As it turns out we were ready for 5.30am and we set off for the beach eating a snack or two on the way (neither of us were particularly bothered about cooking a breakfast or making a hot drink before departure). We arrived at the beach some 15 minutes later and performed the obligatory tasks of dipping our toes in the Irish Sea and collecting a pebble to carry for our journey ahead. Spirits were good and we officially set off on our journey at 5.50am.
The Start
The first mile or so was gently up and down along the coast and we jogged anything which was flat or downhill. I did begin to count the number of stiles we crossed over but gave up after 7. We did have a bit of an incident early on as we crossed into a field full of young cattle. Every time our heads were turned away they started to run at us, but when we looked back at them they would suddenly stop although they were getting closer and closer to us. In the end I lost my nerve when the cattle were only a couple of metres from me so I jumped over the barbed wire fence boundary. They were only being inquisitive but it wasn't worth the risk.
Looking Back to St Bees
Obviously the navigation early on was pretty straight forward since we were following the coast and I was also familiar with this section anyway having done it two times previously. In no time at all we had already made in to Cleator where we came across our first shop. Unfortunately we arrived at 7.50am which was 10 minutes earlier than the shop opened so we decided to push on. Just after I remembered that we still needed to get a lighter so knew in all likelihood that we had missed our opportunity until Grasmere - but would we get that far that day as its 37 miles?!
Moor Row just before Cleator
We knew in all likelihood that we would be wild camping this evening and as Grasmere doesn't have a campsite we would either need to stay in the valley towards the village, or just after. That either meant about 33-35 miles or 38+, which I think by most peoples book, especially considering the terrain it was going to be a long day. I think that because of this we tried to make as much progress as we could early on whilst we had the opportunity.
Just after Cleator we had the first climb of significance of the trip, a testing 352m peak called Dent Hill. As we were still feeling fresh we walked up in virtually no time at all and it offered us a superb view looking back towards the coast. We then had a nice easy descent down the other side although Steve was going a touch too fast for my liking, but either way were making excellent progress. All that was left was the remaining few miles mostly downhill on road into Ennerdale Bridge and I think we arrived there around 9.15am, only 3hrs 25mins since setting off yet had covered some 14.25 miles.
As we arrived into Ennerdale Bridge I did warn Steve that the last time I was here there was only a small Post Office that sold next to nothing. As it turned out it's now closed down due to 'lack of profits'. We had now completed day 1 of the 14 day walk! We just used the bench outside the village school to have a quick rest before pushing onto the enormous Ennerdale Water, some 4km long. I didn't expect to make such rapid progress here as I remember the path to be surprisingly up and down although again we seemed to make short work of it and ran most of the time. As it was now mid morning it was getting increasingly warm and I was starting to sweat buckets.
At the far end of Ennerdale Water we had another rest stop at around mile 18 and used the opportunity to take on some fluids and another snack. The next section along the forest tracks I feared the most as this was where on the previous two occasions I had to stop. Although the track is dead easy it is gently uphill almost all of the way as we head further up into the valley. The scenery is surprisingly good, but looking dead ahead all you can see is forest track and more forest track, in fact some 4.5 miles of it in total so it can play havoc with the mind. I think that it was along here that our early blistering pace dropped as we both began to tire a little, the opportunities for running became less and less and it got warmer and warmer. I remember about half way up we stopped to top up the water bottles from a stream.
Eventually we passed the area where I had dropped out previously so from now on everything was new to me. Not long after we passed the famous Black Sail Hut YHA which can only be accessed by several miles of walking. It was then a case of our first and one of the hardest uphill sections of our walk peaking at about 590m. Quite early on I couldn't quite get the map to fit the ground even though we were seemingly on the track. Eventually I twigged what was happening - we were going up the wrong stream! Although we were only a short way up the climb it was still quite a way to go back so we decided to go 'off-piste' and continue the climb before eventually heading back onto the route.
It was with this sort of climb that it is very much the case of getting into your rhythm so I worked my way up most of the hill and surveyed the scene back down the valley and Steve followed in a couple of minutes later. One of the bizarre things I remember was that just thirty or so metres away in the stream we had followed I came across a frog! How on earth it worked its way up here and decided to stay put is any ones guess!
The view back down the valley. Off route but worth it!
