THE FINAL DAY!!!!!!!
Sure enough when I went down to breakfast who should join me but the brother/sister team. We had a longer breakfast than normal, knowing this was our last day and trying to savor it all.
I met them on the way out and they started up the trail while I…went to the train station! After seeing the train last night, and knowing it is such a unique thing, I decided I had to ride it. It goes to a coastal city called Whitby that I had heard people talk about since the beginning of the trail. In fact Whitby is unofficially part of the Coast to Coast trail as Wainwright, the trails founder, initially wanted the walk to go through Whitby on the way to the final destination, Robin Hood’s Bay. And when the official trail has issues (like last year there were some wildfires) the trail routes through Whitby instead of RHB.
And Whitby, I had heard, was quite a unique city for two main reasons: vampires and fish.
You see it is a historic fishing village and supposedly has the best fish and chips in England because the fish is local and fresh caught. Despite fish and chips being one of the most famous British dishes and available almost every night I hadn’t eaten it yet. I don’t love fish and it’s fried with fried potatoes so I don’t feel it has a lot of nutritional value after a day of hiking.
But I’m in England so I gotta do it right?! And this seemed the best place for it.
The vampire connection is the one and only Dracula. Bram Stoker was inspired for the book (and then featured it) because of an old crumbling abbey they have there.
So I could take the steam train to Whitby see the sights, eat fish and chips and then walk a few hours along the coast to end up in the official ending point of the Coast to Coast. Win-win-win!
I was super excited for my plan until I got to the ticket window and was told the first train had a technical issue and was cancelled! Boo-hoo!!!
The next train wasn’t for another hour and a half but I wanted to spend a few hours looking around Whitby and I didn’t want to wait. Instead I took the bus, chatting with a nice local lady the whole way about hiking in England and things to do in Whitby. Everyone is so friendly here.
I arrived around 10 and walked around to explore the incredibly charming historic town. They had winding alleys and adorable candy shops and I could have easily spent all day there. I got my fish and chips for lunch and immediately hit the trail. I still had about 3 hours of hiking.
While walking the last bit I thought about the hike and things I had learned from it. I mean I walked across the country, surely I learned something right?
One lesson was that I was tough. Tougher than I ever expected. If I had known what the trail was like, I would have never done it. But I went in naive and somehow survived it.
I also learned I’m a walker, not a hiker. I love long meditative walks where I zone out completely for miles getting lost in my thoughts and building stories in my head.
But you can’t do that while hiking. You need focus and pay attention on the trail, on your feet, on the route. So while I’m incredibly proud of myself I haven’t found a new passion in life. I’ll still hike sometimes, I love getting out in nature, but I’ll stick to day hikes thankyouverymuch.
I learned that I “still got it” when it comes to traveling. I’ve been kinda anti-social when traveling the past few years preferring to have a goal, like an artist retreat, when I travel. Like a few years ago I went to Paris for a few weeks to study writers and writing and I just wanted to sit in cafes writing everyday. Strangers talking to me bothered me because they got me out of my flow.
But this trip I just went with it. I expected to be alone everyday but also open to meeting new people. And boy did I. The people I met, both fellow hikers and locals, made the trip for me and if I had to pick a “favorite thing” from this trip I would say: the people. You know, the “friends I made along the way.” So cliche but it’s the truth.
But did I get to know myself better? That was, after all, the plan. Everyday I had a “ponder question” that I asked myself and I would think about throughout the day. Sometimes I asked the people I was walking with my question, just to see what they would say.
Some of the questions were reflective like some of the best moments in my life, or who influenced me the most. Others were eye opening, like what was I happiest to have done in my life or what would I be willing to sacrifice myself for?
And there were some revelations about who I am as a person and who I want to become. I’ll keep some of the answers to myself but I wrote a few essays on some of the questions, my favorite being “what would little Becky (aka me around 10) think of older Becky and her life? The answer I came up with surprised me and I might share some of those essays later.
But one question I will share with you all now is “what is my meaning and purpose in life?” You know, the big question.
