Coast to Coast

: Back in early 2019, I did a hike called the Jordan Trail. I did it with a group and we walked from Aqaba in the south of Jordan all the way up to Um Qais in the north. We were hiking at a pretty slow pace, so it took us something like forty days to make it across the 650km (400-mile) tract of land. As you might imagine, over the course of those forty days, I came to know a few of my fellow thru-hikers quite well. One of the guys that I became pretty good friends with was this Australia dude named Damian. And in one of the many conversations we had, he mentioned that his favorite trail in the world was the 190-mile Coast to Coast walk in northern England. I think he’d walked it like four or five times in his day. And as it turned out, the summer of 2023 is the time that I decided to get out there and try out the trail for myself.

: The trail starts at St. Bees on the west coast of England and ends up at Robin Hood’s Bay on the east. I decided to break my walk up into a 12-day itinerary with no rest days along the way, a plan that would make for somewhere between a 15 and 16-mile average per day. The cool thing about the Coast to Coast is that if you’re a lazy-ass like me and would rather not have to set up and take down a tent every day and cook all your own meals along the way, you have the option of sleeping at a bed and breakfast every single night. And since I’m so lazy a motherfucker that I couldn’t even be bothered to research and make reservations at said accommodation, I hired a local company called Northwest Walks who were more than happy to do that for me. This map here shows almost every town I stopped at along the way. The only discrepancies are at the end during the final two nights where I slept at Blakey Ridge and Grosmont instead of Clay Bank Top and Glaisdale.

: To get to the trailhead at St. Bees, I first flew into London where I spent the night and then boarded a train heading north out of Euston railway station the following morning. There was a brief stop in a place called Carlisle where I switched trains and got onto a smaller one headed to St. Bees. All in all, the train journey lasted somewhere around five hours.

: Now I’m no history buff, but Cockermouth is a town in CUMbria that I think had been named as such after an alleged witch was put to the test by a local duke who made her give oral sex to every male member of a medieval leper colony. He said, “After we cock her mouth, if she manages to not contract the disease herself, it will be determined that she is indeed a witch and shall be burned at the stake.”

: Here’s the B&B that I stayed at in St. Bees – Stonehouse Farm it was called. It was less than a five-minute walk from the train station

: At the B&B, this document had been waiting for me. The price of signing up with Northwest Walks to handle the booking of my accommodation included daily luggage transfer from one B&B to the next. So, all I had to do was attach that white tag to one of my bags and throw whatever shit in there that I didn’t feel like carrying that day and then I leave it near the front door entrance of the B&B and magically it was there waiting for me at the next one when I arrived on foot that afternoon

: Also awaiting me at the B&B had been deez ginger nuts, which as a redhead whose carpet matches the drapes, I happen to already have a functioning pair of

: Looking back at the town of St. Bees as I head west towards the Irish Sea

: That square monument thing there on the right side of the photo signifies the official start of the Coast to Coast hike. On it, it has some information about the trail as well as its founder, Alfred Wainwright. After passing this sign, the trail climbs up onto St. Bees Head which is that great big green hill there in the background.

: I remember Damian talking about how on this hike it’s tradition to pick up a pebble from the beach here outside St. Bees and carry it the 190 miles across the country and then tossing it into the North Sea at the end of the hike. So, right here you’re looking at the stone that’d be accompanying me over the course of the next twelve days.

: Looking back at the town of St. Bees from atop St. Bees Head

: The first couple miles of trail ran along the coast atop these cliffs. You wouldn’t guess it from the looks of it here, but this part of the trail smelled strongly of urine. There was a lotta cattle around and people also walk their dogs along this trail, so I’m not sure who was the culprit behind it, but I just remember these beautiful peaceful views being accompanied by the stench of pee.

: They say that at its tallest point, St. Bees Head rises 90 meters above sea level. To give you some perspective here, those dots down on the beach at the base of the cliff are a man, a child and a dog.

: Welp, there go my plans of taking a purposeful tumble down the side of these cliffs followed by a personal injury lawsuit against the local government

: Last view of the cliffs before the trail turns inland and starts heading east across the country

: These guys were all over the trail. Buncha lazy sluggos!

: I saw a LOT of signs along the entirety of the trail calling for owners to do these two things

: Heading inland

: I read an article saying that a lot of old phone booths in England, like this one, have been retrofitted as housing for defibrillators. It’s a shame these things weren’t around back in Mr. Bean’s day – it woulda saved him a lot of trouble that one time when the guy he was standing next to at that bus stop had a heart attack and dropped lifelessly down onto the sidewalk. If you don’t know the sketch I’m talking about, do yourself a favor and look up “First Aid Mr. Bean Official” on YouTube. You won’t be disappointed.

