Category: Walking

[originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

Some photos of the scenery from day three, which was also when we realised just how flooded some of the route was. It was infuriating to add an hour onto the walk just to get around one flooded field before Snape.

[originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

I hadn’t done the stepping stones section of the walk on the last coast to coast, as it was shortly after I had stopped at Bagby. However, Liam had enjoyed visiting them and a few months later in 2016 he took Dylan and Leon to enjoy them too.

They were unfortunately rather more flooded than they had been in 2016, but it was a lovely little area and rather peaceful. Well, other than the torrent of water flooding by my feet.

Liam has put some photos on Facebook of how Dylan and Leon looked at the stepping stones, and above is the photo that Liam recreated of Leon   🙂

[originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

Some scenery photos from the day   🙂

[originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

DAY TWO – Kirkbymoorside to Thirsk

27.2 miles

The first day was tough going and the second day was even tougher going. We’ve now walked just short of 60 miles over the two days, which is very brave indeed. How our feet will cope with tomorrow’s 26 miles I’m not entirely sure…..

Today started with a breakfast at the hotel which was very nutritious and healthy, and we made sure that we got some chocolate from the Spar. Liam irritated me with his entire lack of bedside manner to my toe. He was meant just to put a dressing on it, but instead he prods the toe hard and yanks a bit of bandage clumsily around the toe. To be honest, he seemed entirely  uninterested at my predicament. I hid my mood very well.

We got walking and Liam’s expert navigation soon found us in a wooded bog. We discovered that the ford couldn’t be traversed as it resembled the River Thames. I could see Liam looking at it deciding how we were going to cross, but I just looked cross and so we decided to take a detour. This detour involved going up “a small slope”.

To define what we climbed as a “small slope” was nothing short of ridiculous. It would have been easier to climb the bloody Eiger than what Liam defined as “easy”. On this occasion I didn’t hide my anger and made quite clear that this was bloody impossible. Liam tried to calm me down by offering to carry my bag. I accepted this offer, although was still grumpy at the whole set of arrangements which had led up to this.

After 90 minutes I had calmed down and we walked alongside a lovely main road for an hour. That was delightful. We entered the town of Helmsley which was rather lovely, and I treated myself to crisps and a Dr. Pepper. That Dr. Pepper was my treat throughout the afternoon, a few small sips at a time.

We then had an afternoon walking through the forest, which was a bit never ending. We walked by some stepping stones where Dylan and Leon had been, which made me feel like they were there. i then had to climb over a gate as the ground was boggy.

We then we into Bagby, which is important to me as it’s where I stopped when we tried this walk before (the other way round, so from Morecambe to Scarborough). So from thereon in, this is all territory that I’ve walked. A friendly guy with a kid asked us about our trip, no doubt curious why two people were marching into Bagby as it was getting dark (by marching I mean more shuffling in at 1.2 mph).

The walk into Thirsk took bloody hours, and we finished quite a chunk behind when we ideally wanted to be. It’s a night in a Wetherspoons and the hotel is lovely, the room huge and it’s a delight to be back in the warm. Not sure that I’ll want to leave the room in the morning.

So tired there are no photos for today, I’ll try and upload those in the morning. I hope though that this blog inspires other people not to try such bloody stupid challenges.

 

 

 

 

[originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

Some photos of the varied scenery, we’ve had sea, forests, dales and moors today.

[originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

Our lunch stop was at the Fox and Rabbit pub, although we limited ourselves to health drinks and packets of crisps. Hydration and salts, very important in this walking thing. They kindly gave us a jug of iced tap water so that we could refill our water bottles.

There’s a photo of me that didn’t upload, I’ll have to try to upload that again later, but in the meantime everyone can look at pictures of Liam.

The prices were a bit expensive (although that’s probably Liam and his premium price orange and lemonade drink) but there’s not much else in the area and it was a delight to have a little sit down. We stayed for around 40 minutes in the end, a bit longer than we had anticipated…….

[originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

We thought that we should get some snacks for later on in the day. So this morning we went to Scarborough Greggs. The staff were delightful, the food and drink was great and the shop was clean. Top rated!

[originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

DAY ONE – Scarborough to Kirkbymoorside

30.1 miles

The first day was certainly a challenge, taking us 11 hours from leaving Scarborough to arriving at Kirkbymoorside. The weather was favourable to us though, just a little bit of rain at the end of the day.

The beginning of the day started with Liam inspecting which bits of the lifeboat station he built have fallen down. I noticed a pile of rubble outside, but apparently that was a seat Liam had constructed. I didn’t say anything.

We dipped our feet into the North Sea, but it’s a long time until we see sea again…. (there’s a photo of Liam here that didn’t upload first time, will try again). I realised immediately that my boots aren’t waterproof.

All this walking (we had gone around 250 yards) made us hungry, so we had a Wetherspoons breakfast. Pastrami bagel, best food on their menu!

Two miles in my lace broke. I decided that this needed an engineer to fix….

When we were crossing the railway line we were slightly attacked by three dogs. I bravely protected myself and tried to get the dogs to attack Liam instead. When we crossed the railway line a local resident called out and asked her to take her stone for a walk. Obviously we thought that seemed just a little strange, but it’s one of those stones that people paint and see how far they go. We’ll keep the web-site updated so that the person who painted it sees how far it went.

The whole walk got quite tiring by the 20 mile stage, and the next few hours weren’t the easiest. We decided to do the last two miles by road, so that we could speed up a little bit and get into the hotel by 20:00. We arrive at 19:59 and were pleased to check into a warm room.

We have popped to the pub and the food was fantastic, just what we needed. More on this, and other news from today, will be uploaded in separate posts on Tuesday morning  🙂

[originally posted in 2018, I’m reposting these posts in August 2024 with the broken image links fixed]

So it all starts here!

Today was the day of getting to Scarborough, with Liam coming from Norfolk and me coming from Ramblers General Council in Bangor. It was an interesting weekend in Wales and there was lots of gossip and news that I found out.

Richard’s flap was loose and didn’t shut, causing some regular stopping to resolve. It caused some issues when his car keep issuing him alerts about his loose flap.

I had the delight of Richard driving me across the country to meet up with Liam, which was a lovely journey.  Richard cut up about 40 cars and caused a very angry driver to stick his fingers up at him, so an entertaining little road trip. Above are Richard and Liam at the meet up point with Richard still wearing his Ramblers name badge so that people at the car park could know how important he is.

Greggs stop! It would be great if there were more Greggs on the route, but there are at least outlets of this fine dining chain at Scarborough, Thirsk and Morecambe. The chicken bake was delicious but was unfortunately not hot, but still a lovely way to start the week.

Liam at the meet up point. He might not look this happy in six days time when we’ve hopefully finished the walk.

We’ve had our evening meal in Scarborough, after stopping off at Greggs, and now we’re ready for an early start tomorrow (Monday morning). We’re staying at the Premier Inn in Scarborough, a full hotel but it’s centrally located and near for our JD Wetherspoon breakfast stop in the morning.

I didn’t finish this trip when we did in 2016 due to a blister, but Liam did. This time we’re going from Scarborough to Morecambe, so what could possibly go wrong?