Day 9 - Prologue to the Coast to Coast

I recovered from the mini pub crawl surprisingly well (good thing most of the beer in the UK is low alcohol). We had a nice breakfast at our Inn and had some time to kill so took a walk around Kirkby Stephen. We found this church dating back to around 1200.

From there we wandered through a few shops and then stopped at the grocery store to get some snacks for on the train. Chris found these fabulous potato chips.

We took a taxi to the Kirkby Stephen train station.

It was a 15 minute train ride to the town of Appleby, where we were supposed to transfer to a bus because the rail line got wiped out in last December's torrential rains. There were some very helpful folks directing the transfer at the train station (at least we thought so at the time) getting our luggage on the bus. The fatal error occurred when one "helpful" assistant said "anyone going to Glasgow should go on the smaller bus to Penrith and catch the earlier train to Glasgow". We thought this was a great idea and took the 15 minute ride to Penrith rather than an hour to Carlisle. Arriving at Penrith we tried to board the train but were told our ticket was not valid for that train and our rail company did not stop there! WTF!!! We had a discussion with the agent for Virgin Rail and explained the erronious information we had been given by the bus company (meanwhile the train had "left the station"). She was accommodating and somehow validated our ticket to ride on the next Virgin Rail train that was coming in an hour.

We got to Glasgow and it was raining and we pulled our bags uphill a few blocks to our hotel. A relief to get here and a few hours to relax before going out for supper.

This will be our last post for this blog. We had a good time on the Coast to Coast with our long time  friends Jim & Sharon and new friends Mark and Marie. A couple of the walks were a little bit more difficult than we had anticipated but we were able to sidestep those but also see some interesting scenery.

We were very fortunate with the weather. We only had a bit of rain on one of the days we were walking the trail. I thought the trail marking could have been better and they could undertake some improvements to the walking surface in places. In all, we enjoyed it.

Jim & Mark both had hiking GPS's and the "on the trail" distance we accomplished was 62 miles with a total vertical of climb of 10,500 ft. They went farther and higher!

Chris's Fitbit recorded 187,468 steps during the week!

The other significant statistic is the number of unique beers we sampled (between the three of us):

Ghost Pale Ale

John Smith's

MPA

Gold Hobgoblin 

Peculier Pale Ale

High Pike

Wolf Warrior

Lakeland Lager

Yates lager

Sneck Lifter Ale

Keswick Tavern Ale

Old Empire IPA

Jennnings Bitter

Wainwright Golden Ale

Cocker Hoop Ale 

Cumberland Ale

Stella Artois 

Ringwood Fortyniner

Shipyard America IPA

English America Ale

Carlsberg 

Guinness 

John Smiths Extra Smooth

Helvellyn Gold

Brim Fell IPA

Red Tarn Bitter

Carling Extra cold

Whitbread Trophy Bitter

Tirrill Brewery Ullswater Blonde Pale Ale

Lancaster Boomer

Golden Host 

Black Sheep Bitter

Wainwright Golden Beer

Cumberland Deep Golden Ale

Rio Gold Golden Ale

Kronenberg 1664

Worthingtons Creamflow

Cobra Premium Beer

Kingfisher Premium Lager

Corny Blonde Ghost pale ale

John Smith's

MPA

Gold Hobgoblin 

Peculier Pale ale

High Pike

Wolf Warrior

Lakeland lager

Yates lager

Sneck Lifter ale

Keswick Tavern ale

Old Empire IPA

Jennnings Bitter

Wainwright golden ale

Cocker Hoop ale 

Cumberland ale

Stella Artois 

Ring wood fortyniner

Shipyard America IPA

English America Ale

Carlsberg 

Guinness 

John Smiths Extra Smooth

Helvellyn Gold

Brim Fell IPA

Red Tarn Bitter

Carling Extra cold

Whitbread Trophy Bitter

Tirrill Brewery Ullswater Blonde pale ale

Lancaster Boomer

Golden host 

Black Sheep bitter

Wainwright Golden beer

Cumberland deep golden ale

Rio Gold Golden Ale

Kronenberg 1664

Worthingtons Creamflow

Cobra premium beer

Kingfisher premium lager

Cumberland Corny Blonde 

Cumberland Corby Ale 

Day 8 - Moors, Mud, Muck and More Poo

Today is our last day of our walk on the Coast to Coast Trail. Last night we stayed in the Primrose B&B in the little town of Tebay.



Really nice hosts and we enjoyed the breakfast of scrambled eggs and smoked salmon. The weather however, started off not too nice with rain in the forecast until 1:00 pm and windy. Temperatures were hovering around 12 - 16C. Photography today was almost all iPhone as I had my good camera sealed in a plastic freezer bag.

Jim (the host at the B&B) drove us back to the trail to start the walk and by then the rain and backed off and it was generally overcast, cool and humid

.
We are now out of the lake district and the higher peaks. We are walking through pasture land in the moors which was sodden from last nights rains making for muddy pants and wet feet. Its really hard to describe how much poop is on the path!

