which was full, but gave us a name of another. That B & B had room. The B & B is called Craighead. It was a little more than we have been paying, but decided to take it because it was another hour to another hostel. At least it comes with beachfront.
I was very pleased with the place and felt it was quite a treat. The woman has had it for 15 years. It was a big old merchant's house. The houses on the street are like rowhouses. The house is four stories with very high ceilings. The room is set up for tea and coffee. The biggest treat is a TV in the room.
She asked if a full English breakfast was OK with us. I wasn't sure what that meant. She explained that it would be eggs, meat, and toast. We all thought it was. It certainly is better than a continental breakfast. We drove around looking for a laundromat. We found it closed. We then checked where the train station was and also checked on times and cost for our ride to St. Bee's tomorrow. The train station is where we have to drop the rental car off. We then walked around looking for a place to eat. Everything was just about closed up. We ended up at KFC. We then looked for a grocery store and it close just before we got there at 8:00. This is a pretty big town. I can't believe everything closes so early. We just went back to our room. We reorganized our bags because we won't have a car to tote everything around. Now it will be on our backs.
June 26, 2003
This morning we had a treat of having breakfast cooked for us. It was also very good.
We got our wash done, had everything, packed, dropped the car off. We were at the train station by 9:30. The train wasn't due until 11:00. We just hung out there until it was time to board.
The train got into St. Bees about 12:30. This is where we start the coast-to-coast hike. We weren't sure where to even begin. We walked up the street to a store, if you could call it that. It also serves as the post office and the information center. I wonder if the person gets paid for there jobs!
We picked up a few item of food and also lunch. We thought we would eat before we started so we wouldn't have to carry it. My pack was certainly heavy enough and it didn't need more.
The young fellow there told me to head to the beach and the trail starts there. After our lunch that we had in a little garden about 20 feet by 20 feet, we set out for the beach. It was sunny and a little warm. I put sunscreen on because I haven't been out in the sun like this in awhile and my legs really haven't seen sun much since New Zealand.
When we got to the beach, we took our shoes off and put our feet in the Irish Sea. We will be walking all the way to the North Sea, we hope.
From the beach we walked up th side to the cliffs. The first four miles were along the cliffs looking out to the sea. It was beautiful.
We originally didn't plan on hiking the first day in St. Bees because we knew we would be starting late and wouldn't do the recommended 14 miles. We decided to hike because it was so nice, and what else could we do there? The only problem was we didn't know where we would spend the night. We hiked about five miles and came to a B & B. We didn't want to stay in the B & B, but we were hoping that we could camp on the property somewhere. They gave us permission to camp in a field that they just hayed. The ground was soft, but on a slant.
We set up our tents, cooked dinner and talked. I looked outside my tent and forgot for a moment that I was in England. It looked like Virginia or Pennsylvania with the rolling hills of fields. It was a nice and quiet little spot.
I am hoping for the same weather tomorrow.
June 27, 2003
Today was the complete opposite of yesterday in terms of weather. It started raining while we were sleeping. It woke me up, so I closed my fly up.
I have been spoiled by beds lately, so my thermarest was not that comfortable.
I heard the tractors early this morning. I was hoping the rain would stop before we got up. It let up about 7:00. I got up, had my breakfast and packed up. The rain started again right before I finished packing. Out comes the pack cover.
We could follow the trail pretty well, but we reached a problem when they had a diversion due to harvesting. We had sticks with green paint to follow. At first there were quite a few of them, but then they disappeared. We got to a road and went to a farm and asked for directions. We got going in the right direction. We were soaked by the time we got to Ennerdale. WE thought there was a hostel there, but found out that it was still five miles away. The woman at the post office runs a B & B next door, but it was expensive. We decided maybe we would go eat and think about it. When we arrived at the pub, we found they weren't serving lunch yet. We decided to go for the B & B, shower, and get dry. We were the first guests at the B & B. It wasn't really complete yet, but they let us stay there. We had done 8 miles, at least we would have if we didn't do the deversion route. I don't know if the deversion was less miles or more. We were very happy to stop hiking and stay put for the day.
We had a nice lunch at the pub. We then hung out at the B & B for the day. It rained pretty much most of the day. It wasn't til later afternoon that it stopped. The sun even came out late afternoon. Hopefully that means good weather for tomorrow.
June 28, 2003
Today was a very tough day and I am glad it is over and that I am in my sleeping bag.
The day started out fine. We had a good breakfast and the sun started coming out. We started hiking about 8:30. The first part of the hike was on the side of Ennerdale water, which is a lake.
Then we took a trail that we ended up having to turn around. At least we didn't go too far. We got back on track and then there was a sign for a detour. We were able to find our way okay. We stopped
