Day 20: High Hawsker to Robin Hood's Bay

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Subtitle: The Triumphant Entry 

I'm gonna make it after all!

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by -----John Masefield

Or in our case...maybe a GPS, two guide books and one map.

Back to the sea and walking the cliffs toward Robin Hood's Bay

After a good night's sleep and some diet Coke, off we went on our last five miles. Ah, such bittersweet thoughts. 195 miles (HA! Unofficially about 210) behind us, and the North Sea, the finish, and a sense of accomplishment ahead. We exited High Hawsker and wandered through a trailer park (here a house trailer on blocks is a STATIC) and down to the water. All great endings should by definition involve a trailer somehow?
It was misty our this morning which gave an ethereal feel to the experience. The tide was out when we arrived at the edge of the North Sea (but not Robin Hood's Bay) to the calls of gulls, the rocky coastline and the cliffs awash in a light fog. We could hear boats sounding foghorns as a baseline to the cacophony of natural sounds and waves. It was really an absolutely beautiful walk along the headlands leading into Robin Hood's Bay with literally an astounding panorama over every hilltop and around every corner.

The pleased expressions of joy on our face when we saw the ocean again after >200 miles!

We stopped numerous times just to watch the walk unfold. We cross our last stile and turned around nostalgically to see where we'd been.

The ever styling Paul Parris

Tide out, mist in

And finally, on the top of the last knoll, we could see our goal, Robin Hood's Bay. No one has a clue what connection if any there is to Robin Hood. But since he probably never really existed, is this a big surprise? After 200 miles, I don't think we really cared all that much anyway.

The bay of the day: Robin Hood's

 Apparently, this picturesque village started out in the fishing business which has since died down and now revived with the crabbing industry. We marched through town, past our hotel for the evening, the Victoria, through the very narrow steep lane down to the sea.

Walked right past our hotel, the Victoria and bound to the North Sea

We walked out to the beach, took the stones we picked up and transported from St. Bee's on the Irish Sea and tossed them into the water.

The narrow lane of Robin Hood's Bay. One car wide.

A man tossing a pebble from St. Bee's into Robin Hood's Bay!

Interestingly, the folks who served us dinner in Grosmont were on the beach and took our photo. Then we had a high five and kissed for five seconds.

Our feet in the North Sea. Michele Baker will be happy to note that there is essentially no circumstance during which I will abandon my Diet Coke.

 We walked up to the Bay Hotel and went to the bar there where they keep a book for Coast to Coasters to sign. We had a celebratory half pint at 12:30pm (way before the usual "O beer thirty" and read all the comments of our predecessors. We were the first finishers today. A dozen people signed the book yesterday (and we know there were more than that.) The comments ranged from "life changing adventure" to "Never again!!"

Paul signs the book.

 And then to add to the atmosphere of triumph, we did what all Americans do at moments of great personal achievement: We ate an ice cream cone. Oh, yeah. If I had to summarize it up, it was a beginner to intermediate orienteering vacation over mountains, hills, valleys, man eating bogs, farms, poop of all sorts, across the high moors and through the low ones, over roads, lanes, highways, through the woods and over the river many, many times in the fog, the rain, the wind, the cold, the brilliant sunshine... and then some. What an adventure. The Coast to Coast is the Most-to-Most. (Or at least the most to us.)

Look Ma! We made it!

One tired pup

Paul's Ponderings: To quote Johnny Carson on his last evening on the "Tonight Show", "....and so it has come to this". And in this case, that means an ice cream cone and some rocks in the water at the end of the hike. What a great adventure over nearly three weeks. Looking back, I'm surprised we made it thru the lake district, with those massive hills and even more massive climb-downs. Everything after has been less physically strenuous, but not always less challenging from a navigation viewpoint. Mainly, we've been blessed with the one thing we can't control, above and beyond all those things we actually can, and which makes mucho difference in an outdoor experience: GOOD WEATHER. And that is a really good thing in general, but in particular when hiking through a peat bog or down a steep rocky slate path in a high wind. Today we saw our last really interesting thing from an engineering perspective: a rocket field. In summary, this is a high pole with a stand at the top and some climbing aids that was used to fire a rocket over with an "endless rope" to a foundering ship, after which the sailors were offloaded using a breeches buoy arrangement. Apparently it was in use until 1980. Of course, it only works for ships near shore. The Sea King helicopter now serves that rescue function.

A rocket rescue field

I'd recommend this hike to anyone looking for an extended outdoor adventure, but concur with what the Stedman book says: This is a tough trek, particularly if undertaken in one go. Do not underestimate the physical effort and prepare with some serious extended hill hiking (and hill means "very steep up and down" in this case). As Stedman says, most folks don't walk 14 miles a day ever much less for two weeks or more every day. What he leaves out is not only do you get the 14 miles, but you may get 3-4 extra due to getting lost, general side trips, and such, and a lot of it will be in potentially not so pleasant conditions. On the latter, we were lucky due to dry weather and that helped a lot. If it had rained "a lot", that would have been a morale killer for us when coupled with the physical effort required. Caveats aside, when you get to the end and toss your carefully selected rock into the sea, you've done something you'll always remember and it's a pretty great accomplishment to be able to say you walked across a country of the size of England.