: Walkers. With a name like that, it’d be a shame if they weren’t an official sponsor of the Coast to Coast trail.

: Old man showing off a sunflower that he said he’d been cultivating using what he’d referred to as the “bonsai method”

: A decommissioned dragonfly sitting idle on the runway

: Passing through the village of Cleator

: Nice little pine forest I had the pleasure of strolling through

: Low Cock How? Pff…nice name. More like High Pussy What – am I right?

: The day started off with an hour-or-so-long walk along this here lake. This would be the first of three days spent walking across Lake District National Park. Along this lake I met an older woman who’d been walking her dog. She asked me if I was doing the Coast to Coast and I said yes. She asked me how I heard about the trail and I told her. She informed me that she’d done it twenty years ago and loved the experience and is planning to get out there and do it one more time before 2025 when it will become an officially recognized national trail. “It’s perfect the way it is right now because not that many people know about it. You can still get that feeling of peace and solitude out here. After 2025, it just won’t be the same,” she said. “It’ll receive all sorts of publicity and get overrun by tourists from all around the world.”

: And then after the lake, the trail stayed flat for another couple miles before heading up into the mountains straight ahead

: Rapeseed? I don’t remember having consented to eating the semen of any violent sexual offenders. Why would they include such an ingredient in a bag of crisps? I don’t get it.

: Looking back at the area I’d traversed earlier that morning. On the far right side of the photo you can see the lake peeking between those hills over there

: A different lake as seen from what I believe to be the top of a peak known as Red Pike

: From where I took this photo, I planned to walk along the ridge on the right side of the photo over to the peak of a mountain called High Stile

: The path then led down this rocky stuff here…

: …and then continued low for a while before going up and over Haystacks, which is the mountain straight ahead in the photo here.

: Some place where I sat down to have a snack and a sip of water

: Looking back at the mountains I went up and over earlier in the day

: Beginning the long walk down towards Rosthwaite

: Arriving to Rosthwaite a couple hours later, after getting pissed on by heavy thunderstorms

: Phone booth in Rosthwaite that has yet to be replaced by a defibrillator

: Posted on the wall at the B&B that night – great tits are my fave

: Heading out of Rosthwaite

: I love all the dry-stone walling up here in northern England. According to Trailblazer’s Coast to Coast guidebook, because on these dry-stone walls “each stone is chosen carefully to fit exactly” and “a bad choice can upset the pressure loading, leading to an early collapse,” one dry-stone waller from the area said “he could erect just two meters of wall on a good day.” And to give you an idea of how much stone might be needed to build two meters of wall, “it’s estimated that one ton of stone is required for every square yard of wall.”

: Looking down on the valley I just came up and out of

: I liked the pattern on this rock

: Don’t remember the name of this mountain offhand, but that’s where I’m headed here

: Nice views from the top

: A pair of hikers standing near the top of Helm Crag there on the left of the photo

: A shepherd yelling at his flock in unintelligible northern English

: I thought this imperfection in the road kinda looked like my johnson

: Climbin up this big ol’ valley

: At the top of the valley had been this lake. And after walking all around the right side of this lake, I’m about to hike up that mountain to the left of it

: Looking back down on that same lake after having climbed the mountain I mentioned in the previous caption. Also, directly behind the lake between those two hills is the valley that I’d been in two photos ago.

: A pair of hikers watching a girl in a weighted vest go jogging down the side of the mountain

: The path leading up to Helvellyn (950m), which I believe was the highest point I reached on my Coast to Coast hike. Somewhere along that path near the top had been a little monument commemorating the 1926 airplane landing on and takeoff from the top of Helvellyn by a test pilot named Bert Hinkler

: A couple of hikers looking down on the lake known as Red Tarn from the top of Helvellyn

: About to begin my descent along that ridge down there, a ridge known as Striding Edge. It’s said that back in April 1805 some aspiring young artist named Charles Gough and his dog had been hiking along Striding Edge when he met his untimely death, as many others would over the years. What makes his death more notable than all the others that followed is that nobody went looking for him upon his disappearance and he, subsequently, hadn’t been found until three months later when a shepherd heard Gough’s dog barking somewhere down near Red Tarn and decided to go investigate. Upon its discovery, there’d been no meat whatsoever left on Gough’s body – he was a perfect skeleton. Although it’s impossible to know exactly how he died or what happened to his body after death, almost everyone agrees that he fell and that he was either eaten by ravens or (most disturbingly) picked clean by his faithful pet dog, Foxie.

