Our Coast to Coast Walk Across Northern England Was an Exercise in Hope and Joy
November 21, 2024 at 11:30PMIs hiking across the breadth of England the best honeymoon possible? For Stephen Potter and his wife Emma, it was. The challenges of the walk may have knocked some of the hubris out of them, but they still found peace and contentment amongst England’s rolling hills.
From Red Pike, we traversed a sheep-strewn ridge to High Stile and High Crag before surfing down a thousand feet of scree and grass to the foot of a distinctly lumpy-looking fell called Haystacks. (“Let there be no morbid thoughts on Haystacks,” Wainwright wrote. “Life seems good here.”) On the east side of Haystacks, we filtered water into our bottles from Innominate Tarn, Wainwright’s final resting place. An hour later, we were taking photos on the round summit of Brandreth Fell—which we tacked on because my middle name is Brandreth—when Emma clapped her hand to her forehead, suddenly remembering that our next B&B served dinner at seven sharp.
It was nearly 6:30. We were 16 miles into our day, yet still at least five miles and 2,500 knee-crushing vertical feet away from our destination in Rosthwaite. I googled alternative eating options. I found none.
So we ran.
We ran down steep grass slopes and steep stone steps, past the 400-plus-year-old Honister Slate Mine, and into one of the most gorgeous places I have ever been: Borrowdale Valley.
from Longreads https://longreads.com/2024/11/21/our-coast-to-coast-walk-across-northern-england-was-an-exercise-in-hope-and-joy/
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