Friends. Diane and I finished the Coast to Coast in September but the journey began back in January of last year, and it did not really finish until yesterday when I wrote the ending. And that’s how it is with a Grand Adventure. Any journey worth its salt will occupy a space on my brain for a lot longer than the actual two weeks of walking. The memory of each step I took across England with my precious friend Diane will stay with me for many, many moons.

And as a way of saying goodbye to this season of planning, walking and writing about this journey, here are my 20 Favorite Photos of The Coast to Coast.

Just in case you missed one of the many Coast to Coast stories along the way, here they all are for your reading pleasure.

Coast to Coast: Rising to the Occasion

Coast to Coast: Meeting a 78 Year Old Fellwalker

Coast to Coast: Children Welcome

Coast to Coast: Long Day Strategies

Coast to Coast: Upon Arrival

Coast to Coast: Fellow Pilgrims

Coast to Coast: Highs

Coast to Coast: Finishing (Not So) Strong

I hope you’ve enjoyed this walk even a little bit as much as I have. I am already super excited about adventures coming in 2015. I’m looking forward to doing more walks with Macs Adventure!

The post Walking Across England: The Coast to Coast Photos {England} (36/48) appeared first on Alison Chino.

Lying in bed shaking with fever.

Wondering if I will ever get warm enough to fall asleep.

Muttering feeble little prayers in the dark.

Please Lord, help us to finish this.

Help us to wake up and be able to walk tomorrow.

From the onset of this two hundred mile journey, I tried to predict which of the thirteen days of walking would be the most difficult for Diane and me.

Reading through many walking logs on the Coast to Coast, I decided that it would be around day 4 or 5 that I would really struggle to finish. By all accounts, once the hills of the Lake District were behind us, it would be smooth sailing.

All downhill from here.

But that was not the case.

So if the most difficult day was not in the first week, while my body was becoming accustomed to the long hours of walking, then perhaps it would be the long day. The near marathon distance of 24 miles. If the distance did not get to me, then perhaps the monotony would.

But no.

Predictably, my hardest day on the Coast to Coast was not one I would have ever guessed.

It was Day 11. Where the heights were half what they were in the Lakes and the distance was a mere twelve miles. Half the distance of the previous day.

Even as I write those words, I think. What happened? How could such an easy day have felt so terribly difficult? And honestly, I am still not sure.

But I think it has a little bit to do with expectation.

After climbing the heights of Day 2 and crossing the length of Day 10, I expected Day 11 to be a cake walk.

Diane and I both felt a little weary when we woke up on Day 11, so we got a late start, but we thought it was for the best, because we didn’t want to arrive at the other side so early that we could not check in to our accommodations.

This stage of the walk was through the Cleveland Hills. Hills that top only 500 meters (1,640 ft). Just. Hills. Not mountains.

But from the first uphill steps, I was dragging. I moved in slow motion through the cloudy day as we entered our third national park. The North York Moors. Long stretches of already bloomed heather crossed by an endless snake of a dirt road. A dirt road that crawled up and down the hills like an eternal letter W. Up. Down. Up. Down. More than once I looked to the left and wondered if we should find a road in the valley to walk on instead. But then I would deceive myself into thinking that it would be easier to just stick to the trail.

I was nearly on the ground crawling up the hills. And every time we would crest one, I could see more of them stretched out in front of us and I would just roll over on my back in defeat.

Diane was equally weary.

We made snarky remarks to each other and were impatient with others on the trail.

Which we later felt badly about.

But in the moment? In the weary wilderness of the North York Moors? We were unrepentantly grouchy.

The fatigue was so deep that it was making us nauseous. So in addition to being our hardest day, Day 11 also marked the moment that we stopped eating properly. We would force down a bit of bread or fruit or granola, but nothing tasted good.

Nothing sounded good. I could no longer be tempted to the end of the day by the pint of ale waiting in the pub. And Diane had long since given up her candy bars.

If I was to chart our moods on the Coast to Coast, the dip on Day 11 would be striking. It all fell apart somewhere between the Park House B&B and the parking lot on the side of the road twelve miles later where we would await our ride to an inn for the night. We got cold while we were waiting, and neither of us ever seemed to recover. We forced down a bit of dinner, popped painkillers, filled hot water bottles and shivered in bed until blessed sleep found us.

We both later confessed to lying in bed and thinking we were going to have to give up the walk with only two days left.

But sleep has this amazing way of replenishing. It’s a miracle truly, how different the world looks after a night of sleep. We both woke up ready to carry on, still weary, still feeling like the miles ahead of us were too many, but that at least this morning, we could put one foot in front of the other again.

Back into the moors we went. 19 miles of walking the same dirt road through the same heather fields. The pheasant and grouse we were delighted to spot a few days ago now crossed our path without comment. I did not want to die on Day 12 like I did on Day 11, but it was not a joyous day. It was a solemn march, a pushing through. We felt that we would make it, but just barely.

Diane could hardly touch food and she shunned the cups of tea as well. Three days later, once we were safely home, we decided that we had caught a stomach bug. But now I wonder if we had not just pushed our bodies beyond what they were capable of and so they rebelled back in whatever way they knew how. Weak stomachs and chills might have been the symptoms of exhaustion instead of the cause. I suppose I will never know for certain.

We both felt deliriously happy to make it to Red House Farm in Glaisdale. Our host told us there was a pub in town we could go to for dinner, but instead we had packets of soup in our room and fell asleep before 8pm.

The next morning we actually cried as we prayed together that we might make it to the end. Then I posted a pitiful little message on Facebook asking for more prayers.

At breakfast, we choked down a bit of yogurt and cereal. We felt none of the exhilaration we should have at its being our last day, which puzzled me but our hosts said it was not at all unusual. I appreciated their unique perspective of hosting people who are at the end of the Coast to Coast. They said often walking partners are no longer speaking to one another by the time they reach them. Diane and I laughed felt grateful that we were both still very glad to have each other. Without one another, we neither of us would be able to finish.

