Coast to Coast: Stage 5 Ingleby to Robin Hoods Bay

The B&Bs we’ve stayed in have all been beautifully presented with comfortable beds and clean linen. The hosts have been invariably pleasant and usually happy to chat about themselves and their town or village. Some have been tiny cottages dating back to 16^th century; a couple have been in large Victorian villas. Some hosts have been obsessively neat and controlling; one was a bloke’s B&B – a pint of beer and a discussion about 1990 Mercedes cars; one was run in a 16^th C pub that was much bigger on the inside than the outside but the ceiling beams were built for Kerry’s height rather than Gordon’s. A couple of Ians, a Dave, two Jennies, one Jane, a Colin and Sandra, a Jean, a Josephine and a Mrs Jackson all looked after us with a solid breakfast that generally kept us going until dinner with a few snacks during the day. Dinner was sometimes memorable, like steak and ale pie at Ennerdale Bridge, Thai ginger fish and stir-fried veges at Broughton, filet Rossini at Richmond, fish pie and turbot at Robin Hoods Bay. And lots of great beers.

The last four days have been over the north Yorkshire Moors.

Heather, Scarp and Farmland

The first, great walking day from Ingleby to Claybank Tops was generally up 600-900 feet followed by steeply down. Claybank Tops to the isolated Lion Inn on the moors was an easy walk of 16 km mostly along a disused railway track. The next two days were quite long, about 26 km across moors. The second last night at Grosmont was like being part of normal sized toy train set. When the railway – lifeblood of the town – was slated to be closed in the early 1960s, it was saved by a mix of volunteer and commercial energy and now appears in period railway vignettes (such as Harry Potter) and provides a regular steam connection to nearby towns and Whitby. Last night was at Robin Hoods Bay and after throwing our pebbles from the Irish Sea into the North Sea, we are now on a fast train via York to London.

Street at Robin Hoods Bay

Robin Hoods Bay has an upper town where Victorian sea captains built their grand villas near the (now discontinued) station. The lower town is like a stage set for Pirates of the Caribbean, with narrow winding streets between tiny terrace houses that back onto each other. Used to be a smuggler’s haven where the excise men were dodged by entering one house and appearing out another a couple of streets below and three along.

Low tide at the Bay

The big tide difference means that flat bottom scows can be beached at low tide for unloading and floated off at high tide. A lot of submerged rocks and a treacherous coast meant a lot of lifeboat and rocket rescues. Now a tiny town for themed holidays with fresh fish and chips.

Done it!

After about 340km walking – the longest we’ve done – stress has disappeared, legs and cardio vascular fitness have improved wonderfully so we can now walk straight up a 300M hill without stopping. Feet have suffered a bit, but nothing permanent or serious. A wonderful holiday. Now, on to the next adventure!

Coast to Coast Stage 4: Reeth to Ingleby Arncliffe

Steps built by Norman nuns to go to mass

From Reeth to Richmond, we continued down the Swale valley, sometimes dropping down to admire Muker where they filmed the James Herriott TV series, or climbing up on to the moors past derelict houses for sale. Richmond, however, was booming. The French and Italian restaurants were doing a roaring trade, although the shops weren’t as busy as they should be. Everyone was at the railway station, a Victorian gem, renovated with film theatres, restaurants and a swimming pool. No trains, but the track bed makes a pleasant walk to Easby Abbey, another of Henry VIII’s nationalizations. 

Richmond has been a garrison town since the Romans built their camp at nearby Catterick to guard the northern route from York to Hadrian’s Wall. Catterick is now the largest Army base in Europe. It was well hidden by high hedges when we went past, but the sounds of clanking tank treads and shouting men carried nevertheless. The Normans thought Richmond was a good place from which to intimidate the locals, so William the Bastard asked his brother to set up a castle to do just that. While the Norman keep has fallen into disuse, the adjacent building was used to house 18 conscientious objectors in the First World War – probably the same streak of independent bloody mindedness that bred the strong influence of non-conformists in this part of the country.

Richmond has the only surviving Georgian theatre

Stage setting at the Georgian theatre

that was showing Taming of the Shrew while we were there. The audience sits in stalls, boxes or gallery pretty much around the stage. The stage is equipped with trapdoors and a removable bit to allow a small orchestra pit. He audience floor plan is a horseshoe with sides of perhaps 25 meters. Lighting by candle replicas and the gallery so stuffy and hot, Gordon had to leave. There were perhaps 180 in the audience, but originally it held 400! Plays could not be presented in the 1780s without express permission of the Lord Chancellor, but the entrepreneur who built a small chain of Yorkshire theatres advertised musical entertainment, for which the audience paid, interspersed by political plays for which they didn’t.

