Day 1: St. Bees to Ennerdale Bridge
Neither Dave or I slept well on Sunday night, not helped by the fact that it was pouring down outside. Luckily, by the time our three alarms went off at 5.30am it had pretty much stopped, so we cooked some bacon sandwiches, packed up the tent and made the 15 minute trip to Richmond. Due to some pretty shoddy street name signage from Richmondshire District Council, we went slightly the wrong way but still got there by 6.45am. The sherpa van arrived at about 7.15am so we loaded up our bags and dropped the car off at their "secure parking facilities" for which we were paying £2 per day. It was a farm. Dave broached the suggestion that it was "secure" because no thief would ever go there and I suspected he was probably right.
The bus journey was longer than expected as we had to make 2 pick-ups along the way. There may have been more but I slept for quite a bit of it. I probably shouldn't have sat in the middle front-passenger seat. Oh well. At one point in the journey, the driver told us that if carrying all our equipment every day got a bit much for us and we fancied a break, then they would transport our bags between campsites for us for £6 per bag per day. We jokingly said that we'd be in touch in a couple of days. We ended up driving through some pretty horrific rain, which had me wishing I'd spent more than £18 on my waterproof top, but when we eventually got to St. Bees it was quite sunny.
As we were late getting to St. Bees we tried to set off as quickly as possible. Not before taking some photos of the sea though. Remember I mentioned that Dave and I had tried to convince our friend Bola to come along? Well, as he had to go shopping or something, he said he couldn't. I'd decided that this wasn't good enough though and so had decided to bring him along anyway:
In case you're wondering, he's made out of straws and bell wire. My girlfriend, Jayne, had suggested I draw some eyes onto him using tippex, but we decided that walking across England with what would have effectively been a home-made golliwog attached to my rucksack might not be the best idea.
We set off at about 11am, eating lunch as we walked; we had a long day ahead of us. As we walked along the coast around St. Bees Head, we met someone who'd done the Coast to Coast and then The Pennine Way straight afterwards - an impressive 462 miles (or about four or five weeks' worth of walking) in total. After that, we soon headed inland, passing through a farm whose owner obviously had far too much time on his hands:
We also got a nice glimpse of the hills ahead:
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and the perfect view of an old-school terraced housing estate:
We stopped briefly in Cleator while Dave stocked up on some food and I ate some Ginger Nut biscuits. Two guys in their late teens came over and asked us where we'd come from and where we were going. After briefly considering whether this was so they could mug us later on, I told them. They said we were mad, but this was evidently as much trouble as they had in store for us so I was relieved.
Between Cleator and our camp site was a 300m descent up a hill called "Dent", according to the map. Dave told me that the view from the top was quite good, but I wasn't allowed to look backwards until we reached the peak or I'd spoil it. When we stopped half way up, I hid behind some trees so I couldn't be tempted to look back. The view at the top was indeed quite impressive, and I caught Bola admiring it with respect:
We also took the first of many panoramic photos:
By this point, we'd both run out of water, so we hurried onwards. The drop down from the hill was so steep that it was harder work than the climb up had been, so I took the run-down-with-little-pixie-steps approach. My toes hurt a lot afterwards. We then took the slightly wrong route along the bottom of the valley and ended up climbing over a wall.
We were staying the night about 2 1/2 km short of Ennerdale Bridge at a place called Low Cock How Farm, and by the time we reached our stop for the night I was feeling pretty knackered. Just inside the door to the courtyard there was a dog sitting there looking quite placid, but as I went to ring the bell for attention it jumped up and barked, which made me jump. Fortunately, this was not a sign of things to come. The owners were very friendly and the "campsite" was in fact their back garden, complete with neatly-cut grass and pond:
In the garden there was also a small bridge over absolutely nothing. I couldn't tell if it was ornamental or not but I walked over it anyway, although I did try not to put too much weight on it. To top the campsite off, the shower was actually an indoor bathroom, so I decided to take full advantage and wash off the day's sweat. Unfortunately when I took my boots off and put my flip-flops on I realised I already had my first blister on my right heel. Arse.
I cooked us pasta and tuna for dinner which was very nice.
The nearest pub was about a half an hour's walk away, and with Dave not having had an alcohol-free day in about 6 weeks, he was quite happy for the excuse for a night off. Alas, his plans were scuppered when the owners kindly gave us a can of beer each (for free!) while he was in the shower.
We sat in the tent listening to music on the mp3 player and mini-speakers we'd brought. One of the speakers was quite temperamental so we had to be careful not to knock it once we'd got it working. After a bit, the farmer came into the garden for a smoke so we had a chat with him. He was telling us about how fox hunting shouldn't have been banned as it wasn't that cruel, and that in fact on a few occasions he'd seen the hunters let the fox go. As my views on the subject were probably the complete opposite of his, I kept shtum. When he left, we did some crosswords and then I kicked Dave's ass at chess because he was naïve enough to let me get a 2nd queen. Result.
Day 1 Stats:
Distance: 12.5 miles
Total Ascent: 914m
Total Descent: 811m
Time taken: 6 hours
SMR (Stile-to-Mile Ratio): 2.64
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