As we left Red House Farm, our host slipped me the phone number of a cab company and said, “Just in case you can’t make it. And you know, no one ever has to know.”

I smiled and pocketed the number, knowing that even if I consented to calling a cab, Diane would not. We would drag ourselves to Robin Hood’s Bay even if we were hanging on by our fingernails.

But neither of us felt like we had twenty more miles in us. I wondered if we could go for even half of that on the little amount of food we had managed to eat.

Five miles down the road we were lying in the grass at the top of our first big hill.

We could see the North Sea clearly but Wainwright’s route would have us walk over fifteen more miles before we reached the end. Our book detailed the beauty of this route. It would wind through a forest, take us north over a couple more hills and then descend south along the coast for two miles before coming to Wainwright’s Bar in Robin Hood’s Bay.

Forgive me when I tell you that when I took everything into account, Diane’s stomach, my blisters, the almost two hundred miles behind us, the two weary days of marching through the North York Moors, the tears from that morning at breakfast, I looked at the winding route of the last day of the Coast to Coast and I thought,

“Oh, hell no.”

I pulled out my phone and Google Mapped us to Robin Hood’s Bay.

I looked at Diane and I said, “Listen, if we walk on the road and just head east for the sea, we are under ten miles away.”

Sweet relief washed over her face, and she stood up with more confidence that I had seen in three days of walking.

“Let’s do it.”

“You won’t feel like I cheated you out of part of the walk?” I asked.

She humphed,

“Absolutely not.”

“Okay then. Let’s go.”

A few hours later we came over a hill and could see the sweet little village at the end.

Tears filled Diane’s eyes as we squeezed each others hands.

Neither of us, could quite believe it. We had almost walked across England.

Down the streets of the darling little town we walked. It was full of people dressed in normal clothes instead of walking gear, folks who had no idea how many miles we had come to be on these streets.

But when we reached the sea, our friends were there. Familiar faces cheered for us as we dipped our boots in the sea.

“We made it!” we both squealed to each other and to everyone else.

We were so overcome that we forgot to toss our pebbles in the water that we had carried all the way from the Irish Sea. It was not the victorious end I had imagined. The one where we come running the last mile across a finish line.

Every day folks walk into this unsuspecting town, meander down to the sea and sign the register of names full of folks who have done this walk. It’s a bit anticlimactic actually. One feels there should be a marching band and cheering angels awaiting your triumphant finish of walking 200 miles.

But instead the walk ends in much the same way it begins: standing and staring out at a sea, feeling small in the face of the horizon that stretches beyond your vision and wondering at the wide and beautiful world. There’s so much of it to explore and though you feel you have crossed a long stretch of this world, it’s just a drop in the bucket compared to the miles that wrap the globe. Forests and mountains and rivers and oceans untold. The world is bigger than I could ever imagine, much less walk.

And in that moment, my exploring is done. I can gladly go home and walk the familiar trails around my house, the ones I know and can complete without too much effort.

I never wonder if I will make it back home when I am out walking in my neighborhood.

So that’s what I will do until the urge to see a new part of the world on foot bites me again.

I know it will happen.

I will again wish to see if I can walk further than I am physically prepared for.

I will take myself back to the place of wondering if I’ll be able to finish something, because the suspense will be killing me.

Our Coast to Coast walk was made possible in part by the good folks at Macs Adventure, who provided the maps that we completely ignored on our last day of walking, and who should in no way be held responsible for our tendency to get lost or our ridiculous YouTube videos.

The post Coast to Coast: Finishing {Not So} Strong appeared first on Alison Chino.

Not our spiritual highs, but the actual physical high points of the walk.

Day 1: Dent Hill

Day 2: High Stile

Day 2: Helm Crag

Day 2: Helm Crag

Day 2: Haystacks

Day 2: Innominate Tarn

Day 3: Green Up

Day 4: Going up St Sunday Crag

Day 4: St Sunday Crag (looking at Helvellyn)

Day 4: St Sunday Crag

Day 4: Coming Down St Sunday Crag

Day 5: Kidsty Pike in the Mist

Day 7: Nine Standards Rigg

Day 11: Carlton Bank

All Days: What Diane and I looked like after climbing a big hill.

PS Here’s the official list of high points along the Coast to Coast from Wikipedia, in case you’re curious about heights and such.

• Dent
• High Stile (variant)
• Helm Crag (optional)
• Helvellyn and St Sunday Crag (variants)
• Kidsty Pike
• Nine Standards Rigg/Hartley Fell
• Carlton Bank
• Cringle Moor/High Blakey Moor/Glaisdale Moor
• Urra Moor

Our Coast to Coast walk was made possible in part by the good folks at Macs Adventure, who arranged all our accommodations and luggage transfers and who should in no way be held responsible for our tendency to get lost or our ridiculous YouTube videos.

The post Coast to Coast Highs appeared first on Alison Chino.

One of the great joys of walking the Coast to Coast with an extrovert was that we met tons of other people along the way.

Diane was always willing to say, “Hello. We’re walking the Coast to Coast. How about you?” Endlessly enchanting in all her Southern charm, Diane has a beautiful gift of being endearing without even trying.

Also we were fairly conspicuous so we often did not need to introduce ourselves. Mainly because we laughed. A lot. In fact, one afternoon we collapsed on the side of the trail, about a mile from the end. We made a video sitting in the grass and we were cracking ourselves up so much that we could not recover enough to get up and walk the rest of the way into town. As a result, we sat there for over half an hour, serving as a bit of a congratulations party for all those who came behind us.

“Hiiiii! You’re almost down now! Well done! How has your day on the trail been?”

Diane yelled all these phrases between giggles. By the time we drug ourselves into Patterdale, a group of walkers in a beer garden were laughing about two girls “sunbathing” on the grass near the end of the trail, and assuming we were high on something more than just mountains.

Nevertheless, our willingness to laugh at ourselves along the way opened us up to more than just ridicule. We met so many fellow Coast to Coasters that Diane started keeping a log with all of their names.

