It’s finally hitting me how weird this all is. Everyday I wake up, eat breakfast and then go outside to walk for 6-8 hours. Regardless of weather, regardless of how I’m feeling, I just have to keep going. Everyday. And I still have TEN DAYS to go. Imagining hiking for 16 days and ACTUALLY hiking for 16 days is weird af and it’s just hitting me now.
Why now? Probably because it’s raining and I have an extra 4 miles to walk to just get to the trail. I really don’t want to spend 12+ miles walking in the rain.
I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I keep getting lost. Despite this not being the official trail it is popular enough to have Coast to Coast trail markers along the way but I just can’t seem to follow them properly. Probably because I’m officially out of the Lakes District and into the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and it is more much slightly padded down grassy fields instead of rocky paths follow.
What I realize I end up doing is following the sheep or farmers trails as they are more defined than the Coast to Coast trail and before I know it a voice rings out from my pocket “You are 50 meters off the trail!” You see, I have an app on my phone, with GPS tracking, that is similar to a car navigation. I keep the volume turned on, so I don’t have to keep looking at it, and while the voice can be quiet for hours it will ring out with directions when I need to turn off, or play a simple chime to alert me to look at my phone for an interesting fact about the area but not necessarily a directional instruction.
And every time I get 50 meters off the trail she pipes up and tells me. I’ve been hearing her robotic voice a lot today.
I walk by the Shap Abbey, take a spin around the grounds, and know I am getting close to the official trail (which is the town of Shap). Shap has a famous “chippy” (fish and chips place) but it has crazy hours and never seems to be open. So I walked to a small cafe and take a soup break despite having lunch in my bag. It’s just been drizzling for the past couple of hours and it’s nice to get something warm in my belly.
Jeremy and Lisa, the couple that stayed at the same place as me last night, catch up and I ask them “is it just me or did you guys get lost a lot on that last bit?” Turns out it’s just me…
They take off first and I get to it too. Can’t hide in a cafe all day. There are a lot of stiles that I have to climb over and they seem to be awkwardly made for hikers. A stile is a structure that allows people to go over a break in the stone walls while making sure the animals can’t. They have extremely large steps, or are very narrow and hard to fit through with a backpack but I think I am going to see more of these in the upcoming days.
I cross a bridge over a highway and then the trail gradually starts going up. At some point I take a break. I want to take a little nap. It stopped raining but the wind is blowing so I can’t really get comfortable for some shut eye. So I was just chilling perched on this outcropping of rocks when a young woman walks by.
I had figured I was the last hiker as most people stayed in Shap the night before and therefore didn’t have to do the extra 4 miles that I had in the morning. Jeremy and Lisa and I were the only thru-hiking Coast to Coasters in Bampton the night before and they were miles ahead of me by now so I thought it would be a lonely day.
So I was surprised to see someone and she said she was also doing the Coast to Coast. I hadn’t seen her before because she started a few days behind me. She had just done a few really long days, and the day before she said she had walked 23 miles (over the tallest mountain on the trail mind you) and had arrived at her AirBnB 11pm at night.
Obviously she had a late start to the morning but she wasn’t worried about today as she was going to the same place I was and it was a mere 12 miles, which obviously, she could handle easily.
She moved on, and a few minutes later I did too. The next bit was rolling terrain going up and down the rolling hills and I keep her in my sights as she goes up the next hill as I go down the previous ones. I like having someone in front of me so I can see where the trail goes. Usually I can’t see the path but with a little person on it, especially wearing a bright colored jacket I can see which direction I will be heading in.
At first the peaks are gentle, and not so bad, but then they get steeper and more sudden the closer I get to finishing until I need to take out my hiking poles because the drops are so steep and the next peak so sudden that I can’t do it without the security of my “extra 2 feet” (which is how I think of my walking poles.)
At some point I pass a famous sight of Robin Hoods Grave. Yes, that Robin Hood, but everyone agrees that it is not actually his grave, yet it is some sort of ancient burial cairn and so many hikers take the small detour to see it. I didn’t.
Each time I reach the peak of one of the hills, I can see for miles in all directions which should be cool except all I can see behind me is pouring rain…heading directly towards me. I put up with drizzle this morning, but I really want to out run any downpour.
I try to go faster but at this point the hills are getting drastic and it takes just as much effort to go up as it does down so I go at my snails pace huffing and puffing both up and down.
I finally make it to the village 5 minutes before 5pm. I know this because there is a little chocolate shop that has been recommended right next to the pub I’ll be spending the night, and I made it with a few minutes to spare. I bought a little chocolate squirrel and some sports drink and then check in at the pub.
Every day the sherpa company delivers our luggage and sometimes the kind hotel owners put it directly in our rooms, but usually it is just piled up somewhere near the entrance. I see my bag, and another bag next to it and I ask the guy checking me in, “I’m not the last one?!”
“Oh, no, you are for sure the last one,” he said so certainly I could only assume I was hours behind. Sigh…
My room wasn’t great, it creaked a lot, had a weird very narrow bathroom, and windows facing front where people could see me walking around with a towel on.
For dinner I went down to the pub, table reserved for one as usual, and I started chatting to a friendly Norwegian couple. I realized that they were in my B&B my very first night at St. Bees, and they were on the Ullswater Steamer ferry with me too, but this was the first time we really chatted with each other. They invited me to sit with them and we ended up comparing physical maladies (the guy also had restless legs and cramps) and we talked about our nutrition routine which both included taking magnesium, electrolytes and creatine everyday. (I also do a scoop of protein powder every morning right as I wake up.)
14 miles (23 km) in almost 8 drizzly hours.
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