: Slowly but surely scrambling my way down the side of Helvellyn down to Striding Edge

: Three hikers scrambling up the side of Helvellyn from where I’d just come down

: The path along Striding Edge

: A glance back up at Helvellyn from the top of Striding Edge

: This would be my last day walking in Lake District National Park, which basically meant there’d be no more dramatic mountain scenery like the stuff I’d experienced during the two previous days on the trail.

: Enjoying the last of the mountain scenery when I came across these neon-colored rams grazing in a field

: Like, I know that shepherds are known to mark the members of their flock so they can easily be told apart from animals belonging to other people in the area, but the way these guys were colored kinda made it seem like they went a bit overboard with the paint here, dontchya think?

: Gettin in tune with the straight and narrow

: Sometimes when passing through small towns, you’d see these “honesty boxes” full of drinks and snacks along the side of the path. I think the sign there is pretty self-explanatory – you take whatever you want and then leave the appropriate amount of money behind in the box for the owner to come and collect at the end of the day. What’s not obvious, however, is how there are surveillance cameras hidden in all the trees surrounding these honesty boxes and people who think they can get away with taking some of these goods without paying are – as the bloodstains and scattered brains along the path would suggest – quickly picked off by sniper fire from nearby farmhouses.

: The Coast to Coast trail consists of many long-established walking paths across the country, many of which pass through private land. But even though they cut across private land, these paths have been used by pedestrians for years and years and years and as such have been legally designated as public rights of way that anyone can walk on. That said, along the way, when crossing from one property to another, there were many gates to open and close or, if there weren’t gates, makeshift steps like those in the photo that assist passersby in getting from one side of a fence to the other on these aforementioned public rights of way. And also shown in the photo, you often see signs like that citing some sort of legal precedent as a pretext for landowners to pump your dog full of bullets should you choose to walk it without a leash while passing through their private property.

: Old stone bridge which perchance once upon a time had spanned that chasm from one realm to another and knights from both sides would joust upon it fighting for control of it, and fighting for their honor and for the hands of the fairest maidens in all the land. Err…perchance not. Maybe it’s just a normal-ass bridge. Either way, I think it looks cool.

: Officially out of the mountains at this point and into the rolling green hills

: The ruins of Shap Abbey

: I know Reading (pronounced “RED-ding”) is a place in England, so I asked the guy just to make sure and he told me that what he finds sexy is not a geographical location, but the act of reading. And for those of you that don’t know what “reading” is, Merriam-Webster defines it as follows: “to become acquainted with or look over the contents of something (such as a book)”

: The contents of the packed lunch prepared for me by the old lady running the B&B I stayed at in Shap. So, the way it works at most of these places is that upon arriving in the afternoon, when the proprietor shows you to your room they hand you a piece of paper that lists all the options they offer for breakfast and for a packed lunch to take with you on the hike the following day. You peruse the list and put little check marks next to everything you want and get it back to the owner as soon as possible so they can start doing whatever food prep they may need to do. The breakfast is included and had already been paid for as part of the booking I made with Northwest Walks, but the lunch is extra – maybe costing somewhere around 8 to 10GBP.

: Lovely garden outside Brookfield House B&B in Shap

: “Free range” – Applying this term before the word “children” must be a British thing, because in the states I’ve only ever heard it used before stuff like livestock, poultry, meat or dairy

: I drank a lot of water this morning and hadn’t gone to the bathroom since before I’d left the B&B, so when I saw this post I went up and started urinating on it. As I drained my bladder onto the base of the post like a dog would, I read this sign that’d been attached to it and couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “Bridleway” “caught short” “loos” – I don’t know what any of these things mean. Who taught these people how to speak English?

: Beautiful area. No wonder there’s…

: …no “fouling” allowed here.

: Fall Flatt on your face!

: What most of the terrain looked like that afternoon

: Since the terrain I’d been walking through that afternoon had been wide open and rather featureless as shown in the previous photo, I spotted this thing from like a mile away but had no idea what it could be. With each step I took in its general direction, I kept asking myself, “What the fuck is that thing?” Certainly can’t say I was expecting to see anything like that blowing in the wind in Yorkshire Dales National Park.