The warm and fuzzy feeling that is conjured in my heart by this list of names and stories from (or about) the other walkers was probably the biggest surprise of doing the Coast to Coast.

Diane always asked people why they were walking the Coast to Coast and there were as many answers as there were people:

A couple from Hawaii had walked it last year, and it had been their favorite thing they had ever done, so they came back this year to do it again.

Two flight attendants from Seattle were celebrating an early retirement buyout from their airline.

A man from Australia was walking in honor of his wife, with whom he had previously walked the trail three times before she died of cancer. He made us all cry as he carried and scattered her ashes along the walk. His new companion had come along in support of his journey, and her sacrifice was equally moving.

A fellow who has lived in Spain for over twenty years came back to the Lake District because it was his childhood home. He was connecting the dots between his memories and the present day. He and his girlfriend were carrying all their gear and just showing up each night trying to find a place to sleep. They ended up roughing it a couple of nights in rented tents and we found their courage admirable, but we were glad we weren’t doing the same.

We met two couples who were doing only half of the walk and planned to come back next year for the second half. They both lived within an easy train ride of the walk, so they could return at any point and do the bit they missed. This was a novel concept to me, but after watching them I have been considering the advantages of doing other national trails this way. I certainly might appreciate the later sections of a walk more if I was approaching them with fresh eyes, not to mention fresh legs. They’ve got me thinking of what it might be like to walk the West Highland Way over three weekends instead of in seven or eight days.

We walked a lot of miles with a gentleman who has made a sort of career of walking. He’s walked the Camino de Santiago three times. “But I’m still a sinner,” he said. He and I traded stories about being the son of a vicar vs a pastor’s daughter.

Two marathon runners were tackling the walk in 11 days. They found the terrain to be rather difficult and began to take roads instead of trails, adding considerable distances to their walk. One night over several bottles of wine, they confessed to yelling “Sod you, bloody Wainwright!” for most of the afternoon.

We walked only a few miles with a sweet couple from Milwaukee but unfortunately, it was one of the times we got lost and we led them astray. The husband was considerably annoyed with his wife for following us instead of following their own map, so we didn’t see them much after that incident. Oops.

Two boys from Bristol who worked together were doing the walk, but one was sort of leaving the other behind when they caught up to us. We walked with them long enough to slow the first one down so they could finish the day together. The older one told us he had just got married and was expecting his first baby this fall. He turned out to be only a couple of years younger than I am, which of course leads to the inevitable discussion of the fact that we often start families in Arkansas a lot earlier than they do over here in the UK.

We met several pairs of parents and children who were doing the walk together, a father and his daughter, a boy and his dad, and a gal with her mother. I loved watching these sweet pairs, and how the younger tended the older and vice versa.

Even though we met lots of people along the way, having meals or drinks with some here and there, we actually only started and completed the walk on the same day as one other set of walkers.

We met the group of twelve walkers and their guide, John, on our first day in Ennerdale Bridge. But since they were a larger group, we tended to avoid them a bit. We felt at the start of the walk like we would prefer to be either well ahead or behind them. But then about halfway through the walk, Diane began to try to learn one of two of their names whenever we encountered the group. Somehow, trying to meet them all had seemed too daunting but when she singled them out, we started to get to know them a little. So instead of being intimidated when we would come upon the entire group, we were glad to see them.

In fact, we began to sort of watch for them. We left many of the friends we’d made behind on one of our longer days that most folks had divided up into two sections, but the larger group was keeping the same pace as we were. In fact, more than once their guide set us back on track when we were headed the wrong way.

We felt a little lost on the days we didn’t see them, but most days we could spot them a bit ahead of us stopping for tea or lunch. They called us “Hey y’all!” because that’s how we greeted everyone on the trail, and they got such a kick out of the word “y’all,” saying it in a super exaggerated manner.

We actually finished the walk just at the same time as the group did, which made for such a lovely celebration at the end. We signed our names just behind theirs in the register in Wainwright’s Bar, marking the end of our time on the trail.

The next morning, as we were leaving town, we ran into a girl from the large group and she was in tears. She said she felt so silly, but that she was grieving the end and saying goodbye to all her new friends.

“I know,” I said. “It does feel a bit strange. We’ve met all these lovely people that we’ll probably never see again. I don’t think it’s silly at all to be sad.”

And even now as I think about Diane and I both hugging her goodbye, I think how lovely it would be to run into even one of the many people we met along the way on the Coast to Coast. It makes me want to hurry up and climb another hill just to see who might be waiting at the top of it.

Our Coast to Coast walk was made possible in part by the good folks at Macs Adventure, who arranged all our accommodations and luggage transfers and who should in no way be held responsible for our tendency to get lost or our ridiculous YouTube videos.

The post Coast to Coast: Fellow Pilgrims appeared first on Alison Chino.

Upon Arrival: Coast to Coast Lodgings

Discovering our particular establishments among the small hotels and B&Bs in the villages along the Coast to Coast was like a treasure hunt waiting for us at the end of each day’s walk.

When we arrived at our new place to sleep each night, we were usually greeted like old friends, or even better, warriors fresh from battle. I loved the hosts that made the end of the day feel like a long awaited homecoming.

If we were coming in after dark, we were welcomed with even more enthusiasm than usual.

“We were afraid you weren’t going to make it!”

“I was just about to double check the date of your arrival.”

Or my favorite,

“You poor dears, come in here and rest your weary bones.”

When we walked up to Park Inn B&B in Ingleby Cross, the owner was standing out front, arms outstretched with two glasses of Prosecco to celebrate the end of our longest mileage day.

If I ever run an inn, that will be the way I greet everyone who arrives because Best. Idea. Ever.

After we downed our drinks we were doing a little happy dance up to our room.

Twice we had to be picked up from the trail to reach our room for the night, which was less like a homecoming and more like hitchhiking: waiting on the side of the road for someone to come and pick you up at their convenience. This was, understandably, not always exactly when we finished walking, a time that could not possibly be predicted or planned for, especially for someone who is running an inn with a full service restaurant attached.

