Today there is a slight change in the normal Coast to Coast route. The official trail climbs its highest peak today, Kidsty Pike, at 800 meters.
But, the unofficial route uses a historic old steam boat to glide across a 7 mile long glacial lake called Ullswater followed by a 10km hike to the next village. Ullswater is known as England’s most beautiful lake and is a UNESCO world heritage site in its own right.
So hiking up 800 meters or taking a lovely boat ride? I think you can guess which route I chose.
Over breakfast, which Jeremy, Lisa and I ate together in our little guest lounge, they said they were splitting up for the day. Lisa was going to do to the boat while Jeremy was going to do the mountain. I left first, it was about a mile walk to the boats, where I ran into several of my growing group of friends. Hanna, the older woman, and I met and walked to the ferry together where we were soon joined by other hikers.
In fact the first boat of the day was mostly Coast to Coasters and it was nice to chat and hear others experiences. Today would be our last day hiking in the Lakes District and most people found it gorgeous but extremely difficult. Glad to know it wasn’t just me!
The day was overcast and the boat was chilly but had a haunting quiet beauty. I sat next to a girl whose boyfriend works for the steamer company. The boats no longer use steam to power them, but they are the original boats from the 1800’s and apparently require a lot of maintenance to keep them operational. She also told me some funny stories about how the boat company often needs to rescue kayakers blown to wrong places by the wind, or help inexperienced boaters. It must be an interesting job.
The ride was gorgeous but over quickly and the hike began. Since this wasn’t the official route I didn’t have a map for the 10km walk but luckily Lisa did so we set off to find it together.
We were almost out of the Lake District but not quite yet, so of course the trail started to head up. With my health issues I just literally cannot keep up a normal pace when going uphill so I told her to go on without me. While I hate the huffing and puffing, I have learned that climbs in the Lake District will always lead to amazing views and this was no different.
Soon I was high above the lake I had just traveled on and it looked so tiny from way up on high. As usual, I was walking through sheep fields (I think the entire walk has been either on roads or sheep fields) but I saw my first horses as well! They were free range, but had gathered directly on the trail and it was a little intimidating walking through them as they were huge and powerful. But they must be used to hikes because they just continued grazing completely unbothered by me walking very close to them.
Then the path leveled and started slowly descending into a valley. This part of the hike was one of my favorites as it was exactly how I had expected the entire thing to be. I was high up and could see the undulating landscape for miles below me broken up by ancient stone walls, stone farmhouses and small estates.
I felt like Lizzy Bennet was going to walk past me on her way to visit a friend. Honestly, aside from power lines and modern cars, the whole place felt unchanged since the 1800’s and I finally had the time to enjoy the view and start thinking deep thoughts as I walked. My heart felt elated and I had a small inkling that maybe I could continue. I’ll be honest, if the days continued to be a struggle like the past few, there was no way I would be able to continue the hike. So today’s gentle walk gave me hope for the future of the hike.
The last bit was on a small country road that was long and boring with tall stone walls on either side so that kind of put a damper on the day as I couldn’t see anything besides the road and walls and couldn’t stop anywhere, even for a minute, to take a break.
I finally arrived at Bampton and went to the one small shop in the village and ran into Hanna who I hadn’t seen all day on the hike as she left immediately after the ferry docked (and I stopped to use the toilet. While I am getting quite adept at peeing outdoors, I generally prefer to use real toilets when I can find them.)
This village is so small the one shop closes at 2pm, so I didn’t have much time before being kicked out. Hanna still had a few miles to go to get the Shap, off the official trail, but due to lack of rooms I was spending the night here, about 4 miles off trail at the local pub.
So I said bye to Hanna and headed to the pub. Who did I see but Lisa sitting on one of the outdoor picnic tables. It was way too early to check in, but the pub was open and we could get drinks. I hadn’t eaten my lunch yet so I enjoyed my sandwich and chips just chatting away. Not too long later Jeremy walked up, having completed the day’s hike and the three of us just relaxed and talked and generally passed a pleasant afternoon.
We were told that our rooms were ready and they were cute and comfy. I found out this wasn’t just a pub, but a community pub which meant that it probably didn’t make enough money for the original owner to continue operating, and so the local people raised their own money to keep it in business. I guess when your village only has one shop that closes at 2pm and one pub that is the only place to go for miles out to eat, you are willing to do a lot to save it.
And it had such a good vibe. At dinner it filled up with locals from all over, as well as hikers, and it had an incredibly cheerful, community feel that even a stranger like me could feel. Dogs are basically allowed everywhere in northern England, and so the pub was filled with them too.
Today was a great day and I fell asleep more optimistic about the trail than I’ve been this whole trip yet.
About 10km in 4-ish hours (including the ferry ride).
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