The Coast to Coast Debacle

On April 30 1998 the Smeggie Book had it's first entry. As this is a blog version of the book, I feel it is important to quote from it as often as possible. So here we go...

[Mick]
April 30, 1998 - Bradford
Welcome to the Smeggie Book - a chronicle of all things Smeggie.
We start on the Smeggie Coast to Coast walk. 190 miles, 10 days, 4 Smeggies, 1 objective - to arrive at Robin Hood's Bay on May 10 1998 having walked from St Bees Head in Cumbria.
The Smeggies in question are: Mick, Martin, Tony, Eddie.
Apart from Eddie, the only real training we've done was an attempt at the 3 peaks last Sunday. We wussed out of Whernside and Martin and I both strained a knee (each, not between us). My first aid kit now contains a tubigrip AND knee support, but, alas, I have a feeling it will take more than that to see us safe across country.

[Tony]
On Thursday night we journeyed speedily to our start point, St Bees, and when I say speedily I mean we entrusted our lives to Phil's hands, who was intent on showing us what an impressive driver he is. Unfortunately, he managed to achieve the opposite effect as three on the back seat were thrown from one side of the car to the other.
We were glad to get to St Bees in one piece having had several close experiences with various verges, oncoming cars and the back end of slow moving caravans...

[Tony]
Day One - St Bees - Ennerdale. 31km.
The day started with photo opportunities at the sign for the start of the walk (not to mention the nearby adventure play equipment). As the tide was out the obligatory walk to get our boots wet added an extra 1/2 mile to our intrepid journey. A chilly breeze blew from the sea as we followed the coast in completely the wrong direction - north west, when our goal, Robin Hood's Bay, was to the east.
As we turned inland and finally in the right direction we were disappointed by the view of St Bees just two miles away, when we had already walked about seven.

The plan was to lunch at Moor Row, however the solitary shop was bare of any useful products, about three drinks in the chill cabinet, and absolutely no sandwhiches, pies, or anything decent to eat for lunch.
We ended up lunch-stopping at Cleator instead, where we had a choice of two shops. One said 'no pies' on a big sign, and the other had 'no sandwiches'. Finding a decent lunch was not as easy as we had first thought.

Navigation was tricky around the far side of Dent Fell and we further ran into trouble as we headed into Ennerdale Bridge. We had to tread discretely as we wandered into some farmer's back yard.

The going in the last few miles was tough, but we clocked up the 31km in a respectable 9 hours.

We had decided to do this trip in less time than Wainwright suggested (a fact that would bite all but one of us hard later in the trip) and the first night's stop was up the Ennerdale valley at Ennerdale YHA. As I commented in The Book: Made Ennerdale Bridge at approx 3.30 but final push up the valley was V. slow as legs shagged. Made hostel at 6pm. This was a sign of things to come...

Ennerdale YHA is a lovely remote place that runs on gas and log power... We ran into our first fellow coast-to-coasters here, but due to our optimistic route planning, rarely saw the same people twice. No-one else had the same itinery as we did...