Some of the rooms we stayed in were so nice that we never wanted to leave, or we regretted not getting there earlier so we could have enjoyed a few more hours in the comfort of a perfectly arranged sitting room or a well tended garden.

Then of course there was the hot tub in Richmond at Arandale Guest House, and our gorgeous rooms, which our host informed us confidently were the very best along the Coast to Coast, as was his breakfast. He told us everyone regrets having to leave after only one night of soaking in the tub on the back patio with a glass of wine, and besides, there’s so much more to explore in Richmond that’s it is always a terrible shame to leave your favorite guesthouse behind.

But it would be impossible to choose a favorite. Each lodging had its own special touches and each host gave attention to different details.

Diane loved the antique Old Croft House in Kirkby Stephen where our room was at the end of corridor lined with old bookshelves. We relaxed within a soothing palate of blues and browns, where the old and new mixed tastefully. An ancient cabinet held a modern foot bath for massaging our tired feet.

At the Cambridge House in Reeth, we could have stayed a year in their lounge and not have ever finished reading all the offered magazines and guidebooks on the area. Also they would not dream of leaving those small pre-packaged milk cups on the tea trays. A jug of fresh milk was delivered whenever you wanted to have your tea.

In Glaisdale, our host served us our tea herself, in the garden just as we arrived, bringing us biscuits and welcoming us with stories of cows being stuck in the mud in early spring. Red House Farm is still very much a farm, as are many of the guesthouses along the way. In the mornings, we often were served fresh eggs from the chicken house.

Breakfast was included with all our stays, full English breakfast, of course. But we had to back off of the plates piled with sausages, bacon, fried bread and eggs after a couple of days of walking on full stomachs. Soon I returned to my simple yogurt or porridge, while Diane ordered one egg and one piece of bacon every day. We were delighted by any offerings of fruit and we were never without our daily pots of tea.

Since the Coast to Coast is quite a popular walk, we shared our lodgings with other walkers, so that the talk around the breakfast table or in the pub tended toward the walk itself, usually either the day ahead or the one just finished.

In the Old Water View in Patterdale and in Keld Lodge, the owners held court so-to-speak from behind the bar, passing out advice regarding the trail along with pints of ale. I loved sitting at the bar and hearing stories of walkers lost on stormy nights or of what it is like in the winter, when the walking season is over and the villages are quiet.

Diane and I had a sort of childlike joy about discovering the particular offerings of each place we stayed, but actually it was commonalities of the lodgings that made them comforting: a hot water kettle and a tray of tea things, our suitcases magically appearing in each room (courtesy of our luggage transfer service), a predictable morning meal and the warm welcomes on  the faces of our hosts. These sweet folks who, for whatever reason, have chosen to live away from major cities in country houses and inns, open their doors and their hearts to a sea of walkers passing through on the long road between St. Bees and Robin Hood’s Bay.

Our Coast to Coast walk was made possible in part by the good folks at Macs Adventure, who arranged all our accommodations and luggage transfers and who should in no way be held responsible for our tendency to get lost or our ridiculous YouTube videos.

The post Coast to Coast: Upon Arrival appeared first on Alison Chino.

I have always maintained that making it from Point A to Point B on a long walk is more of a mental game than an endurance test. Physical strength definitely comes into play, but I believe your mindset wins the day when it comes to covering the distance.

Wainwright’s Coast to Coast is 196 miles long. Diane and I were averaging fifteen miles a day, so there was not a single day that I would have considered short by my normal walking standards.

If I walked out of my house right now and traveled on foot for eight or nine miles, I would return saying that I had been on a long walk.

But on the Coast to Coast, something happens in your brain that makes you look at your schedule and heave a sigh of relief when it says there are only twelve miles between you and your next destination.

The inverse is even more true. Seeing anything nearing the twenty mile mark could easily make me feel disheartened before I had even begun.

So on the longer days, Diane and I felt that it was important to have some strategies ahead of time that would give us the impression of being on top of the day before it got the better of us.

For starters, we would greatly overestimate how long the day would take us. We learned early on that we might still be walking at sunset, so we would celebrate the “early arrival” if we finished a day before 6pm.

Also, we had a lot of treats. Diane brought a pile of candy over from the US and I had my favorite granola bars. The simple suggestion that in twenty minutes we might stop for a candy bar would put a temporary spring in our steps. After the first day of running into our friends having tea on the side of the trail, we began to carry our own flask of tea. We would wait until we were particularly weary in the afternoon and stop for our little pick-me-up.

I have to admit that tea and candy were really only helpful on the first week of the walk. By the end, if Diane suggested a candy bar, I was all, “Ugh, gross.” And she said to me on the last day, “England has about ruined me for tea.”

Those were the words of some weary women, folks, considering that I am not ever likely to turn down chocolate or caffeine.

Day 10 was our longest day: From Richmond to Ingleby Cross.

It was listed as 23 miles. But then our bed and breakfast was actually a mile past Ingleby. And there was a detour. So at the end of the day, I think we walked an actual marathon.

Even before we found out about the detour, we knew that 24 miles was going to be a killer. Part of the reason that it is the longest section of the Coast to Coast is that it is flat and dull. A lot of the walk is on roads, connecting you from the gorgeous, green Yorkshire Dales to the wild and wonderful North York Moors, two exquisite national parks in Northern England.

One of our bed and breakfast hosts told us to just get a taxi. “There’s just no point in suffering that distance for less than beautiful scenery,” he quipped.

But we were determined. We asked other seasoned walkers for advice and the general sentiment was that you could get away with wearing tennis shoes instead of hiking boots. Or trainers, in English speak.

So we opted to ditch our boots for the day. We thought we might even run a bit. We also went as light as possible in our packs. I left my big camera behind, as well as some of the other tech-y equipment I had been carrying along. Also, we left out a couple of layers since there were no mountains to be crossed.