: I loved this room in Fletcher House B&B. Definitely the cleanest and coziest room I stayed in during the hike

: Approaching the summit of a hill called Nine Standards Rigg

: I don’t know why this photo and the next turned out black and white. I didn’t put a filter on ‘em, I just snapped them shits as I normally would and they showed up this way in my photos

: The origin of these nine massive stone cairns is a mystery

: It was super windy up there. And kinda chilly. Ended up setting my bag down behind that big cairn where I pulled out and put on another layer and a winter hat to protect my ears

: According to the Trailblazer guidebook, this stretch between Kirkby Stephen and Keld is notoriously boggy. To make it easier on hikers and to prevent further erosion of the peat that this area is famous for, in some parts they’ve laid down stone paths like the one shown here in the photo.

: Through the following section, in another attempt to prevent further peat erosion, there are three different routes to take based on what time of year it is

: This part of the trail was so boggy there was really nothing I could do to avoid going halfway up to my knees in this sloppy bullshit. If ever there was a part of the trail that needed a stone path, this would’ve been it. The funny thing is that everyone was saying what a dry year it’d been. They said, “The bogs are nothing this year since we’ve been experiencing a drought.” And when I got to the B&B in Keld, the couple that runs it told me how in the past during wet years they’d had guests who’d had their shoes ripped off by the bog and others who’d shown up soaked to the bone after having sunk down waist-deep in this shit. So, I guess I’ll consider myself lucky I didn’t end up getting totally bog-bodied here.

: Entering Keld. I stayed at a place called Greenlands B&B a bit outside of town. I was happy to find out that they offered laundry service and had a homemade, heated shoe-drying cupboard to get my footwear ready for the following day.

: Butt House – didn’t stay here but I heard the owners are rather cheeky and that the food that comes outta this place is the shit

: I knocked on the door of this place and was threatened with a call to the police after I asked how much they charge for a gram of weed and some oral sex. High head…man, that’s some false advertising right there

: First time I’ve ever seen a coin-operated door to get into a public restroom. I was a bit peeved (or maybe I was miffed) that this door didn’t offer any change and that the only coins I had on me at the time were one-pounders. Since the price was only twenty pence and I’d be overpaying by eighty just to take a quick piss, I felt like the only fair thing to do was to urinate on the walls and floor of the facilities instead of in the toilet.

: Gorgeous valley

: As I was descending towards these ruins from one side of the valley, an old man had descended from the other. You can actually see him standing there just left of center in the middle of the photo. I greeted him and asked how he was doing. He said everything was fine but that he wasn’t really enjoying himself. He said he was too old for hiking. In return I said, “Well, why keep doing it then?” He just shrugged and we stood there in silence. I gazed at the ruins and after a couple minutes he told me he must be moving on. I told him that I too should be moving on and began to climb my way up and out the other side of the valley. It truly was a very awkward encounter.

: Ruins of the Old Gang Smelting Mill where they’d process lead extracted from nearby mines back in the day

: Mr. Blue Sky

: The homestretch into Reeth

: Sign I saw on the outskirts of Reeth. So…does that mean I shouldn’t bring my dick with me underneath these powerlines…err?

: View of Reeth from the park bench on which I planted my ass after dinner in the pub

: Russell Crowe on his way to the pub wearing a shirt that says, “Pissed Again – So What!”

: Placard that stood out to me while eating breakfast at the Kings Arms B&B/pub in Reeth

: A tree apparently made out of pipe cleaner

: A little stroll in the woods

: Came across this stand along the side of the road in front of someone’s farmhouse. I saw another hiker in front of me (**definitely not me**) take both these cartons over to the aforementioned farmhouse and chuck all the eggs at the exterior of their home, completely covering it in a sloppy yolky mess. And then they proceeded to take the jar into which you’re supposed to deposit your money and they first urinated into the jar, then defecated into it, then urinated into it a bit more before putting the cap back on and tossing the container at the exterior wall, adding all that human excrement on top of the egg yolk mural already adorning it.

