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Our wildlife expert, David Chapman, revisits the newly improved Coast to Coast Path on an epic 16-day adventure
The Coast to Coast Path is a 190-mile walk, from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire, established in 1973 by the famous fell walker, illustrator and guidebook author, Alfred Wainwright. His books, the first of which was published in 1955, have encouraged huge numbers to don their walking boots and explore the Lake District fells and beyond.
I first walked the route in 1985, and since then it has increased in popularity, with some 6,000 people now completing it annually. In March 2026 it officially became a National Trail, and in preparation many miles of footpaths have been improved and new signage installed. The route is now easier to follow, but it shouldn’t be undertaken lightly – it crosses difficult terrain and most people aim to complete the walk in 12-16 days.
What makes this one of Britain’s most popular long-distance paths is that it passes through three glorious National Parks: the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors. Walkers often adapt the route to suit their accommodation, but when my wife, Sarah, and I set off in September, we had to avoid mountains in bad weather, floods and even fire-ravaged moorland. Nevertheless, our 16-day journey proved to be an exciting challenge and an experience that neither of us would have missed.
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Blustery beginnings
We stepped out of the minibus into the teeth of a biting wind, and before I could get the hood of my new waterproof coat under control the rain had started to lash us ferociously. Welcome to St Bees!
As Wainwright suggests, we first dipped our toes in the sea before visiting the headland with its impressive cliffs. Despite the wind we had stonechats, wheatears, kestrels and even a merlin for company (in summer there is a noisy seabird colony). The route for day one took us 14 miles to Ennerdale Bridge, where we were ready for our bed.
Blustery St Bees was already a distant memory when we woke the following morning and headed up through Ennerdale. The highlights for me were watching a red squirrel, and a pleasant stop at YHA Black Sail for a cup of coffee before the steep ascent at Loft Beck. From the top we headed down the old tramway through Honister Pass into Rosthwaite, not far from our base at Borrowdale Club Campsite.
It had been a very hot, dry August, and parts of the north were still officially in drought, but Rosthwaite (the wettest spot in England with an annual rainfall of over 3.5m) wasn’t one of them. The rain was torrential, and the next day we traversed Greenup Edge through swollen streams, the water overtopping our boots and saturating our feet. Rather than visiting Wordsworth’s home, Dove Cottage, our time in Grasmere was spent scouring outdoor shops for waterproof socks!
The day we spent walking from Grasmere to Patterdale was one of my favourites. After a gentle climb to Grisedale Tarn we had a lovely ramble down the valley of Grisedale, flanked by the mighty Helvellyn and St Sunday Crag. We saw another red squirrel as well as a roe deer, while overhead our first sparrowhawk circled and on the river in Patterdale we spotted a small group of goosanders.
From our accommodation I enjoyed an early evening wander through the western oakwoods. There were plenty of fungi, including such attention-grabbing species as cauliflower fungus, dryad’s saddle, parasol mushroom, shaggy inkcap and fly agaric.
Instead of going over Kidsty Pike – usually the highest point of the route at 2,560ft – we took the footpath along the eastern side of Ullswater, a beautiful, laidback route with lovely views, much admired by Wordsworth. We spent our last night in the Lake District at Bampton and followed this with a night at Orton in the north-west of the Yorkshire Dales, before traversing limestone country to Kirkby Stephen, pausing briefly to photograph the county flower of Cumbria, grass-of-parnassus, at Smardale.
The weather was set to improve, but it had one last sting in its tail: solid, heavy rain on the day we had to tackle the infamously bleak and boggy Nine Standards Rigg, between Kirkby Stephen and Keld in Swaledale. We were grateful that the wind was at our backs and even more grateful that almost the entire path across the moorland had been surfaced with stone slabs to reduce erosion and prevent Coast to Coasters drowning in mud. This is the watershed of northern England; all water landing on the ground to the east of Nine Standards Rigg flows to the North Sea, most of it after first passing down the necks of unfortunate walkers.
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Halfway house
Upon reaching Keld − the halfway point of the walk – we dropped into the Resource Centre, where I enjoyed reading about the Kearton brothers, 19th-century pioneers of wildlife photography. They were renowned for using a hollow ox (made for them by a taxidermist) as a hide, and took some astonishingly good images.
Swaledale is a magical place, and we had a great couple of days walking down the valley first to Reeth, then to Richmond, where we soaked up some more culture visiting the fascinating Georgian Theatre and the impressive castle. Before we left, we visited the series of gentle waterfalls known as The Foss, where we saw two kingfishers, two dippers, two goosanders and two grey wagtails. Given the biblical weather I was beginning to think someone must have built an ark, especially when I saw a stock dove searching for somewhere to land!
We were soon at Bolton-on-Swale Lake Nature Reserve outside Catterick, where we saw various wildfowl, curlews, lapwings and golden plovers. With the sun out, it was warm enough for migrant hawker and common darter dragonflies to buzz around the reedbed, and, continuing on the insect theme, we saw countless red admiral, comma and small tortoiseshell butterflies. We even spotted a hornet on drifts of flowering ivy along the way.
After continuing east through the Vale of Mowbray, the trail joins The Cleveland Way in the North York Moors.
The views are spectacular: stretches of moorland plateau are dominated by swathes of heather and copious red grouse. After a couple of days of moorland, the trail dips into the Esk Valley, which offers more varied scenery, before arriving in Grosmont, home to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. Our trip coincided with the annual steam festival so there were plenty of trains to enjoy.
The normal route from Grosmont climbs back onto the moorland and passes very close to North Yorkshire Moors Club Campsite, but the severe moorland fire of a few weeks earlier was still a concern so we diverted down the Esk Valley Walk to Whitby before taking the coast path to Robin Hood’s Bay. There we performed the ritual of toe-dipping in the North Sea, and our challenge was complete.
Although we were pleased to be able to give our legs a rest, we were sorry that the journey had come to an end. Obviously we had enjoyed the walk – but we had also met people from all over the world; people who shared our interests and aspirations, and with whom we had built a camaraderie that we would miss. Until next time!
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Where to stay
Many people take on the Coast to Coast walk a day or two at a time, with days off to rest and space in their schedules to take advantage of good weather. We used a company to book our overnight stays, and to transport us and manage our luggage as required every day. However, there are plenty of Club campsites within easy reach of the trail which you could use as bases to walk specific sections (distances given below refer to positions along the route):
Borrowdale Club Campsite: two miles from Rosthwaite
Troutbeck Head Club Campsite: six miles from Patterdale
Hawes Club Campsite: seven miles from Muker
Richmond Hargill House Club Campsite: four miles from Richmond
Thirsk Racecourse Club Campsite: 12 miles from Ingleby Cross
North Yorkshire Moors Club Campsite: less than half a mile from the trail between Robin Hood’s Bay and Grosmont
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