But all these strategies paled in comparison to our real plan for getting through the long miles ahead,

Singing Through The Miles.

We had been thinking about it for a couple of days. We were already having way too much fun making our daily update videos, and we knew we wanted to spend a day recording the many songs we sang along the Coast to Coast.

Diane and I both grew up singing songs around campfires and between the two of us, we knew a few lines to a lot of tunes (and very few songs in their entirety).

We got an early start and started the day with every song we could think of that had the word “morning” or “sunshine” in it.

Then we moved on to singing songs about trees, cows, sheep, farms, fields and flowers.

Once we got on the road, we sang classic road trip songs.

We sang Sunday School songs and old camp songs. We sang the songs from our childhoods and then the ones from our adolescence.

We went through musicals and hymns and even a little R&B.

I really cannot think of a day that we laughed as hard as this one, even though we were beyond exhausted by the end of it.

We often said on the Coast to Coast that we were not the fastest or most experienced walkers on the trail, but if someone was giving an award for who had the most fun along the way, well, we might have won that one.

Here’s our video of our long day strategy. It is only a small sampling of all the songs we sang on Day 10, but it’s been our most loved video, and by the end of filming it we were on the ground laughing. Literally. We hope you have a laugh at us making total fools of ourselves on the long road between Richmond and Ingleby Cross.

If you take long walks or runs, I would LOVE to hear your best strategies for passing the time when the miles stretch on endlessly?

Our Coast to Coast walk was made possible in part by the good folks at Macs Adventure, who were wonderful to work with and who should in no way be held responsible for our tendency to get lost or our ridiculous YouTube videos.

The post Coast to Coast: Long Day Strategies appeared first on Alison Chino.

Coast to Coast: Children Welcome

We had been watching for them all day, expecting to glimpse them around almost every corner. My husband, Taido and the kids were joining us for the weekend. After five days and eighty miles, the distraction of their arrival was a welcome one, keeping my mind from focusing on the new aches and pains I was developing with each mile.

I knew as we left Patterdale that it would be a long time before we met them, but I was already keeping track in my mind of what time they ought to arrive in Shap and begin walking towards us.

We did not meet them in the mist as we hiked over Kidsty Pike from Patterdale.

We did not meet them on the descent to Haweswater, our final bit of the Lake District.

And we did not meet them as we walked the ups and downs of the trail that ran along the lake.

I kept spotting people in the distance and thinking, “Maybe that’s them.”

Then I would watch groups get closer and realize that my family was not among them.

The day was stretching on into the afternoon when we finished the five miles along the lake without spotting them.

It was on a bridge in the woods that Diane first spotted Taido walking toward us.

A sight for sore eyes, we were both thrilled to see him.

The kids were resting about a half mile back, refusing to walk any further. Taido stopped at an honesty snack box to grab them a treat. We saw several of these after leaving the Lake District, boxes full of cokes and candy bars where you could take something and leave money for the kid who had placed it on the trail. (Adorable.)

We hurried on to where the kids were. I heard them before I saw them, up in a tree being silly. Hot from the sun, they complained that they were already tired of walking. But then they quickly outpaced Diane and me on the last four miles to Shap. Racing further and further ahead, they stopped at the gorgeous Shap Abbey ruin to wait for us. Taido expressed concern at our slow pace, wondering aloud if we were going to be able to finish the walk. We were dragging the last mile after the abbey and then the mile through the town of Shap to get to our hotel.

Taido popped in a grocery store to get a picnic dinner while the rest of us went on to check into our hotel. It was after 7pm when we sat down in the back garden for our meal, and we fell into bed pretty quickly afterwards.

I was good and tired, and feeling a little daunted by the 21 miles that awaited us the next day, especially since the kids were less than enthusiastic about spending a weekend walking with us. Trying to remain optimistic, Diane and I kept reminding each other that it was supposed to be an easy, flat walk. The hills were behind us now, and anyway, if the kids absolutely couldn’t make it, Taido could take them the rest of the way in the car.

Yes, it was all going to be fine.

But then before we were a mile into our day from Shap to Kirkby Stephen, I was in a puddle of tears, feeling as though my brilliant idea to have my family come and hike with us for part of our epic journey was an epic fail.

Recently a friend of mine said something to me about someone who was facing an overwhelming series of difficult circumstances and events, and without meaning to, she enlightened me about why I get so upset when things don’t go according to plan. In talking about her friend, she said,

“She didn’t really fall apart like I expected. I suppose that since she was always expecting the worst to happen, she was not that thrown off when her life came unraveled. Because I’m an eternal optimist, I am devastated when hard things happen.”

I was definitely suffering from the unraveling of my own optimism about this portion of our walk. The kids told me before I left that they did not want to come. They wanted to spend their extra days off school doing what they feel all school holidays are made for: sleeping late, eating everything in the house, and playing video games. So I should not have been surprised that they all woke up in varying states of rebellion about the idea that they were going to spend the entire day walking over twenty miles.

But I kept telling myself that they would be happy once they got there. Down the road a bit, they would start to enjoy it like they do on our weekend walks back at home. Like they usually do.

I was pushing past their attitudes, even when we woke up and it was raining a little. It’s just a drizzle. It will burn off quickly.

I was remaining optimistic about the weekend even after I checked my email, which included two fairly disappointing rejections. I won’t think about those today. Everything will work out.

I might have even still been (fake) smiling at Diane when I informed her that Taido seemed to have misplaced his wallet and he was going to stay back to try to find it and meet us later.

I was really trying to hold on to the happy vision I had of my family joining us on the Coast to Coast as we laced up our boots, stood up on my aching legs and headed out into the drizzle with the kids.

All the excitement that I had carried in my heart on the trail the previous day about meeting my family had slowly drained out of me and I was spiraling quickly from, “Well, maybe this wasn’t such a great idea” to some ridiculous version of “All of life is ending.”

Not really, but sort of.

You know how it is. Somehow even my future as a writer began to be in question as a result of the fact that it was raining a little and that my credit cards were being cancelled.

