Reflecting on Wainwright’s Coast to Coast

“...we all need something to look forward to – without that it is easy to get lost...”

 

Mike McBride, Pilgrim on the Camino Primitivo

 

Looking Back from St. Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay

 

By the time we reached Robin Hood’s Bay, dipped our already sodden and stinking boots into the North Sea, and finally set down the small stones we had carried from St Bees, Wainwright’s Coast to Coast had become something much more complicated than the simple notion of walking across England.

 

It had been our first long-distance trail in the UK, but not our first long-distance walk. By the time we stepped on the beach at St Bees, we had already crossed many places on foot. We had followed pilgrim routes through France, Spain, and Portugal, walked across 10 provinces from the Atlantic to the Pacific over 14,000 km in Canada, and spent years learning what it means to move through landscapes, communities, and cultures with everything we need on our backs.

 

And yet, the Coast to Coast still caught us off guard.

 

We had come to it directly from a transatlantic crossing on board Queen Mary 2, followed by a series of awkward train journeys north through England. In a matter of days, we had moved from ocean liner corridors and railway platforms back into mud, rain, sheep fields, narrow stiles, unfamiliar rights-of-way, and the uncertainties of trail life. 

En route, we carried our own camping gear, began to get a sense of UK walking culture, dealt with crowds on trails unlike anything we were used to, navigated accommodation uncertainty and cancellations, repaired damaged gear, and pushed through stages that were often longer and harder than they looked in the guidebook.

 

In hindsight, it is perhaps no surprise that the trail felt difficult. What surprises me more is how much we loved it anyway.

 

A Country and a Culture That Walks

 

One of the most remarkable things about hiking in the UK was the sense that walking is not an unusual activity reserved for a small outdoor subculture. It is simply something people do.

 

In town after town, people seemed to know the local paths, the nearby fells, the long-distance routes, the national trails, and the next good walk we should try. Someone had walked the Coast to Coast years earlier. Someone else had a favourite section of the Pennine Way. Another person knew the best route over the moors, the safest way around a boggy field, or which pub might allow camping in the back garden. Even people who were not currently hiking seemed to understand the logic of a walking holiday.

There is something refreshing about that – especially after so long dealing with suspicion across Canada for those hiking with backpacks on – where often you are seen as a vagrant rather than a rambler.

 

In France, we have often admired the culture around cycling: the seriousness, the enthusiasm, the infrastructure, the way ordinary people speak about routes, climbs, stages, and distances with familiarity rather than surprise. In England, we found a similar culture around walking. A trek, a ramble, a walking holiday, a route across the fells or along the moors - these were not odd ambitions. They were recognizable pleasures.  It is what one does on the weekend, bank holidays, or on summer vacation.

That did not mean everyone walked in the same way. Far from it. But there was a genuine excitement in many of the conversations we had: excitement about seeing the country, spending time outside, giving others advice, or simply chatting to share the fact that they too had once walked this way.

 

For two Canadians used to explaining, again and again, why we would want to cross a country on foot, it was lovely to be somewhere where walking itself needed so little defence.  Indeed, we often met people who envied us the opportunity and time to set out that we had.

 

Maps, Compasses, and GPX Tracks

 

Hiking in England - it did not take long to notice - UK hikers seemed to have a deep and continuing relationship with paper maps. Ordnance Survey maps appeared everywhere: folded into waterproof cases, hanging from lanyards, tucked into chest pockets, spread out on pub tables, and consulted often with an ease that spoke to long practice. Compasses dangled from necks or sat ready in hand. Waterproof map cases seemed almost as common as trekking poles.

 

At first, this surprised us. Seeing so many walkers equipped with maps and compasses made us wonder if the trails would be poorly signed, if navigation would be much harder than expected, or if we were underprepared for the landscape ahead. In response, we did something very twenty-first century. At the first pub where we had reliable Wi-Fi, we downloaded GPX tracks for the route. As it turned out, we rarely needed them.

 

For the most part, the Coast to Coast is carefully waymarked, whether by official signs, public footpath markers, worn ruts in the ground, or the simple evidence of many previous walkers passing the same way. There were places where the route demanded attention, certainly, especially across moorland, in bad weather, or where several rights-of-way converged, but we were never left entirely without guidance.

Still, there was something wonderful and fascinating about the map culture we encountered. Some of the same people who told Sean they could not imagine hiking with a camera around his neck or attached to his pack seemed to be carrying a small library of navigation materials around theirs. It was a reminder that every walking culture has its own version of preparedness, its own tools, and its own assumptions about what is normal.