Then two days of road –bashing across the wide Vale of Mowbray. Large fields of barley or wheat, huge tractors and machinery, and a few paddocks of sheep or cows Excellent B&B at Richmond and good ones since, with meals at the wonderful British institution of the pub. Usually steak, steak & ale, sausages, etc. More dissolved abbeys and priories at Easby, Ingleby and Richmond itself. A gem of a church near Richmond with recently uncovered Norman period frescoes.

Norman fresco of the nativity

Coast to Coast - Stage 3: Orton Scarside to Reeth

(Written by Gordon, posted by Ab)

Wainwright designed his walk using the established footpaths and bridleways that crisscross England. Some of them date back a few thousand years, and the Romans built a number of long distance roads for military purposes, including one up near Kidsty Pike. England became wealthy in the twelfth and thirteenth century from wool, such as that grown at Shap Abbey. The Abbey was built over 30 years in the 13thC, with some fine stonework, now recycled into local farms and houses after the dissolutions of the 16^th Century. Several narrow packhorse bridges and bridle trails have been used to get us across to Orton Scarside. Packhorses were also used to transport minerals such as lead until canals and railways took over in the 19^th century. Now, many of the little villages built to service land management in the 18^th century are dying. Wool is not the valued fiber it was and England’s mines are too expensive to run.

 

Shap Abbey

From Orton Scarside we walked to the local market town, Kirkby Stephen over the moors, where the trails are also being used for endurance horse racing. Endurance riding is of various lengths, but ridden in a cloverleaf pattern with about 20 miles between vet checks for the health of the horse. In England it is a women’s sport – men hunted- but in France it replaces hunting as the male distance horse sport. The other two countries with traditional strength are Australia and the US, both now being replaced by the UAE, which purchases the best horses and has the money to employ highly skilled pit crews to get the horse and rider back on the track ASAP. Came past a Stone Age village site and the Smardale railway viaduct. But most of Kirkby Stephen was for sale.

Packhorse bridge, Shap

From Kirkby Stephen over the nine standards – stone cairns on the high moors at the bouundary between Northumbria and Yorkshire. Very boggy! Kerry up to her thigh in one bog, Gordon to his knees. Wonderful cups of tea at a high farm got us to Keld, a tiny village with a hot bath that needed a silt trap after we had been in it. Keld is half way on the track and like many of the villages we have overnighted, heavily dependent on the cash flow from walkers.

Stone walls at Keld

Today was down one of the most beautiful valleys in England – Swaledale Valley. Many of the houses, all of limestone, are falling down or for sale, some are being renovated. The hills are crisscrossed with dry stone walls and we have to squeeze through narrow stiles with spring gates. Means only one course at dinner if we are to continue to progress. Tonight at Reeth, which shows some signs of life.

Narrow stile

Coast to Coast - Stage 2: Grasmere to Orton Scarside

(Written by Gordon, posted by Ab)

There is a comfort zone around this walk reflected in the easy repartee with locals about the cricket or the weather. A remarkable number of people have visited Australia and New Zealand or have relatives there. Even the topography is familiar through books and discussions. The level of shared culture is intriguing and changes the nature of this walk so that it is not a foreign experience but an interchange between siblings. Perhaps it means that, at least in Cumbria, the English have got over their post Imperial blues and that Australia has also come of age. One of the places we had dinner at Grasmere had a Kiwi/ Aussie chef and we shared breakfast this morning with a Glaswegian couple from NSW and their son who had returned to England.

Ullswater from St Sunday

 From Grasmere we climbed up Little Tongue Hill to the pass at about 500m then up over St Sunday Crag at 850M before dropping down with knee-shaking steepness to Patterdale and a pint of Cumberland Ale that hardly touched the sides. Stayed in a B&B run by a guide bringing up two young daughters and taking his responsibility to employ locals. The other two pubs in this beautiful valley use Poles or Spaniards during the season and lay them off in winter. Up early next morning to climb up to Angle Tarn, then up to the Knott about 750 M with a gentle rise up to Kidsty Pike. We passed several groups of teenagers doing their Duke of Edinburgh awards and toting huge packs. 

Angle Tarn blue tent on R

After an initially gentle fall from the Pike, again a ferocious descent and then a slog along the length of Haweswater to Burnbanks and another 3 km to our B&B at the Crown and Mitre Hotel. All three days were about 13½ miles. Today we were out of the high country and mostly across the moors with peaty bogs and limestone pavements, undulating about 1000 ft  (330M), graded moderate, but really just as long as the previous ‘strenuous’ days. This evening we dropped down to our B&B near a tiny village known for its very fine and expensive chocolates (closed when we got there!). A hot bath was very good for the joints!