The way I can connect the dots of a difficult morning into a trajectory that obviously means I am failing at all of life is actually kind of impressive.

Cut to me crying on the trail to Diane as my kids, the ones who say they don’t like hiking, are a half mile ahead of us already.

Diane prayed me through my snotty sniffles, as she has about one thousand times in our life together back in Arkansas. In fact our friendship began in earnest when I was my most desperate as a parent, coming to her for help.

I finished crying and she finished praying and we carried on. Just as we had every other day, one foot in front of the other, but I felt a little bit lighter.

We walked through farm after farm. And then moor after moor. The terrain was easy, just long.

I do love English farmland. I was reminded of St Cuthbert’s Way, so green and bright. So many sheep. Rock walls for miles and lots of stiles.

It was still drizzling when Taido caught up with us. He had parked in Orton and walked back to us. Cash withdrawn and banks informed, he was over the wallet loss and ready with a picnic lunch, which we promptly gobbled down in a bus shelter in Orton.

We had come eight miles so far, and I thought that maybe Taido and the kids would just drive the rest of the way and meet back up with Diane and I later. Taido said they would keep on for at least part of the way and he would walk back and get the car when it got to be too much.

The afternoon was kind of blissfully monotonous. The drizzle stopped and we meandered without saying much. Diane engaged each of the kids at different times along the way, except for Cole who kept well ahead of us all day.

I had the opportunity to introduce them all to some of our fellow Coast to Coasters. We told a few stories and I heard a little about their week back at home. Around 4pm, the sun even came out. Taido turned around to go back for the car and after a while the kids, began to watch for him. They were tired, but they weren’t coming unglued. Cole carried Simon on his back for a bit. Taido parked the car at a spot where the trail met the road about two miles from the end. We could see Kirkby Stephen in the distance. I was so proud when I realized that the kids had walked over 18 of our miles with us. Diane and I threw our packs in the van and ran the last two.

As we came into Kirkby Stephen, we were singing. Literally. I can’t remember what song we were singing, but it was some version of praising the Lord for how the day had completely turned around from that morning. We came around a corner and a sweet lady in her front garden said, “You’re the first people I’ve seen come into town on that trail singing! That’s for sure!”

We laughed, saying we were just grateful to have made it through the day and she told us that we had an easy walk ahead of us tomorrow. “Even I can still climb that hill you’re going over next,” she said, “I was up there last week and it’s really lovely this time of year. And you can expect good weather as well.”

We met Taido and the kids for fish and chips in Kirkby Stephen, at a place where Wainwright used to eat. His picture was on the wall, one of many we saw along the walk. Everyone ate every crumb of their dinner, and they were all delighted with the prospect of getting into bathtubs afterwards. As we said goodnight, no one even complained about getting up the next day to walk again.

Somehow after twenty miles, twelve starts to sound not too bad.

We had a small hill left to climb, Nine Standard Rigg, and Taido said that after we climbed it, he would turn around and get the car and drive around to the end.

We were up at the top before noon, taking in the views from the nine rock piles on top of the watershed in Yorkshire. It would be all downhill from here.

The boys ran down the other side, with Simon chasing after them for most of the afternoon. Everyone had hit their stride, and even our picnic lunch seemed happier.

About three miles before the end, we passed Ravenseat Farm, where Sarah and her seven children serve tea from their kitchen on the grass. It was like a scene from Jane Austen, being served tea and hot scones with homemade jam and clotted cream. We sipped our tea while Simon played with the puppies. Loads of people were stopped there for the walkers’ garden party with a parade of tea trays coming out of the farmhouse kitchen.

The dreamy, delightful afternoon tea carried us the rest of the way into Keld, where we ended our days of walking with the children with a big spaghetti dinner.

By the time we told them goodbye and they drove back home to Aberdeen, I was sad to see them go.

They had gotten us to our halfway point.

We felt ready to take on the next hundred miles, grateful that they had shared a portion of the first hundred with us.

Our Coast to Coast walk was made possible in part by the good folks at Macs Adventure, who were wonderful to work with and who should in no way be held responsible for our tendency to get lost or our ridiculous YouTube videos.

The post Coast to Coast: Children Welcome appeared first on Alison Chino.

A voice came from the taller figure before we came around the fence.

If we had known you were coming, we would have made you a cup.

They were sitting with their backs to us on some old gate posts when we caught up to them, two older gentlemen, having tea.

We had seen them from a long way off as we were coming across a valley, the indistinct figures of two walkers.

We stopped and quickly took in the sight of these two characters, the contents of their backpacks (or rucksacks, in British speak) spilled out all over the ground: apples, biscuits, tea bags and zipped off trouser legs were piled on top of other clothes, maps and discarded jackets.

I wondered for a minute if they were stopped for the night, but it was far too early in the day. We had not even yet paused for lunch.

We exchanged pleasantries and Diane asked them if they were doing the Coast to Coast.

No, they were doing St Bega’s Way, a walk between two churches dedicated to a Medieval Irish Princess who fled to Cumbria to pursue a life of piety over her arranged marriage to a Viking prince.

“However, Keith here did the Coast to Coast about 40 years ago, right?”

Keith affirmed that this was true. And he added that he had completed the walk in just eleven days.

Wow. We were duely impressed.

“That’s not the way to do it though,” Keith followed up, “I always said if I did it again, I would give it no less than three weeks.”

After a bit more chat, we wished them well on their journey and went on our way. They passed us about an hour later when we were sitting eating our lunch, and then we passed them having tea again late in the afternoon about halfway up the ascent of Dent Hill.

And this was how it was with many walkers we met. We would pass them and then they would pass us, and after many days we grew familiar with the routines of the other folks on our path.

Dent Hill was our first big climb of the Coast to Coast. In retrospect, it was hardly a climb at all in comparison to what we had ahead of us, but uphill is uphill and for me, it is always a challenge.

