Thursday 30th March

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We arrived yesterday afternoon at St Bees; I’d booked The Seacote Hotel which turned out to be rather awful! There were letters missing from the building so it actually read ‘The Seacote H..el’ this was probably more appropriate. We had a terrible dinner, washed down by far too much wine and whisky and then tried to sleep on the foam mattress, whilst clinging to the tiny thin duvet (all my fault for trying to save cash and thinking: ‘How bad can it be?’). This morning we looked out to torrential rain so donned full waterproofs to start the day…but we thought, no such thing as bad weather only bad clothes and we have very posh waterproofs (just as well!).

Tradition says that you should dip your toe in the sea and pick up a stone to carry east on leaving St. Bees, fortunately sanity prevailed and we kept our boots on and settled on a tidal puddle as the tide was “out” (who needs bonus miles) . You will see that we were also very selective in choosing our stones, together they weighed 20g I think!

Leaving St Bees is quite the escape for any walker; it has become a caravan land with cafes and toilets basically straggling along the coast so to climb out and over the headland is an opportunity to breathe easy…well if we could have seen anything it would have been. We spent all day in waterproofs basically looking down – this had a the obvious side effect that we lost our way a few times. At one stage I was happy to see we were approaching a town only to realise it was St Bees (which we’d left three hours previously). ..we about turned and all was well with a few bonus miles under our belt and no one apportioning blame (phew). The weather has made it hard to navigate so we will need to pay more attention from now on. We walked around St Bees head and then headed inland to Sandwith and then on to Cleator; both remnants of mining times and not a cafe in sight :(. We staggered into Ennerdae Bridge and are now in Shepherds Arms Hotel. After last nights disappointment we braced ourselves for more terrible grease ridden fair but it wasn’t to be; we both had, unexpectedly, great meals :). So getting ready for bed and looking at the forecast it looks like more of the same tomorrow, ah well what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger…

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