Wainwright's own invention, 306 kilometres from one coast of England to the other through three national parks
Indicative — sampled from open terrain data along the simplified route.
There’s something faintly satisfying about a long walk that was dreamed up by one bloody-minded enthusiast rather than a committee, and the Coast to Coast has that going for it from the start. Alfred Wainwright plotted the route himself, joining up existing paths and a fair bit of open access land into 306 kilometres running from St Bees on the Irish Sea to Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Sea, and walkers have been following his line, roughly, ever since.
The route never stays in one landscape for long. It opens in the Lake District, crosses into the Yorkshire Dales with a dip into the wilder ground of the North Pennines around Nine Standards Rigg, and finishes across the heather tops of the North York Moors before dropping down to the sea. Few multi-day walks in England pack in that much variety of terrain — mountain scree one week, drystone-walled dale the next, open moor after that — without ever repeating itself.
That doesn’t make it an easy option. Full days with serious ascent come early, particularly through the Lakes, and the middle stretch across the Pennines can turn properly remote when the weather closes in, whatever the guidebook photos promise. Most people take between twelve and fifteen days depending on fitness and how many rest days get built in, and accommodation along less-populated stretches gets booked up well ahead in summer, so it’s worth sorting beds before setting off rather than trusting to luck along the way. Traditionally walkers dip a boot in the Irish Sea at the start and the North Sea at the end, which costs nothing and gives the walk a proper sense of occasion.
