Monday 7th April 2025
The day started in the most beautiful way after a mixed night. It was quite windy when I first went to bed, but it settled at some point but then my hips felt a bit cold. I wrapped my jacket around them, that did the trick and I didn’t wake up until after eight!! 😁
Glorious sunshine and blue sky, not a cloud to be seen. Breakfast was porridge, fruit and a cuppa. Waved hello to a fellow walker and had a nice chat with him before he headed off up the steep climb to Fleetwith. Tent all packed up and then off I went. I was absolutely gutted to find my phone battery had drained and I had brought the wrong lead for the battery pack!
The red flag on the map was my destination for the day, Seatoller, the big red circle maeks my location at the time of screenshotting the map. The first bit of blue line is the very steep up section.
I kid you not, the slog up that hill with a 10kg pack on my back was hard work. I took my time, looked back plenty and patted myself on the back. I saw someone’s YouTube video of the coast to coast and he mentioned about remembering to look back. It was quite something pulling up that hill. However, the views at the top were just breathtaking. I had seen some of them before climbing Grey’s Knott and Brandreth. I picked up the path and took the very long descent down to Honister. I had been looking forward to having a good lunch at Honister but they had a poor selection.
I thought maybe I could grab some nice food at Seatoller. Pah! The Yew Tree was closed so I headed to the Glenmarra hotel, checked out the menu on the garden table and chose a ham sandwich and a bowl of chips. Sounds good right? I was seriously looking forward to it. But guess what? Lunches stopped at 3pm. It was 3.05pm. I nearly spat!!!
The chap behind the bar said the kitchen could not make me a sandwich, pah! So I decided I would pitch my tent at the campsite and head into Keswick for a nice meal. However, I saw someone waiting at the bus stop who said there was a bus due so I decided to get that with a mind to pop back to the campsite afterwards.
Look at that! Superb food at the Bank Tavern, a lovely pub, steak pie, washed down with a pint of Wainwrights. I headed back to the bus depot but then thought why not stay in Keswick for the night so I booked into the youth hostel, shared female dorm, very reasonably priced, lovely clean room, overlooking the stream, shared with two other ladies who were very pleasant.