Day 2: St. Bee's To Ennerdale Bridge

View from St. Bee's Head

 

Subtitle: I Never Thought I'd Walk on a Bee's Head

We woke up to sunshine on St. Bee’s. A rare treat indeed. After a bit of “brekkie,” my darling husband and I paid our bill at the Fairladies Guesthouse, donned our considerable accoutrement, and headed the mile walk to St. Bee’s beach. On the way we saw a sign that said “Hump 130 yds.” We thought about it, but our age, we decided not to.
 But I have noticed a really interesting tendency of the Brits to post signs and name things that probably wouldn’t go over all that well in the US. Here’ a few:
1. Do not touch. Danger of death.
2. SMOKING KILLS. (It does, but we would never be so gauche as to say anything more than the surgeon general—whoever that is---has determined that smoking “may” be dangerous to your health.) So how would Americans feel about the lovely  3.  Low Cock How farm we passed today? Would they agree to travel to the burg of  4. Cockermouth?  (We decided against that too.)
When we reached St. Bee’s head, Paul and I acquired a couple of pebbles from the edge of the pounding Irish Sea to launch into the North Sea when we reach the other side, and then we started walking up and up…oh, and did I say up?
We were treated to amazing panoramic views of the red sandstone cliffs, the Isle of Man, a windmill farm on a distant shore and the defunct nuclear power plant at Sellafield. We wound our way off the sea which was a bit sad, as we won’t see it again for 184 miles! But onward to the small village of Sandwith which had few buildings but the joy of a portapotty.
 We past the Dog and Partridge pub and continued past some farms and through numerous stiles and kissing gates (Those Brits...always thinking about amore!)  The directions for finding the next town of Moor Row were about as scary as finding something in the hollows of Tennessee- “pass the third sheep, cross over a lake which may be dried up and when you see a barn with a mean rooster, turn left.” Despite our angst, we actually found our way and were treated to the exciting activity of climbing 1200 feet up Dent Hill. It was steep and we slogged a bit, but it had wonderful 360 degree views of the ocean, the farm lands and even St. Bees’ the town we’d just come from.
We figured that even though we’d walked approximately 9 miles, we were about 3 miles from where we started as the crow flies. We cross the top of the hill and were treated to a steep descent down Raven’s Crag. If I’d had snow skis on it would have taken about 3 minutes to get down the slope, but equipped only with high topped boots and creaky knees, it took about half an hour.
We then walked up a creek bed billed as a trail to the infamous Low Cock How farm and then hung a left to saunter our tired legs a total of 17.5 miles into Ennerdale Bridge. Wheeewwww!
 We did have some lovely hand pulls and dinner. In fact, Paul might not leave tomorrow if there’ s not a promise of steak and ale pie of equal quality in Seatoller.
 So in summary of day one, lots and lots of walking through hill, dale, farm, pastures and innumerable species of mammalian poop, dozens of amazing views, good beer and meals and sore knees that almost refused to climb the stairs at Sheperd’s Arms Hotel.
 All in all, a fine day and amazingly for the north of England, a bright, bright sunshiny day.

 Paul’s Ponderings: One thing of note is that the mileage in the guide books seemed to vary wildly from the GPS. In theory the distance from St. Bee’s to Ennerdale Bridge was 14 miles and change, but instead turned into 17.5. We did not vary much at all from the guide book, so it’s hard to explain the difference. We took one minor wrong turn near Ennerdale Bridge, but not enough to explain that difference. Will be monitoring it again tomorrow to see if that trend continues. Regarding gear, we were certainly glad we had picked up some mid-weight wool pullovers before leaving home, as the wind was quite brisk on St. Bee’s Head and climbing Dent Hill. We did meet a British gentleman who was on his fourth hike of the route and ran into him again at the lodging in Ennerdale Bridge. Regardless, this was in theory a LONG day and we are glad to have it under our belt.

St. Bees Head Lighthouse

Common View of the Irish Sea from St. Bee's Head