Looking up at a hill never seems to grow less daunting for me. I have climbed enough hills to know that what is in front of me is probably not the last of it, but that I will reach the top of what I can see only to find that there is more climbing ahead. Thankfully though, Dent Hill did not have too many surprises. The top of the hill is long and flat, so we passed Keith and his companion as well as a few other walkers as we made our way over the hill, down the other side and on into Ennerdale Bridge, where the host of our bed and breakfast collected us. We stayed at Ghyll Farm, a haven of three rooms that overlooked the Ennerdale Valley with views of the sun setting behind the hills we had just come over.

We processed our first day on the trail over cups of tea and soup. I said to Diane, “That fellow, Keith, he must have done the Coast to Coast around the time that Wainwright first developed the walk.”

We wondered how it must have been in those days. No signs, fewer well-worn paths. We resolved to ask him about it if we happened to see him again.

The next morning we walked into the cheery breakfast nook of Ghyll Farm and there they were again.

“Well, HELLO!” we all said, like we were old friends.

For already on Day 2 of the Coast to Coast, it seems that everyone you have met is a dear friend. As are those you have yet to meet. The shared experience of a long walk and tired bones provides a common bond with total strangers.

Keith’s friend joked that we must be following them and we all laughed. I asked where they were staying the next night and he said, “We’re not telling you.”

Together with the other couple at breakfast, new dear friends from Newcastle, we all compared our routes for the day. Four of us were planning to take the high road, a decision Diane and I made in pure ignorance, but Keith’s doctor had forbidden him any more mountain climbs because of his heart. He was following the rule more than the spirit of his doctor’s instructions because the low route would still climb within fifteen meters of an official mountain before the day was over.

Our paths would be parted for most of the day and as we said our goodbyes, I sensed a bit of sad resignation in Keith’s eyes at their taking the valley over the peaks. I know too well that growing old can be a bitter pill to swallow for a man who used to be unstoppable.

Diane and I set out energetically on the road with the common C2C blessing of “Many miles and light footsteps” ringing in our ears.

Ten hours and fifteen miles later, we were hobbling down from Haystacks to where the paths rejoined at an old slate mine. Diane and I had not seen anyone in a while and we were beginning to be convinced that we were the last two people still out on the trail. It was 6:30pm. We had been watching the shadows spread over us for two hours as were making our way down the lonely mountain. Armed with none of the resolve with which we had begun our day, we were worrying it would be dark before we found our hotel for the night.

I glanced up from the road and saw two men making their way down from the other side of the ridge. “Diane,” I said, “I think that is Keith and his friend up there.”

“HELLO!” we called.

It is a wonderful thing, that however weary you are on the trail, somehow you can be lifted out of your downtrodden-ness by seeing a familiar face. I could immediately tell that the same was true for them. Keith’s friend quickened his pace, and when he got down to the road, he was smiling, “I can’t believe it. This morning when we left Keith said, ‘Well, that’s the last we’ll see of the girls.’ He’s going to be delighted. He’s had a rough go of it these last few hours, even saying that maybe this will be his last long walk.”

We said that we’d had a rough go of it as well, and we never expected to still be walking at this hour. We still had over three miles to go.

When Keith got down, he was both glad to see us and to be off the mountain. They had only a mile and a half left as they were stopping at a farm house before us, so we joined them for the last bit of their walk, asking Keith all sorts of question about his many years of walking.

His favorite bit of the C2C: between Ennerdale and Patterdale, of course.

When he did the walk forty years ago, there were not luggage transfer services and he did not pre-book his rooms, so he carried all his belongings, slept when he could find a room and kept walking when he could not.

Keith’s friend Alan also had some stories to tell. He had come all by himself to the Lakes for the first time when he was sixteen years old. He walked from hostel to hostel until he ran out of time and money and had to go back home, but the beauty of the area had been calling him back for many years.

The two knew each other because they both sing in the Manchester Police Choir, a group that actually tours. (I’ll be watching for them to come to Aberdeen.)

By the time we left them at their farmhouse, it was growing dark, so Diane and I ran the last mile and a half to Rosthwaite. As we walked into the village, a little boy on his bike rode past us and said, “You’re late!” as though he’d been expecting us for hours.

We found our hotel and the host recommended we head right over to the pub around back and get dinner, assuring us we could go “as we were.”

We devoured our pub dinner, giggling about how hungry we were. Diane ate half a chicken. As I was finishing up my plate of fried food, Keith and Alan walked into the bar.

“Don’t even ask,” Alan said.

Of course we asked.

There had been no food at the farm where they were staying, so they had been forced to walk into Rosthwaite for dinner in the dark. They recounted the tale of how the farmer had offered to give them a ride in the back of his truck if they could leave immediately, as he was taking some sheep to Keswick, but Keith had wanted to shower and have a sit down, so they were left to walk it. They were both disgruntled, and we laughed heartily at their misfortune.

Keith told us a few more walking stories while they waiting for their food. Once when he was vacationing on the Greek island of Corfu, he decided he would walk across the entire island one day. When he reached the other side, it was dark and he had missed his arranged ride back to the opposite coast. So he went to a restaurant and ended up meeting a couple who offered him a spare room in their home for the night. His wife was furious but unsurprised by his disappearance. She sent a cab over for him, an expense he resented.

He said that these days he checks in with her every day because she worries about his health when he is out walking.

When their dinner came, we told them goodbye again for the third time that day.

Alan said, “We won’t say goodbye. I’m sure we’ll see you again tomorrow.”

“Of course we will,” we laughed.

We were off to Grasmere the next day and they were turning north to Keswick, so we did not see them again. However, I imagine that I will keep an eye out for Keith when I am next in the Lakes. I don’t believe he will easily give up long walks in a place he knows and loves so well. Diane and I were both enchanted by the happy coincidence of our paths crossing so many times in two days and though we would meet loads of people over the rest of the walk, some that we liked very much, Keith would remain our favorite. We’ll always remember him fondly.

Our Coast to Coast walk was made possible in part by the good folks at Macs Adventure.

