Day 1 - St Bees to Ennerdale Bridge - 14 miles

So the day has finally arrived, after a year of planning and with trepidation, we set off this morning from St Bees.  According to Wainwrights book of the original walk, we had to walk into the sea and collect a pebble so that we can deposit the pebble at Robin Hoods bay at the end of our walk.   We chose the smallest and lightest we could find!!

Whilst we smiled for the camera, Toby was reading the instructions.

We set off full of enthusiasm, ready to conquer the world!!  After 3.5 miles, we reached the St Bees Head Light House only to discover our map had fallen out of one of our rucksacks.  Never mind, we are women with skills - we can find our way over the next 11.5 miles to Ennerdale Bridge.

We finally turned inland with a huge sigh of relief, because it was rather cold and windy walking along the coast line.  We now stretched out and increased our pace and were averaging a good 2 to 2.5 miles per hour.

After 8 miles, we came across a statue in tribute to the Coast to Coast walkers.

The funniest part of the day was going through the kissing gates.  As Wainwright so elequently said, once you have a bulky knapsack on your back, you are somewhat wider than the average person and it makes getting through the kissing gate rather difficult.  In our case, our boobs got gate handled everytime we went through a gate.  The disadvantages of being women I suppose.

The scenery was quite wonderful and breathtaking.

We ambled our way towards Cleator and then started to climb.  OMG, what a climb.  The first half through the Blackhow Forest was extremely boggy.

We finally came out of the forest and then had to deal with Dent Fell!!! Which seemed to go up and up.  Everytime we crested a peak, there was another in front of us.  This was an interesting moment...... this is where Clare f***ked up her feet!!!!!

However, the views looking back towards St Bees Head and Sellafield were quite spectacular.

Once we got to the top, it was all bog and we spend the next half a mile with mud up to our ankles.  This was followed by a downhill climb.  Wainwrights book made reference to sliding down the hill on your bottom, which nearly happened a couple of times.  However, we were rescued by 2 very charming Swiss gentleman and their dogs, and they saw us safely down the other side.  Okay, the truth......  Marcia skipped on ahead whilst I played the damsel in distress!!!  There are ways of acquiring male attention when you are in the middle of nowhere!

We finally made it to Ennerdale Bridge at 6.30 this evening. We misjudged how far we should have gone in the first day - it really was too far!  If we did it again, we would have stopped at Cleator.

First priority was a hot bath.  The conversation between the 2 bathrooms went something like..... aaaaaaahhhhhh,    aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh, aaaaaahhhhhhh, but we both knew what the other one meant.

And so to bed.  We have another 14 miles to do tomorrow. The first 4 are along Ennerdale Water, and the last 10 are climbing.  We can't wait!!! Yeah right!!  Who said this was a good idea?