!!!!!!!!!

Trial by Moor and Summer Solstice

Its been a while since we had internet access so this blog entry has to cover a lot of ground (like us). I will have to describe it backwards from this moment. We are at Intake Farm in Littlebeck which is only 10 miles from Robin Hood's Bay! Today as we walked across our last piece of moorland we saw the North Sea shining blue in the distance and we shrieked with delight - hard to believe we are actually nearly there and only one more day to go! Since our last post we have been tested by the gods and goddesses of the Yorkshire Moors who must have thought that we wimps from USA needed a greater challenge. On Saturday we set out at 7am from Ingleby Cross to walk 22 miles across the wild and untamed moors of north Yorkshire. Oh yeah! It started to rain as we left the farm and so we chose our "full metal jacket" rain gear with gaiters. Lucky. As we climbed steadily on to the moors the wind picked up to a howling gale so I was hardly able to stand upright and the rain came down horizontally "like stair rods" as they say here. We battled on (at least there were no bogs!)knowing we had no choice but to keep going and had one oasis in the form of a small isolated cafe called The Lord Stones cafe in the middle of nowhere where we had great cappucino and scones. Then we hurled ourselves out into the wind again. It was impossible to stop walking even to have sandwiches as the wind and cold grabbed you and threatened to toss you into the air so we just kept going -Vidya listened to her "moor mix" on her ipod and 10 hours later we staggered into the famous Lion Inn pub at Blakey Ridge. People were in there having dinner and they looked at us like we just arrived from an arctic expedition as we came through the door. After hot baths (and a gin and tonic) we were in good shape again and ready to greet our guests Robin, Nancy, Myrren and James who had driven from London to meet us. What a banquet we had that night!! Now as I look back on that day -it was wonderful - wild intimacy with the elements that is not something I usually experience and an incredibly beautiful moorland impression. Next morning -better weather - James and Myrren walked with us from Blakey Ridge to Graisdale where we had lunch together before they set off back to London. It was great to have had company! We walked on to the village of Grosmont last night which is famous for its steam railway. We were joined this time by Imo's friend Henry and his dog Louis who came up from Derby to walk with us. We had another pub dinner in The Station Tavern with other C to C'ers and one highlight of the evening was the look on the barman's face when Vidya asked if they had extra virgin olive oil! Today we set off in glorious sunshine for Littlebeck - a short 5 mile day to allow us to "rest" and enjoy the beauty of this delightful hamlet with a trickling brook or beck through the middle of little cottages. The farm where we are now is a working farm - we were greeted with tea and chocolate cake and then played with two tiny kittens - part of a gang of farm cats here as we waited for Shepavan to arrive with our bags. Tonight we are celebrating the summer solstice and reflecting on this amazing journey that we have been lucky enough to share. Tomorrow we finish!

arrived in Ingleby Cross

wherever that is.....actually it's somewhere in North Yorkshire, close to where me mum and dad used to live for many years(practicing my Yorkshire accent). Last night we slept in a bunk barn...i had visions of chickens running around our bedroom but it wasn't that bad...just smelt of cow poo! But I slept like a baby. We had no internet there...so not always easy to blog. We had two relatively easy days of 14 then 9 miles. We did a lot of traipsing through fields of wheat, nettles and thorns...sometimes on tracks and sometimes creating our own tracks....which the farmers probably don't appreciate! The weather was super sunny for two days and it's the first time I got a sun-tan in England. Today was overcast but dry and we arrived early afternoon...in time to catch up on internetting and do some yoga practice and prepare ourselves for a major 22 mile hike through the dales tomorrow. We are nursing some blisters and sore feet and manifesting a smooth walk for tomorrow......so send us some really good vibes for a happy hike tomorrow!
Tomorrow night we are staying at a famous pub called the Lion's Inn and Robin, the founder of Yes to Life, who we are walking for is driving 6 hours up from London with his wife to meet us for dinner....so we have to make it!!

June 15th - Swaledale - and on across Yorkshire

Last night we arrived in Keld after an average 13 mile day (did I really say that?). We walked across the Yorkshire dales and it was the day of BOGS. The heather on the moorland turns into peat over the years and when the peat gets wet it turns into thick pools of black mud. Grass grows on top of this so you can't always see where the bog is until you step and the ground gives way and you sink down. We had our gaiters on and had to pay close attention with every step. Luckily it was not raining as well so we managed to negotiate the trail.
We stayed in a fabulous barn in Keld next to a waterfall in the Swaledale Valley. Its so pretty - hard to believe its real and not a Disney filmset. Here we stayed with a Dutch couple who walk very fast and they helped Vidya tend to her awful blister. They are pro walkers! We also met three delightful Welshman -Brian, Peter and Cyril (the PCB's) walking together and we spent a happy evening over dinner sharing stories and glasses of wine. We were sorry to say goodbye this morning as they set off back to Wales. See our photo!
Today dawned sunny and we happily set off to walk by the river down the Swaledale valley to Reeth. It's hard to describe how beautiful this valley is. The fields are all full of wild flowers and we have seen enough sheep to send us to sleep for a hundred years. We were dive bombed by lapwings and also saw curlews, stoats and a thousand rabbits. We ate our lunch in a field and then stopped again for tea in a village, arriving at The Buck Pub in Reeth for the night. Tired but happy and peaceful and Vidya was a trooper managing 11 miles with a big blister!

half way!!!

Well yesterday Jo, Imo and I clocked up 21 brave miles across the moors...most of them in slattering rain! I found out my waterproof trousers leaked...rather nasty! We all kept stiff upper lips and squelched on. We were happy to find a warm farmhouse that served delicious cappucinos and hot crumpets and tea cakes. After many wet and tiresome miles....finally the sun came out and the scenery was resplendant and beautiful. The last 3 miles on a tarmac road into Kirby Stephen were gruelling....the only way I made it was to listen to my ipod and find a rhythm and keep on marching....arriving was blissful. Kirby Stephen was a lovely little town and we found an Indian restaurant and chowed down.