The post Coast to Coast: Meeting A 78 Year Old Fell-Walker appeared first on Alison Chino.

Coast to Coast: Beginnings

Rising to the Occasion

A year ago I had never before heard the name of Alfred Wainwright, but I had recently met one of many great hillwalkers who have walked in his footsteps. Hillwalker was a term with which I was just beginning to become familiar, having previously only used the American term, hiker to describe someone who spent their spare time wandering hills and forests. This hillwalker told me about the National Trails that exist throughout the United Kingdom, and are one of the greatest treasures of the British Isles, making walking holidays accessible to folks from all walks of life. With a shower and a bed available in villages located along the walks, anyone who fancies a bit of adventure by day can head off into the wilderness and still enjoy modern comforts at night. In Scotland, the right to roam laws that allow walkers on any private lands as long as they are respectful of farms and animals have made hillwalking immensely popular.

You may have noticed that our family took to hillwalking immediately upon moving here. We have always enjoyed a good bit of hiking, but the circumstances of finding ourselves in a new country without many weekend commitments and with loads of trails within an easy drive gave us ample opportunity to explore Scotland on foot. Also, hillwalking tends to be easy on the budget. Besides keeping four growing children in walking shoes, we can generally have a full day’s entertainment for the price of a bit of petrol and a picnic lunch.

After many weekend walks in Scotland, I visited the Lake District for the first time in my life, and like many before me, I fell madly in love. Three days of rainy walking the fells and I was hooked. The grassy trails and autumn colors left me wanting more, despite the bad weather. Even the smallest break in the clouds convinced me that the hills above Buttermere were some of the loveliest in the world. I vowed that I would be back for more weekend wanderings in the Lakes. I picked up my first Alfred Wainwright book in a small bookshop in Cockermouth (yes, that is the actual name of a town). It was called A Coast to Coast Walk. I was immediately intrigued, not only because doing this walk would gain me almost a full week in the Lake District, but because it would be a walk across an entire country, something I had never dreamed possible for someone as athletically challenged as myself.

Perhaps it is that I hail from a rather large nation that it seemed at first glance that two hundred miles to cross a whole country was not such a daunting figure. However, the amount of miles between the Irish Sea and the North Sea on the Coast to Coast walk grew less feasible each time I spoke it aloud to someone else.

TWO HUNDRED MILES?

Have you lost your mind?

Still, I became determined to do it, in spite of how very long it seemed. In spite of my aging legs and creaky knees. In spite of not knowing exactly when and how it would happen.

And soon I found the most important piece of my Coast to Coast puzzle, someone who was willing to do it with me. Or someone who was foolish enough to take my word for it that it would be a grand adventure worth taking.

My very dear friend Diane was up for both the challenge and the time commitment. She started training immediately, logging miles in the evenings and on the weekends back in Arkansas while I kept up a routine of walking in Scotland and wherever else I happened to find myself.

We both wondered if there was any way to ever be really ready for the challenge of walking long distances for many days strung together in a row. There were many unknowns for both of us about what it would really be like.

I did a sixty mile walk in the spring over five days, a bit of a teaser. A practice walk. I was simultaneously pleased to complete that walk and alarmed at how hard it was for me to get through the long walking days. I returned from St Cuthbert’s Way in May more determined than ever to keep up a regular walking habit, to get myself really ready for this Grand Adventure of walking Wainwright’s Coast to Coast.

All the other walks of this year were in some way preludes to this one, informing me about my weaknesses and preparing me for what might await. I walked all kinds of terrain in all kinds of weather. I tried to ignore the new aches and pains I discovered with each walk. Diane and I would text each other pictures of our feet on the pavement, encouraging each other to keep on walking from half a world away.

There’s something kind of wonderful that happens when you say, “Yes. I will do that.”

The exhilaration that comes with a commitment to a date on the calendar, a purchased airline ticket, and maps and guidebooks in the mail from Macs Adventure all worked together to turn a seed of an idea into a real event, one for which I was both excited and nervous to arrive.

I love that feeling.

Once you say YES, you have an adventure waiting for you. It’s no longer hypothetical, but now there is an actual moment in time to which your spirit rises over the weeks and days leading up to it. You have a season of preparing, which for me always leads to a feeling that I will never be prepared. But the days pass anyway, the ones where you do a long walk to get ready and the ones where you do not because life was busy. And whether you walked every day or every other day or once a week, the days all pass by and eventually, the moment arrives.

Diane’s plane brought her across the Atlantic. Three trains took us from Aberdeen to St Bees, and then all of a sudden, we were sorting our gear in a bed and breakfast, lacing up our boots, strapping on our packs, and walking out into the cool of a September morning down to the Irish Sea.

We dipped our boots in the sea and selected stones to carry across England, traditions long kept by many other Coast to Coast walkers. And then as the gentle breeze picked up, we began the long march up the cliffs.

It was this moment to which we both said YES all those months ago, a YES I first said in my heart on the shores of Buttermere and again when a new friend showed me photos on his phone of his own long walk.

And a YES I repeated every time I went for a walk this year.

And so it began. An epic journey of small steps, one foot before the other over and over again.

At this moment, we knew not how we would tick the miles away, how we would add three miles one day for an extra climb or two on another as an unintentional detour. We knew not how we would lose miles becoming lost, and then gain a few by being found again or that we would shave four miles off at the end, desperate to be done.

In this minute, there was only this first mile. This path before us, waiting for us to walk it.

And now I think how beautiful they were, those first few steps, taken in faith that they would convey us on a journey worth our time and effort. And isn’t it also true that most great journeys begin this way, with a step? And then another one. Small affirmations that we are on our way to somewhere, all part of the larger affirmation that to lace up boots, open up the door and walk out into the world is a brave and marvelous way to live.

Our Coast to Coast walk was made possible in part by the good folks at Macs Adventure, who were wonderful to work with and who should in no way be held responsible for our tendency to get lost or our ridiculous YouTube videos.

The post Coast to Coast: Rising to the Occasion appeared first on Alison Chino.