Day 14 - They think its all over!

Our final day on the Coast to Coast, just like the first one, started with the promise of rain but finished in pleasant sunshine. A hearty breakfast at Intake Farm where we spent the previous night set us on our way for a relatively short 12 mile trip, but with greatly varied scenery.

A climb up a steep muddy track alongside a beck brought us to the "Hermitage", an enormous hollowed-out boulder (with carved date suggesting this was completed in 1790), where Mike treated me to a passable imitation of a grumpy hermit.

Now Mike has set some cracking paces at times, which have had me at a mere six foot one and a half (in the mornings) frequently skipping to catch up. Today, however, he'd clearly stepped up a gear.  I couldn't understand - we'd been enjoying the whole experience, was he really that keen to be finished? Then it dawned on me... I had promised him that Julia Bradbury (she of the walking TV programs) would be waiting for him at the walk's end, with a couple of Bath Buns taped to the sides of her head to replicate Princess Leia's Starwars hairdo. The poor fellow was hoping to have two fantasies fulfilled at once. My only chance of salvation was that at this rate, he'd be too knackered to kill me were we got there and he discovered the terrible truth of my lies.

During these past two weeks we'd both become quite skilled at bog-hoping - being able to traverse a man-eating peat-bog without so much as getting splashed.  Today we almost made it through the first bog as we crossed the moors, only for Mike to fill a boot about six feet from the road.  Karma had the last laugh, though - I got through the second bog only to step in a foot deep puddle on the path out.  This was not to be the last wet sock of the trip though!

Alternately clumping and squelching, we reached the very first road sign for our destination, where Phil caught us up.  Having started back in Grosmont, he'd overtaken three or four other sets of walkers so far. The man was clearly on a mission. He stayed with us a while, then stopped to wait for his son and two mates who were cycling the trail. Here I am at the sign, not posing at all.

The last few miles of Wainwright's route, just like the first few, are a cliff-top walk.  Anticipation builds as you round one headland after anther until finally, Robin Hood's Bay comes into view, and from here its downhill all the way to the North Sea, where tradition has us dip the toes of our boots in the sea, and fling the pebble we picked up back in St Bees.  If you've ever tried to dip a toe in the North Sea, you'll know that it often has other ideas. A series of really quite pathetic excuses for waves lures you further and further down to the water's edge until you've no hope of escape, at which point a mini Tsunami will fill your boots and, if you're particularly unlucky your trouser pockets too.  I dont (yet) have a picture of my calf deep soaking, but here's Ann and Phil getting theirs.


Ill make one or two more updates in this blog regarding the walk over the next few days.  A few anecdotes not mentioned elsewhere, maps, mileage, and links to more pictures on FLIKR....