Today we made it across rolling moors past the nine standards( a group of ancient cairns) trolling through thick bogs...trying to avoid falling in up to our necks.....past the grouse buts(where Prince Charles likes to go with his friends and shoot innocent birds who can't fly, past a black hut where apparently royal butlers serve lunch for the hunting party on silver platters......passing by a remote farmhouse with a lovely farmers wife who served us a devonshire cream tea right at 4pm. It was a shorter walk(thankfully) today and we rolled into keld at 5.30pm in record time and have had a restful evening.

Don't worry - we're OK!

Sorry we went AWOL there for a while, but we've discovered that internet access is definitely not a given in this part of the world, and we haven't had it at the places where we've stayed for the last three nights. On one hand that's a delightful relief, especially at the end of an exhausting day when all we want to do is eat and fall in to bed. On the other hand we want to keep you all posted and each internetless(?) day was a bit frustrating on that count. Let me catch you up on the events of days three and four (Which I had written before I discovered we had no internet access!)

Day Three – A day of Challenges
The walk (that’s what they call it here – no hikes thank you very much!) from Ennerdale to Stonethwaite village was a real test for us. I had been hoping to start the day with a stiff climb up on to Red Pike and then walk along the high ridgeline for three or four miles (‘the high route’) before meeting Jo and Vidya where their trail would intersect with mine. However the weather was pretty lousy in the morning, so I opted out of the high route, which according to the hostel manager at Ennerdale required a working knowledge of map and compass navigation in this kind of weather. I wasn’t that confident of my orienteering skills, and tales abound of people wandering around lost for hours up on the high fells in misty weather. It was also windy, so I imagined that up ‘on top’ as they say, what looked like mist from down here would actually be driving rain up there. Didn’t seem like it would be much fun!
The low route took us along the Ennerdale valley floor to the Black Sail youth hostel – the most remote hostel in the UK, where we stopped for a cup of tea – before pitching us up the bottom of the almost vertical climb up the aptly named Loft Beck. I think it must have been close to 1000ft of stair-climbing before we poked our heads over the rise in to the clouds (thick mist) on the fell top. It was our most severe climbing challenge so far, and although it was definitely arduous we took it in stride!
On top conditions were pretty rough for a June day (I’m sure they can be far worse in winter) – the wind was howling and the mist was thick enough that at times we couldn’t see 50 yards, which made it tricky to pick out the cairns which fortunately marked our route. The air temperature was probably about 50F, but with the wind chill it felt more like 35F. Out came the fleeces and the rain jackets, and even, after a while, the gloves! We walked through the clouds for about 45 minutes, following a line of cairns and the instructions in our guide book very carefully before the path turned downhill on an abandoned slate mining tramway. After that things eased up and we wound up at our destination in Stonethwaite in Borrowdale at about 5.30pm, tired but happy. We had overcome our first really challenging set of conditions, and suddenly felt confident that we could handle this business!
I’m happy to report that I enjoyed two pints of excellent, local, prize winning Black Sheep Bitter’ before dinner, and rarely was beer so well earned! As good English beer is, it was served at cellar temperature (rather than chilled), which makes it that much easier to drink, and the rich smell and flavor that comes with that relative warmth gives the sense that one is drinking a fresh live beer rather than a sterile one. It’s more like drinking an organic liquid food than a characterless chemical concoction, which is how chilled beers sometimes taste to me. (sorry America!)


Day Four – Stonethwaite to Grasmere: In the lap of the gods!
A day spent wandering the grassy pathways of heaven! After a strenuous climb out of the Borrowdale valley where Stonethwaite lies, we arrived at the peak of the spectacular Lining Crag which offered a wonderful view back down the valley, and of a ‘basin of drumlins’ which we had crossed to get there. (I’ll let you figure that oneout!) We then crossed a boggy plateau in chilly winds to arrive at Greenup Edge which, when the mist parted for long enough, allowed us some peeks of the promise of the Grasmere valley below.
The weather was improving as we sat and ate lunch enjoying the view. We then set off along the ridgeline toward the distant peaks of Gibson Knott and Helm Crag, which towers over Grasmere – our destination for the day. Wainwright, who created the Coast-to-Coast walk said "the best part of walking is fell walking, and the best part of fell-walking is ridge walking". This must be one of the most glorious of all ridge-walks, extending for a couple of miles with small rises to peaks with astonishing 360 degree views, valleys falling dramatically away on both sides, and the ceaseless movement of clouds creating an endlessly unfolding drama of light and shade on a gigantic canvas of mountains, valleys and tarns (small mountain lakes). I had to stop about every thirty seconds to take photographs! It was one of those walks where I found myself wondering "how did I get to be so lucky as to be doing this?"

Looking down in to lush, stone-walled farmland of the valley on the Grasmere side of the ridge was like looking down on ‘The Shire’ of Hobbits, and gave us the feeling of being on a Tolkeinian quest.

After sitting a while on Helm Crag to take in the view and recharge on Cadbury’s chocolate, we headed down the steep trail – sorry, I mean path (they don’t have ‘trails’ here!) in to Grasmere, getting lost briefly at the bottom (the last time you want to get lost of course – when you’re most tired!) where we met up with our fourth team member Imo, who had just arrived from Seattle by way of London. Celebratory drinks were in order of course and local beers were to be had, as everywhere in the north of England. Sorry,but it’s too late to get in to beery details right now! Bed time!