 

We may have walked with GPX tracks, cameras, binoculars, and large backpacks. They walked with Ordnance Survey maps, compasses, waterproof cases, day packs, and sometimes luggage transfer tags. No one approach made the other wrong. It simply revealed different traditions of moving through the landscape and along a trail.

 

“Hiking Proper”

 

Because we carried our own gear, we also became something of a spectacle.  Not to Canadians, Americans or Australians, mind you – but certainly to those from the UK.

 

Again and again, people commented on the size of our backpacks. Some were curious in a friendly way, wanting to talk about gear, camera equipment, camping, or the difference between hiking in Canada and walking in England. Others seemed genuinely impressed and told us we were “hiking proper,” a phrase we heard often enough that it began to feel like a category.

 

It was an interesting comment for us.  In Canada, carrying your gear into the outdoors is not usually treated as remarkable. If you are heading into a provincial park, a national park, or a remote trail, you generally carry what you need and prepare for the possibility that services and supplies may be far apart. On the Trans Canada Trail, we had grown accustomed to carrying heavy loads over long distances, often with food, water, camping gear, camera equipment, and the practical supplies needed to move through less predictable terrain.

 

On the Coast to Coast, however, many walkers used luggage transport and counted on communities along the route for supplies. Their larger bags moved ahead by van while they walked with day packs from inn to inn. Others had spouses, friends, or support vehicles helping to move gear forward. All of which was different for us to see, but it made sense and worked. The route passes regularly through villages, accommodations are well established (though popular and often reserved), and for many people, the pleasure of a walking holiday is not tied to hauling fifty or sixty pounds across the fells.

 

We understood that completely – at times in the moors we envied it.  After years of carrying heavy packs, I can fully appreciate how much more enjoyable a day can feel without that weight. There is no single correct way to walk a trail, and luggage transport no more invalidates a journey than camping automatically makes one more authentic. We all hike our own hike, shaped by age, fitness, bodies, budgets, time, experience, and intention.

 

What we did not expect was the degree to which our choice would attract commentary. Some people were kind. Others were blunt. A few told us we were carrying far too much, that we clearly could not have walked before, or that we would be dead on the trail soon. One man informed us that we should not expect him to pick us up when we died – which was admitted a memorable moment.

 

At times, the comments were strange, sometimes funny, occasionally irritating, and often revealing. They reminded us that people do not only see your pack. They interpret it. To some, it meant toughness. To others, foolishness. To us, it was simply how we had learned to move through the world.  As I said, no way is correct  - ultimately we all hike our own hike.

 

The Practical Realities

 

The Coast to Coast also taught us a great deal about the practical realities of walking in England.

For one thing, pub camping exists, but it can be extremely variable. Sometimes it means a beautiful grassy space, friendly staff, access to water, and a warm meal nearby. Other times it means a corner of wet ground beside a parking lot, a questionable washroom, and the smell of rubbish bins drifting toward your tent.  Sometimes it means a free pitch if you have a pint and dinner; sometimes it is an extra cost.  There is kindness and convenience in the system, but not every stop is equal.

 

Water was another consideration. We often had access to water in towns at the beginning and end of stages, but not always in between. On hot days, especially through exposed sections of farmland, moor, across limestone pavement, or road walking, it was important to carry enough. We also learned that in some places, a pint of water could cost nearly as much as a pint of beer, which felt both funny and faintly unreasonable when one was hot, tired, and thirsty. With that said, when asked to pay 2 pounds for water, you paid out of necessity.

 

Accommodation required flexibility too. Some places were fully booked. Some pubs were closed, reserved, or unable to serve meals owing to hours or popularity. Some cafés appeared at exactly the wrong time of day, while others were closed when we most needed them. We had begun the trail without booking every night ahead, as we often prefer to leave ourselves room to respond to the day. On the Coast to Coast, that freedom sometimes felt liberating and sometimes felt precarious.  As a result, we were glad to have a few camp meals to fall back on – and pointedly, though we set out with several days of dehydrated meals on us, we ended with none. So ultimately they paid off.

 

We also learned not to underestimate the stages. Guidebook distances can look manageable in the abstract, especially to people used to long days. But the terrain through the Lake District was demanding, particularly with backpacks and camping gear. Steep climbs, wet descents, rocky paths, boggy crossings, muddy fields, stiles, gates, heat, rain, and cumulative fatigue all added up. A short stage was not always easy. A flat stage was not always simple. A boggy moor easily took far longer than was reasonable to navigate.  A low-mileage day could still (and often did) leave us tired.

