St. Bees to Ennerdale Bridge: 14 Miles 
Bed & Breakfast: Stone House Farm
Start time: 10:00 AM
Finish Time: 4:50 PM

Woke up at 4:00 AM not so much from excitement as jet lag. Decided to go through my pack and make sure I had everything we needed. Finally 8 AM arrived and we met our friends Mark & Christine down for breakfast. As I was eating breakfast I realized how surreal my situation was. For years I had been reading other people’s Coast to Coast adventures and many of them started at this B&B…. now here I was.

Carol, the owner, was very kind and helpful. Nice room, good food…I can certainly recommend a stay there.

After getting a few last minute items at “the shops”, which is British for a shop, we took our last motorized transport for the next two weeks down to the sea.

Tradition dictates that we dip our boot into the Irish sea to commence our walk. Our problem was the tide was WAY out. I wanted to dip into a small pond remaining near us and avoid a 3 minute walk out to the sea but Christine was having none of that. She said that was one of the reasons she and Mark came; to send us off properly…so off we went to the sea. With our toes officially baptized, and some prayer together for safety we said goodbye to our dear friends.

The rain began to come down at a good rate so our rain gear came on and remained on the whole day.

The walk commences with a 300 ft. hike up to a cliff. We walked along the coast for about 2 hours before turning East and heading inland.

You can see the two of us as dots at about center right.  Thanks Mark for a great pic!

Two things stick out today…rain & mud. If you do the C2C, make sure you have waterproof everything especially boots. Also, maps and compass. The C2C is only marginally signposted. We went the wrong way a couple times culminating in our completely missing Dent Hill. A local Salmon fisherman helped us get pointed in the right direction to Ennerdale Bridge. He seemed confused on why we would want to go over a hill you didn’t have to go over when it was easier to go around.

I suppose for the same reason someone uses their holiday to walk across a country…because it is there.

The fisherman said with a brisk walk we could reach Ennerdale in 45 minutes…it took us an hour.

We reached The Fox & Hounds pub at 4:50 in the afternoon and collapsed on the beds for 30 minutes before heading downstairs for dinner, and in my case, a pint of the local brew as a humble reward for Day 1 completed.