: A couple other hikers walking in front of me through this peaceful pasture

: Back to the howlin old owl in the woods, huntin the horny-back toad

: Getting into Richmond, which is the biggest town along the whole of the Coast to Coast

: Glimpse of Richmond Castle as I search for my B&B, trying to get there before the sky erupts and starts to pour rain all over me

: The living room at Willance House B&B

: A drawing of Richmond on the wall in the dining room at Willance House

: Making my way out of Richmond

: Head knocker

: Richmond Castle as seen from just outside of town

: As I walk in fields of gold

: Graveyard, cemetery, munging station, burial grounds, etc

: Healthy lookin crops

: The 2 on this Coast 2 Coast sign looks a lot like the 2 from Jungle 2 Jungle, that stupid-ass Tim Allen movie from the 90s

: More golden field walking

: Horsey farm

: I thank my lucky stars I didn’t have an encounter with this rabid wench

: There was only one pub in town at Ingleby Cross and on the afternoon that I arrived this cricket game had been going on behind it, so the place was packed. I went into the pub at 5pm hoping I could beat the dinner rush and asked the guy behind the bar if I could be served. He said no. I asked if they had any time between then and closing during which they could serve me some dinner. The guy said no. I asked if I could take something as simple as a burger to go. He said no. I asked if there was any place else in town from where I could get food. He told me there was a gas station a couple miles away from where I’d be able to get some snacks. I said thanks then went back to my room, ate a protein bar and a piece of jerky and called it a night.

: When I was leaving Ingleby Cross that morning, the woman from Elstavale B&B told me that it was going to be a very windy day. She said that anything I didn’t have securely tied-down was surely gonna get blown away as I begin to gain some elevation walking into North York Moors National Park. She wasn’t lying. Although none of my belongings were taken by the wind, a few of the gusts felt like they were enough to knock me on my ass.

: Into the moorland

: This had been, moor or less, my favorite view of the day

: About to lose some elevation here. Those dots on the bottom center of the photo are people ahead of me on the trail, so down there is where I’m gonna be heading

: Walked along this road for a fair while. I don’t think cars are allowed on this road, but I sure did see a decent amount of dirt bikers

: At the top of the ridge there in the center of the photo – essentially in the middle of nowhere – is a place called The Lion Inn which would be my accommodation for the night

: The path leading to The Lion Inn

: Inside The Lion Inn, which the owners claim to have been established in 1553

: Another day out on the moors, doing my best to avoid any werewolves that could potentially be on the prowl

: Interesting river crossing

: In Grosmont there was only one pub and it wasn’t open on the evening I spent there. The local shop had also been closed by the time I went out seeking dinner. There was another town a couple miles back that had a few pubs in it, but I didn’t feel like making the trek. So, to pass the time I came over and just sat on a bench in this railway station before going back to my room, eating a protein bar and hitting the hay.

: More moor action

: First glimpse of the North Sea

: I think that’s a mole, isn’t it?

: A bit of heather on the moors

: A sign encouraging hikers to stop and Wank Off

: Green tunnel

: “The tumult of my heart is still within this sheltered spot, deep in the bosom of the wood, forgetting and forgot.” Seeing this quote inspired me to stop and take a 5-minute break in this area, trying as much as possible to stay out of my head and in the present moment.

: I thought my calves felt pretty strong after 12 days out on the trail, but you don’t see me going around bragging about it like these insolent heifers on the North York Moors. Sheesh!

: Wasn’t expecting to see any mobile homes on the trail

: Thar she blows! The North Sea in all her raging glory…well, she was actually quite calm on this day

: So beautiful

: Ha! That guy is peeing off the cliff edge! Guess he must’ve gotten “caught short” and couldn’t make it to a public loo where he’d have to pay twenty pence to have a wee

: It was probably like a 2 or 3-mile walk along these cliffs until reaching Robin Hood’s Bay

: I was kinda tempted to throw my pebble down into the water here off the side of the cliff, but there was a lot that could go wrong and it just seemed like it’d be a really dumb way to die

: Descending rapidly down to sea level while passing through the town of Robin Hood’s Bay

: Between the time when I booked this hike and the time I actually did it, my friend Damian (the guy I mentioned at the beginning of the story, the one who’d told me about the Coast to Coast) died of a heart attack. Before depositing my stone into the North Sea, I thanked Damian for all the laughs, all the interesting stories he’d told me and for recommending I do this hike.

: Celebratory bath at Lee-Side B&B in Robin Hood’s Bay

Day 1: St. Bees to Ennerdale Bridge

Day 2: Ennerdale Bridge to Rosthwaite

Day 3: Rosthwaite to Patterdale

Day 4: Patterdale to Shap

Day 5: Shap to Kirkby Stephen

Day 6: Kirkby Stephen to Keld

Day 7: Keld to Reeth

Day 8: Reeth to Richmond

Day 9: Richmond to Ingleby Cross

Day 10: Ingleby Cross to Blakey Ridge

Day 11: Blakey Ridge to Grosmont

Day 12: Grosmont to Robin Hood’s Bay