The guidebook suggests day one as a 24km (720m elevation) hike from St Bees to Ennerdale Bridge doable (with many, if not most, successfully achieving this), but given its only day one and knowing this distance and elevation is reaching the higher end of what we know we can do & more importantly enjoy, we decided to break this into two days: St Bees to Cleator (15km) and then Cleator to Ennerdale (9km). Now this does make them pretty short days which we managed to have done by lunch, but it meant we could relax into the walk, build our feet & backs up, enjoy the views more, and of course enjoy the local pubs with ease? ; besides, we got the gift of time so why not use it.
The first part out of St Bees is a pretty steep hill climb onto the headland, followed by a relatively easy going, very windy, coastal path with beautiful views across the Irish Sea (potentially seeing Isle of Man (I think we briefly did!) and Scotland), a lighthouse (pretty small one really), and lots of bird viewing opportunities (housing the largest sea bird colony in England, which you can definitely
smell!) Hitting a quarry on the coast, we then turned inland, following foot paths alongside farmer fields and country roads all the way to Cleatoras did many, many, many others. We knew this was a popular walk but its definitely the most amount of people weve seen/met/been overtaken by on a walk (stopping for a rest and seeing herd after herd of walkers trek on) with a big proportion being American. According to the owner of the only shop in Cleator, this is odd as usually they (Americans) until September!
Apart from this tiny shop, famous for its pies which run out by lunch, theres not a lot else around, so we checked in to the Ennerdale Country House (which felt old and tired but clean and pleasant - similar to Seacote) and sat and read (and napped) in its beautiful gardens. We also met an older couple walking the coast to coast and mixing it up with bnbs and camping too. We shared our plans & stories, and discussed gear as well as Paul giving trekking pole advice with full demonstration ?
shop to get a famous pie for lunch later. This morning started on an ever increasing hill climb up through a forest , then a longish steep hike up onto Dent Fell where you can see both the sea and the Lake District. Now, the climb up was steep, but the trek down hit a part that was almost vertical! Still, slow and steady we made it down where you join a riverside path through the valley and into Ennerdale. Short & sweet, we had a drink and cake in the cafe before pitching up on the small patch of grass behind the pub (Fox&Hound) where they allow campers to stay the night at a cheap rate presumably knowing youll spend monies on food and drink there which we fully intend to.
An added bonus of splitting this day route into two, apart from getting a famous pie, was that we actually had the trail mostly to ourselves (being anyone starting today was 3hours behind) and meant we got dibs on the best spot on the patch of grass behind the pub! Win win.
