UK - Coast To Coast (WeBo) - Venture

Summary

A 190 mile route that follows the Coast To Coast national trail from east to west (WeBo) and completed over 11 days. There are numerous alternative routes along the trail, and so the actual mileage may differ, but I reckon this won’t be more or less than 10 miles difference. The official start of the route is in St Bees on the west coast of England, near to the Lake District. The official end of the route is Robin Hood’s Bay on the east coast of England, on the edge of the North York Moors. My journey tackled this in reverse, Robin Hood’s Bay to St Bees (reasons later). The route passes through 3 National Parks: North York Moors, Dales and Lake District. The trail was designed by the grumpy rambler, Alfred Wainwright, in his 1973 book. He says in the introduction of the book that he wanted to encourage other people to devise their own long-distance walks. The trail was officially opened as a National Trail on the 26th of March, 2026. This meant that there was now much better signage along the route and parts of the trail had been improved. This was one of the reasons why I’d delayed walking the trail until now. 

The Venture includes 4 wildcamps and 7 campsites. The 11 walks are on average 17 miles long (10 miles being the shortest and 25 miles the longest). The ascent involved is around 8,500 metres, which is just short of the height of Everest asl. In other words, this schedule for the walk is tough. It is probably best adopted by those that attempt it during the summer months, when the days are longer, and those have a reasonable level of fitness. My Trailblazer guide suggests: 19 days (relaxed pace), 15 days (medium pace) and 11 days (fast pace). 

Itinerary Summary

The trail starts at the twee village of Robin Hood’s Bay and includes a preamble northwards along the coast. It then turns westwards and heads into the North York Moors. The traverse of the moors and its dales takes 3 days and includes a variety of landscape from woodland trails, to country lanes and desolate moors. It culminates in a dramatic rollercoaster path around the northeast edge of the national park.

A day is then spent negotiating the fields in the flat hinterland between the North York Moors and the Dales. Arguably, this is the least interesting part of the trail, but it does pass through some surprisingly pretty villages and terrain. 

The traverse of the Dales takes a couple of days and roughly follows the east-west line of the River Swale. It passes through typically, epic Dales scenery. My route includes a high level alternative that explores the industrial remains of the lead mining industry near Gunnerside. The impressive large cairns on Nine Standards Rigg are also visited, before dropping down to Kirkby Stephen and the start of the Cumbria section. 

A day is spent walking from Kirkby Stephen to Shap, the start of the Lake District section. This is a relatively low level day, but is surrounded by the distant hills of the Dales, Howgills, Lake District and Pennines. There’s some field hopping, but is actually rather a pleasant, picturesque route. 

The final section of the Coast To Coast is a 4 day crossing of the Lake District. These are the toughest days on the trail. It starts with a pretty amble alongside the Haweswater Reservoir, before climbing over the highest point on the Coast To Coast path, Kidsty Pike (780m). It then drops down to Patterdale, before taking the high level route over St Sunday Crag to Grasmere. Another high level route over Helm Crag is adopted to reach Greenup edge, before descending into Borrowdale. Yet another ascent over Honister Pass takes you into the magnificent Ennerdale valley. The final day of the trek is a long haul out of the valley and over the Lake District outliers to the coast. There’s then a 4 mile stumble along the coastal path to the finish point in St Bees.  

Notes

WeBo Or EaBo?

The Coast To Coast Path is normally tackled from west to east (EaBo). Most people walk the route in this direction. I decided to walk it from east to west (WeBo). There are advantages and disadvantages either way and I’ve listed the main reasons for my WeBo choice below. 

Other Walkers

The Coast To Coast is a very popular route. A good proportion of the walkers are international. Although some of these were camping, most were using B&B and/or hotels. Some of these were using baggage transfer services too. 

Honesty Cafes

There were plenty of Honesty Cafes/Boxes along the route, although these should not be relied upon for supplies. The best ones were at Danby Wiske, Sunnybiggin Farm and Black Sail Hut. The most bizarre one was the remote ‘fridge’ on Ravenstonedale Moor. There was a series of honesty boxes at the north end of Haweswater. 

