Day 0: Getting to the Start

The first challenge of the Coast to Coast was the surprisingly difficult issue of transport: the distinct lack of cross-country trains (unless we'd fancied a 12 hour train journey via Carlisle) meant that this wasn't a simple case of driving to the start of the walk, then getting a train back to the car from Robin Hood's Bay at the end. The trains straight from Nottingham to St. Bees had the potential to be equally as painful, ruling out the no-car approach. Dave did some searching around on the internet and found a company called Sherpa Van which provided a daily passenger bus service along the Coast to Coast route, and so we decided we'd drive to Richmond, leave our car in their 'secure parking facilities' and get the van to St. Bees. At the end, they'd pick us up from Robin Hood's Bay and take us back to the car in Richmond. A tad complicated, but that's what you get when you decide not to do a circular walk.

The bus from Richmond to St. Bees set off at 7.30am, so to avoid a 4am start from Nottingham on Monday morning, we opted to drive up on the Sunday night and stay in the nearest campsite to Richmond we could find. I turned up at Dave's about 45 minutes late (a good start, I think you'll agree) and we shared out the remaining group equipment we needed to take. Dave's bag was a 65 litre one and so was practically bursting, whereas my more spacious 85 litre one was doing me proud. Needless to say, they were both far too heavy. I wish we'd had some scales to weigh them.

We eventually set off and drove up the M1. Having been in London on Saturday night for what turned out to be a non-existent gig with my band, I realised that I'd driven practically the entire length of the M1 (190.8 miles apparently) in one day. I was getting a bit tired of driving, and it rained pretty hard for most of the journey which didn't exactly help. We eventually reached our camp site for the night at about 7.30pm. It was a pub in the middle of nowhere called the Hilyard Arms. As we walked in, all conversation stopped and everyone turned round to look at us. This was definitely "a local pub for local people". We wondered what the reaction would have been like if we'd managed to convince our Nigerian friend, Bola, to come along.

It turned out the campsite was in fact the beer garden, so we set up the tent and returned to the bar for a few drinks. There were 4 men playing some pretty hardcore dominoes for wagers of up to five pence. They had a board and held all their dominoes in one hand while they played so no-one else could see them. I chuckled at them for a while but I think I really wanted them to ask us to play. I should play more dominoes.

We asked where the outside tap was, only to find there wasn't one, so we had to get our water carrier filled up behind the bar. Also, the only toilets we could use were the ones in the pub and hence only accessible during opening hours. When I'd booked the site, the owner had warned me that the facilities were rather "basic", and the camping was free so I didn't feel too hard done by.

At 10pm, facing a 5.30am start the following morning, we retired to bed. It began to rain.