We now had a choice of either taking one of the two paths that would take us back on route but would be a bit longer or continue up the climb and progress more directly to Honister Hause. In the end we went for the latter option which involved a bit more climb, but at least we bagged two more fell tops called Brandreth and Grey Knotts, peaking at 715m. As things panned out it wasn't the wisest move as the downhill section down to Honister was a total nightmare. The path when it existed was very steep and rocky making progress extremely slow. To make things worse I was beginning to run out of water and was pretty much knackered. I think Steve was feeling fairly similar. We reached Honister (25.5 miles) feeling awful!
We then had a good descent down towards Seatoller (27.25 miles) where there was a pub and although we had originally planned to continue onward to Rosthwaite (28.75 miles) I needed to stop to get a drink and just generally have a 10 min rest before moving onwards. In the end it was academic as the map became a bit vague and although we could see the pub, we couldn't see any path that took us there so we ended up just moving on. About half a mile later I ended up getting some water from the river. I only drank what I needed as it was a bit lower down the valley than I would have liked. We made it into Rosthwaite at about 2.20pm totally shattered and I mean shattered!
We made our way to the pub and I quickly downed a pint of lemonade before ordering food. I wanted a meal that would go down easily so we both opted for Cumberland Sausage and Mash. I ordered it from the bar but it came out wrong with my dehydration and I asked for two 'Sausage and Massages'. Never mind! I have to say the meal was disappointing and in fact was probably our only poor meal of the entire trip. The food was fine, what little there was of it. For £8.50 we got a small sausage and about 1 potato equivalent of mash - poncey food at its best. I had another pint of lemonade and started to feel a bit better although my feet were starting to feel a bit sore.
We then headed to the village shop where I remembered to buy a lighter! I then topped up on snacks and drinks and a nice home made cherry muffin before setting off at about 3.30pm.
Although Grasmere was only 9.25 miles away it included one of the hardest climbs of the journey, mostly uphill and with the time we were beginning to think we would not get that far this evening. We kept plodding along and eventually reached Greenup Edge at 610m before the long descent down into the Grasmere Valley. Although I found the climb ok having had the benefit of the long rest stop at Rosthwaite my legs had just about gone and my feet were extremely sore. With my tiredness I turned my ankle fairly badly but managed to just take my weight off the leg in the nick of time so no damage was done. I was now beginning to seriously think that we would need to camp somewhere within the next mile or two. After another 5 minute rest we kept plodding on and ran most of the downhill although our pace was slow and we were not running some of the sections we would have run earlier on during the day. As we got close to Grasmere we agreed to push on and aim to have another pub stop at the Travellers Rest just north of Grasmere on the A591. I think we got there at about 6pm (38.5 miles).
We were totally shattered, even more so than earlier! The pub stop was worth it though as it meant another opportunity to rest, drink and eat. The pub was extremely expensive so I opted for the cheapest sandwich on offer - Chicken at £4.55! It seemed to do the trick and we headed on at about 7pm and we decided to do one more hour of walk before camping for the night. It made sense to do this though as it would mean that the majority of the steep climb out of Grasmere would be done that evening rather than first thing the following day.
I was starting to feel better again after the rest stop so didn't struggle as much up the climb. Just gone 8pm we were probably about 50 metres climb short of the peak so decided to try to find somewhere suitable to camp. It is at this point that I will mention the wind - it had been extremely windy for most of the day. When I mean windy I'm talking about very very windy. This valley seemed to be about the worst we had experienced all day so one of our main criteria was to find somewhere reasonably sheltered. Our tent was a very light weight competitional one weighing 1.3kg with only a couple of half poles, so you can imagine it is not exactly designed for windy conditions. We eventually found somewhere suitable which happened to be where someone else was pitching their tent as well! Who would have thought that a couple of miles from anywhere two tents would be virtually next to each other! In the morning we found another tent nearby and it seemed to be a continuing theme throughout the trip.
The campsite!
We quickly got the tent up but were struggling to get the pegs all that far into the ground and taking consideration of the wind I re-inforced the pegs with rocks on top which gave more protection. I think we were in bed for not long after 8.45pm but we had covered a huge distance of just over 41 miles or 66km (not including the 1.5 mile walk to the start at St Bees). It was a huge day and one to be proud of regardless of whether we would finish the walk or not...
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