Supplies

It was easier to get supplies than I anticipated. A shop, pub or café usually turned up at some point in the day. I used the following facilities: 

• Day 1 - Robin Hood’s Bay - Grocery store (Post Office) 

• Day 2 - Grosmont - Co-Op (excellent)
      Glaisdale - Grocery store (at the top of the village) 

• Day 3 - Lordstones - Shop and café

• Day 4 - A19 Petrol station (and shop)
      Danby Wiske - Honest café (well provisioned

• Day 5 - Richmond - wide selection of shops
      Reeth - Grocery Store (Post Office)

• Day 6 - Kirkby Stephen - One Stop grocery store 

• Day 7 - Shap - Co-Op 

• Day 8 - Glenridding - Grocery store

• Day  9 - Grasmere - Co-Op 

• Day  10 - No stores, but cafe at Rosthwaite, Borrowdale Youth Hostel and Honister Slate Mine 

• Day  11 - Ennerdale Bridge - The Gather (shop and café). 

Water

I mostly stayed on campsites, up until the Lake District and so got my water resupplied there. The one exception was my wildcamp on Rosedale in the North York Moors. The Lion Inn has a water tap (just to the right of the front entrance) and so I filled my water bottles there. In the Lake District, it was possible to filter water from streams (with the usual cautions of water suitability). The final day is long (about 24 miles) and so ensure you filter enough water from one of the streams flowing downhill into Ennerdale Water. 

Campsites

I stayed at the following campsites: 

• Day 1 - Littlebeck - Intake Farm - garden pitch with good facilities. 

• Day 3 - Ingleby Cross - Blue Bell Inn - large flat pitching area. Shower and toilet antiquated. 

• Day 4 - Catterick - St Giles Farm - garden pitch with reasonable facilities. 

• Day 5 - Keld - Rukin’s Farm - campsite with reasonable facilities. 

• Day 6 - Kirby Stephen - Pennine View - campsite with excellent facilities. If you intend to have a rest day, then this is the best place to stay. 

• Day 7 - Shap - New Ing Lodge - B&B garden with reasonable facilities. West Coast railway line is at the bottom of the garden (ear plugs required). 

• Day 11 - St Bees - Seacote Park - large static caravan/camping site; toilets didn’t work; in retrospect I should have stayed at one of St Bee’s hotels. 

Wildcamps

I wildcamped on 4 days.

•  Day 2 - Rosedale - a couple of miles from the Lion Inn. At a junction of bridleways and so is an ‘arrive late, leave early’ option. 

•  Day 8 - St Sunday Crag - halfway up the eastern path to St Sunday Crag. Next to the path and so is an ‘arrive late, leave early’ option. Excellent view of Ullswater. 

•  Day 9 - Greenup Edge (towards Ullscarf) - a lot of the ground is boggy, but you’ll eventually find a reasonable place to pitch. 

•  Day 10 - Black Sail Hut - cross the River Liza using the footbridge and head 100m downstream to a flat area near to two large trees. It’s a hard, stony area and so you may have to bang some pegs in. Incredible views of the mountains around the head of Ennerdale. 

Transport

The easiest way to get to Robin Hood’s Bay for me (from Sheffield) was:

•  Train to Scarborough 

• X93 (or X94) bus to Robin Hood’s Bay 

The easiest way to get away from St Bees was by train from its railway station. The journey took 6 hours and 5 changes to get to Sheffield. Robin Hood’s Bay travel links were definitely better, for me. 

Route Finding

The Coast To Coast is now officially a National Trail and so the signage has been upgraded. Annoyingly, there were a few occasions where a sign was missing and I ended up walking a distance in the wrong direction. There was a definite direction bias too, favouring the EaBos. Signage was better in the Yorkshire areas, compared to the Cumbrian. There are various alternative routes along various sections. It wasn’t clear from the signage whether you were following the ‘main’ route or an alternative one. 

There was effectively no signage on the Lake District high fells (although they reappear in the valleys). Therefore good navigation skills are still required. 

 For the most part, I could follow the signs without referring to maps. I had the paper-based Harvey’s map. This was fine for high level planning and easy route finding, but useless when the route was intricate, for example going  through fields. My best map was my phone based OS map. I noticed one walker with the Cicerone Coast To Coast map. This has the trail marked on a 1:25,000 map in a booklet. I think this would have been a useful reference. 

I noticed that sometimes the route that I’d plotted did not coincide with the signage on the ground. It looked like some of the route may have been slightly altered, maybe as part of making it a National Trail. In these cases I just followed the signs and I’d find that I’d drift back to the route that I’d plotted for my phone. 

Scrambly Bits

There weren’t any sections of the route that required hands-on scrambling. 

Guide Books

The Trailblazer guide was the best for general information and planning for the walk. I didn’t use the sketch maps since I find they are too detailed and you spend more time looking at the book than the scenery.