 

A prime example of this was the trek to Grasmere. Our guidebook suggested that Borrowdale to Patterdale could be walked as a single stage, and many people around us seemed confident they were heading beyond Grasmere that day. Yet, in the end, many of those same people stopped there. We did too. After the climb over Lining Crag, the damage to Sean’s backpack, and the strain of trekking with so much weight on me, stopping in Grasmere was not a failure. It was the decision the day required.

 

Looking back, I would recommend that many walkers consider splitting the Borrowdale to Patterdale stage with a night in Grasmere. The scenery is beautiful, and it deserves attention. Patterdale is followed by Kidsty Pike, the highest point on the route, and then by the long stage toward Shap. Arriving already exhausted does not make those days more meaningful. It simply makes them harder to enjoy.

 

And that may be one of the larger lessons of the Coast to Coast.  The trail is not merely something to get through.  It is something to experience and enjoy. 

 

Beauty, Fatigue, and Not Rushing

 

The Coast to Coast is extraordinarily beautiful. It begins on the red cliffs above the Irish Sea, among seabirds, gorse, rain, and wind. It crosses the Lake District through valleys, tarns, waterfalls, fells, and steep stone paths. It moves through limestone country, pastures, along drystone walls, past old lime kilns, through moors, farmyards, market towns, and finally the North York Moors before descending toward the North Sea.

 

But beauty does not automatically make a walk easy.

 

In fact, sometimes the most beautiful landscapes ask the most of you. They ask for attention, patience, effort, and enough time to notice what is happening around them. On the Coast to Coast, we were often balancing wonder with exhaustion. We wanted to watch Lapwings and Curlews, to look properly at the moors, to listen to Cuckoos, and to photograph lone trees in the fog. But we were also often wet, tired, sore, hungry, behind schedule, or thinking about the next accommodation problem that awaited us.  The trail gave us far more than we could fully receive in the time we allowed. That was not the fault of the Coast to Coast. It was ours. Perhaps the result of poor planning.  Perhaps the result of not having advance reservations.  Perhaps the itinerary we set ourselves. 

We had built an ambitious schedule for our time in the UK. After the Coast to Coast, we hope to continue almost immediately to the Pennine Way, then onward to the West Highland Way, the Great Glen Way, and, if time allows, either the Speyside Way or Hadrian’s Wall Path. Even as we crossed England from west to east, part of our attention was already reaching toward the next route. At Keld, where the Coast to Coast meets the Pennine Way, we were not only standing at a crossroads on the map. We were standing at a crossroads in our own itinerary, aware that we would soon return there heading in another direction.

That gave the walk a strange momentum.  We were not simply finishing one journey or at times, even focused on it - we were already mentally moving toward the next thing.  But there is a risk in always looking ahead.

 

If the next trail is already waiting, it becomes easier to rush through the one beneath your feet. If the next reservation is fixed, the present day becomes something to complete rather than something to inhabit. If the schedule is too tight, a beautiful place can become a problem to solve.  By the end, the Coast to Coast trail reminded us of that.

 

It gave us wonderful things: seabird cliffs, mountain tarns, muddy fells, Lapwings, Curlews, Red Grouse, old pubs, kind hosts, strange encounters, hard climbs, crowded viewpoints, foggy moors, and the pleasure of reaching the North Sea after trekking across England. It also gave us frustration, fatigue, uncertainty, soaked gear, damaged equipment, and several moments when we wondered whether we had misjudged what we were doing.

 

That is what long trails do. They do not offer a clean lesson. They gather contradictions and ask you to navigate them en route. 

 

In the end, Wainwright’s Coast to Coast was not the easy beginning to our UK walking plans. It was not a gentle warm-up after the ocean crossing. It was both fascinating and demanding. It reminded us that we are experienced walkers, but not immune to mistakes. It reminded us that walking cultures differ, and that those differences can be both challenging and wonderful. It reminded us that the best route is not always the longest one, and that a short stage can sometimes be the wisest choice.

 

Most of all, it reminded us that anticipation is necessary, but attention and focus on the here and now matter too.

 

Today we completed Wainwright’s Coast to Coast Trail – which was definitely worth it and which I would set out on again if I were back in the UK.  Tomorrow, however, it is time to move on once more.

 

See you on the Trail!