After the dry heights of the Mercantour National Park on the Southern half of GR5 in 2023 I was struggling to get the team interested in another long distant hike. The boys were already signed up to cycle trips and family commitments. Then John suggests a trip to the Lake District in April/May 2024 which creates an opportunity to walk the first stages of the Coast to Coast. This is a very popular walk from the Irish Sea to the North Sea crossing the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North Yorkshire Moors. In fact it is so popular that you need to plan in advance to book into the stops along the way. This is also made harder as travel companies book up spaces in hotels and B&Bs for organised trips and apparently it is almost impossible to book places in the Lakes for one night in July and August. In April 2024 I completed the first four days to Shap before spending the rest of the week walking in the Lake District with John. I returned with David at the start of April 2025 to complete the final nine days to Robin Hood's Bay.

St Bees Head with Isle of Man in the distance

The walk starts in the village of St Bees, just up the Irish Sea coast from the decommissioned Sellafield nuclear plant. For the first four or five days you traverse the Lake District with steep hikes over several passes and fine views, if you are lucky, of Lakeland scenery.

When you leave Haweswater, the huge reservoir that supplies Manchester, the terrain changes as you move from the Lakeland rock onto limestone. The hills are smaller and fields are bigger. After Shap there are three fine days crossing the moors of the Yorkshire Dales with the Howgill Hills to the South. From Keld to Reeth the landscape is increasingly industrial with spoils from old lead and alum mines and ruins of the smelters that extracted the lead from its ore. At Reeth you are across the Pennines and the rivers now flow to the North Sea.

On the way to Reeth you can see the top of Swaledale and after Reeth you follow the river Swale for a couple of days, to Richmond and then past Catterick. You are walking in the Vale of Mobray in good farming country. We cross huge fields growing broad beans, wheat and rape seed. This is also the transport artery to the north as you cross the A1(M), East Coast mainline, as well as a mad dash across the A19.

Grasmere in the heart of the Lakes, Gentle landscape on the way to Shap

Smardale Bridge, River Swale and Richmond Castle

After Ingleby Arncliffe the terrain changes again as you climb onto the North Yorkshire moors at Osmotherley. The Coast to Coast sticks to the northern end of the moors following the Cleveland Hills. To the north is the Tees valley with Middlesborough, Darlington and surrounding towns while looking south is scarely populated moorland. After three days on the moors you finally drop down to the coast between Whitby and Robin Hood's Bay and follow the coastal path to end of the trail.

Cleveland Hills with Tees plain beyond

I have divided my description into three sections covering the Lakes, crossing the Pennines and the North Yorkshire moors. We travelled light, carrying 8-9kg packs and staying in pubs and B&Bs. This way you don't need to carry much food or spare clothes if you wash kit in travel wash as you go. Camping is cheaper but more hard work - there are also companies that will move your luggage as you go although we have always regarded this as cheating!

The route described here took 13 days of walking. Some people split two or three of the longer days increasing the trip to 15 or 16 days. We thought that we could probably have completed the route in 11 or 12 days but this would leave no shorter days for recovery. Terry Marsh's good book, the Coast to Coast Walk published by Cicerone, provides a helpful planner near the start to personalise your route. Click on the images below to go to the detail pages. The table below that gives info on distances and climbs as well as links to GPX files.