I think life is inherently meaningless, we aren’t born with a “purpose” per se (I’m not a believer if you can’t tell) but we are thinking feeling animals and lucky enough to get to create our own meaning of our own life. I think it’s crucial we each realize the meaning of our own lives to ensure we can live a meaningful life based on our own inner voice and values and not what society tells us to do.
This is not a new question, but something I ask myself regularly. Years ago I realized my purpose: to have experiences. That would cover my inherent wanderlust and constant need for new experiences and people on my life.
Then a few years later I added to that: to have experiences and share them with others. That would explain my natural tendency to write about everything and generally share a little too much with friends.
But on this walk I added to it a little bit more:
The meaning and purpose of my life is to have experiences and share them, honestly, with others.
Not that I am a liar, but rather that maybe I don’t always tell the whole story. There are of course things I don’t want to mention to protect my privacy, and some things aren’t fit for some people (like the stories I tell my students about my life are slightly sanitized as I’m still their teacher and need to be professional.)
But I think sharing the ugly and embarrassing is important. And so, realizing this, I tried to do with this travel diary. I tried to share not just the mechanics of the walk, but how I felt, the days I skipped, the times I shook with fear, the weird visions of seeing ancient monks in a forest. Ya know, the real stuff that doesn’t make me look cool or admirable.
Anyway, back to the trail….
When the trail turned to the ocean I was sooo elated. I had a few miles to go but I did it! I f-ing did it! I walked across a country and made it from one sea to another without getting injured or quitting or any of the many things I thought might happen.
I felt a burst of energy and my walk became bouncy and joyful. I wanted to scream to the ocean with excitement. But I also knew to enjoy it while I could. I’ve been around the sun enough times to know what happens after you achieve a big goal.
And sure enough, the closer I got to the finish line, my happiness faded quickly. It started when I checked into my hotel. The owner greeted me, with a giant parrot on his shoulder, and didn’t even say “you finished?” or a “congrats.” I mean, I wasn’t expecting balloons and confetti, but he is at the final stop and I booked through a hiking company so he knows that just finished.
I even brought it up saying I was going to head out before relaxing so I could toss my stone into the ocean. “Oh, you didn’t do that yet?” he said. I said no, I just decided to check in as I walked past the place on the way to the ocean, and he just said okay and left. A little anticlimactic.
As I walked down the hill to the water, where I would throw my stone I picked up day one, and get my feet wet in the North Sea just like I did day one, I began to feel..I don’t know…not sad, not disappointed, not lonely but also all those feelings?
You know what I mean. The feeling I think most of us have after we have achieved something we have planned and worked for for years. Like an actor the day after winning an Oscar waking up alone, in their own bed, and thinking “now what?”
It’s over now. I’ve been anticipating this for 2 years. Now I don’t get to think about it anymore, or plan it, or watch videos about other people doing it with nervous excitement.
It’s over. I didn’t love it, I’ll never do it again, and yet…it’s over.
It wasn’t like I lost my purpose, I have plans tomorrow to continue onto York and I’ll have fun there, but after I threw my stone and took a picture at the ending sign, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself. I just kinda hung around the area of the official ending, slinking around like a creep watching other hikers drinking pints and congratulating their walking buddies.
I wanted to see people I knew, I wanted to celebrate, but I hung around the finish for a while and I didn’t see anyone. I had just spent two weeks walking by myself, sleeping by myself, eating by myself and loving it, and now, for the first time, I felt lonely.
So I took my diary and went off to find a seating area at the beach and just wrote for a long time.
Then I walked back past the ending point and wait…was it? It was! The brother/sister and German dad/daughter sitting at a picnic table drinking a pint!
We all congratulated each other and hugged each other and I was glad to this final moment with people who shared this experience with me and will always be a part of my memory of it. We all had big smiles on our faces.
But then the dad/daughter had to catch a bus, and the bro/sis had to go to their cottage for the night. The brother lived in America and was gonna fly back the next day so they had to get ready. So it was over. Over, over.
My life certainly isn’t lacking in adventures, I live in China after all and travel in SE Asia which is always an adventure, but it’s good to remind myself that I can do REALLY crazy things. If I can go from a non-hiker to someone that hiked for two weeks across mountains and moors and bogs then what can’t I do?
So here’s to the next impossible thing 🥂
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