We had a hard time finding shelter (and a poo free area) to stop for lunch but we finally huddled behind one of the stone walls for a brief break.

Near Smardale was some of the nicer scenery with a really nice stone railway trestle in the distance.

We were now on our final stage of approaching Kirkby Stephen and were feeling good about getting to our Inn and having a nice hot shower after 20 km and 500 m vertical climbing.

After getting cleaned up, we headed to the pub to sample some more unique beers.

For supper, it was Indian night at this splendid Indian restaurant.

Jim & I then headed to another pub in the quest to achieve our unique beer goal of 40 for the trip. Those who know the "Engineer's Hymn" would know the significance of the number 40. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godiva%27s_Hymn

The others retired for the night. By 10:00 pm, the mission was accomplished and we called it a night.

Day 7 - A Walk Through Heather and Poo

Today's walk was a "pastoral" trek from Shap to Orton. The weather was forecast to turn to rain by early afternoon so we were anxious to get started. The temperature was about 13 C which was quite a bit different from the mid 30 temperatures they are experiencing in Ontario.

Leaving the town of Shap, we stopped at the Co-Op to pick up a sandwich wrap for lunch.

It was a gradual uphill walk out of town, crossing the main rail line and the A6 motorway before heading out across the farmland.

We climbed through the rolling countryside stepping around countless sheep and cow droppings. There were some beautiful views of the surrounding farmland and of course encounters with numerous farm critters.

We walked through several areas of interesting limestone fields.

The heather was plentiful and beautiful.

We managed to dodge at least one rain shower, just getting a few spits of rain.

Leaving the pastures, we approached the little town of Orton which you can see in the distance.

On our walk there, we passed through a farm that had a couple of old tractors in the shed.

Orton was our pick up point for our pre-arranged B&B in the nearby town of Tebay. The town had some nice stone buildings.

We covered the 14km and 1200 ft of vertical climb in fairly decent time (must be getting in shape) so we had time to stop at the chocolate shop for some sweets.

From here we moved a couple of doors down the street to the George Hotel, our pick up point for the B&B.

While having our post hike pints, we had a chance to talk to Richie, a guide from Badger Adventures who we have encountered every day along our route. He had lots of great hiking advice.

At 3:30, we called our B&B for a pick up and had an early check-in which gave us time for a shower before sitting down to watch the Olympics while sipping some wine.

Supper was another pub about 0.5 km up the street. By now it was raining but not too heavily.
We were back to our room early and had time to relax for our final day's walk to Kirkby Stephen tomorrow.

Day 6 - The Amazing Race to Shap

Last night we had a challenge finding a place to eat. there are only a couple of places in Glenridding and one was booked for a wedding. We had a bit of a walk to the Travellers Inn (not the same one we stayed in for the last two nights) and it was absolutely packed. We ended up on an outdoor covered patio and had a semi-reasonable pub meal. Glenridding was hard hit with a flood last December and they are actively undertaking recovery and preventive measures.

Today's leg of the hike was described as one of the most difficult with a high climb and a steep descent followed by a long boggy section. Rain was in the forecast. Chris and I decided to play the by-pass card and take the steamer to Pooley Bridge at the other end of Ullswater, about a 12 km boat trip.

We got to enjoy views of the surrounding fells and shoreline along with some sailing action as we approached Pooley Bridge.

If you look at the clothing, this is what summer looks like in the lakes district, yes, that is a toque (beanie) on Chris.

It was raining as we landed and we had to walk into town to look for a bus to Penrith.

We enquired at the Information Centre and were able to dash out of the kiosk and board the bus as it had just arrived. It was a double decker with a partially enclosed upper deck so we decided to go up there (our first ride on a double-decker). Now that was an adventure. I was wondering why all of the leaves and smack branches were on the floor.

As it roared through the town we discovered that the bus was also used to trim the overhanging trees.

We bailed out and headed to the safety of the first floor.

When we arrived in Penrith, we discovered we were lucky we made the connection after getting off the boat. We were there just in time for the last bus of the day to Shap.

We did have a few minutes for a quick walk through downtown Penrith. A nice indoor mall and town square.

It was about a half hour ride on the bus to Shap.

A sleepy little town just off the M6 that is a little past its prime. Sort of the same story as some of the towns on the historic Route 66 in the US. We did a quick walk about then had lunch at the local cafe.

We have a room in a nice guest cottage that dates back to the 1600's.

After checking in, I took a walk out of town to the ruins of an old Abbey.

I really enjoyed some of the rural landscape on the walk there and back.

The rest of the hiking crew arrived at about 6:00 pm, pretty tired from their walk.

After everyone got sorted away, we headed to what is apparently the only place in town to eat, the King's Arms Hotel, for supper.

We were back before dark to rest and be ready for the next leg to Orton tomorrow. Just watching the weather forecast and I see they are forecasting a low of -2C for somewhere in the Scottish Highlands tonight.