 

Limestone country Shap

Up above Grasmere we heard shepherds whistling to their dogs high above us. In the old days the farmers used to burn off the long grass (presumably when they found a few dry days in autumn) so that the sheep could graze on the young regrowth. However, sheep farming is too labour intensive so the tops went back to long grass – to the annoyance of the hill walkers and tourists. So the framers are now paid to keep sheep on the tops and not to farm them. They use Hedderwicks which are black with a white face mask when young, becoming a white – honey brown colour when they mature a bit more and finally become black when adults. They are a tough breed. On this occasion, we saw the sheep cascading down the steep slopes, kept in control by a shepherd running down the slopes and controlling four dogs. Wonderful athleticism!

Email from Kerry

This is the view from our room looking back up to Helm Crag. We came over a high pass from the previous valley, Buttermere, round the rim of the next one and down the spine of this crag. Precipitous, but doesn't deter the dozens/ hundreds of holiday families from the climb, often with their dogs, from climbing up, to do a circuit of several hours up, around the rim and down the valley. Some as young as 4!  They breed them tough up here.

Glorious lush countryside.

Coast to Coast - Stage 1: St Bees to Grasmere

(Written by Gordon, posted by Ab)

My image of England has received a massive correction! Forty years ago, working in London, my image was of constrained people living tidy lives in stucco semi-detached villas in grey cities. My experience of empire in post raj India was of a theatre of government based on a schooling system that equipped young men to manage the empire through self denial and a sense of responsibility, but limited practical education. The practical stuff was left to sons of the Scottish enlightenment who provided the professional class. A middle class empire in its dying days.

These three days have been a delight. It has been a pleasure to meet and talk with so many walkers and locals who service the walkers – B&B ladies, pub staff, shop assistants, waitresses and others. The walkers, including women walking alone or in pairs, have a sense of purpose and confidence. Some are families with children of all ages and/or their dogs. Hosting a great Olympics, holding the Ashes and beating the Wallabies have all helped, I’m sure.

Ennerdale water, with Kerry

The route starts at St Bees, an Edwardian seaside resort, now a dormitory village for Sellafield nuclear power station and host to a very old private school. The first part of the walk is along the cliff tops above the Irish Sea, in an extended semi circle, before the track heads inland along the stem of the question mark shape of the walk. Through small villages and boggy bottoms and over a small hill to enter the Lake District through a narrow gorge – Nannycatch Gate. Overnight (with the best potato chips ever) at Ennerdale Bridge. An early start on Day 2 for a long haul up Ennerdale Water to the head of the glaciated valley; a stiff climb up to the ridge and some freezing rain across the tops before dropping down past a slate mine into Borrowdale, a remote valley. Day 3 began with a steady climb up the head of the u-shaped valley, muddy and stony, across the boggy tops to take the high road past the Calf Crag , Gibson’s knott and the Helmcrag to drop steeply down to Grasmere twinkling among the trees. Day 1 & 2 were about 14½ miles (23km) and 10 miles on day 3. Days 2 & 3 were up and over about 600 metres.

Calf crag to Grasmere

Gordon’s lightweight boots didn’t cope with the rocks, so one of today’s (rest day) activities was to find a better pair – with success. So this afternoon we walked the coffin route from Grasmere (where the church is) to Rydal (where there wasn’t one) and then on to Ambleside to gawk at the crowds and find an ATM. We’re both pleased with how we have stood up to the first three days, classed as strenuous, and delighted to have had a rest day. Weather has been good for walking, with rain today- so can’t complain. Am beginning to appreciate Wainwright’s  genius – he designed the walk.

2013 big trip - UK, Iran and France

My parents are SKIing (Spending the Kids Inheritence), and good luck to them - they've earned it.

This time around their itinerary looks something like this:

13 Aug - MEL to Heathrow, followed by a few days in Earls Court (where else would a Strine stay?)
17 Aug - London to North England for a few weeks walking (St Bees to Robin Hoods Bay)
5 Sep - Back to London for a few days
9 Sep - LON to Tehran, for a few weeks sightseeing/travelling (I'm sticking my fingers in my ears and going "la la la" about them flying internally in Iran - the food-for-oil deal doesn't include spare parts for planes)
27 Sep - Back to London and onto Toulouse for a two weeks, including a week's walking around Conques
13 Oct - Few days in London before returning home

Dad's feeling a little technologically challenged, so he's asked me to update the blog for them.  For all posts relating to this trip, I'll include the label "2013Europe".