Day 1: 6 July - St Bees to Gillerthwaite - 20 miles

The day started...well, I'm not exactly sure when the day started; that point was lost somewhere in the cramped and sleepless confines of the bus, watching night turn slowly to day over the edge of the Lake District.

I arrived tired but grateful to stretch my legs at 5am in Carlisle bus station, a loose description for what seemed nothing more than a small car park. The city was asleep other than the squawking of seagulls in the bright blue sky. It was another two hour wait before my train to St Bees and the start of the walk.

The small, two carriage train duly arrived and we shunted slowly around cliff edges and along the sea line stopping at interestingly named local stations that Beeching somehow missed until, an hour later, we arrived at St Bees. A short walk to the Post Office to get a couple of hot pies and then it was a pleasant stroll to the beach a mile away along gentle flat roads. I washed my hands ceremoniously in the Irish Sea, chose a pebble to escort me on the trip and to drop off in Robin Hood's Bay (as is customary) and then headed up the hill to get to the cliff path. There were a few groups already milling around and as I would soon discover, others already en-route.

This was the perfect start; everywhere was blue sky, blue sea, white hulled yachts with white triangular sails, looking like childish drawings, keeled over and dotted around the water two hundred feet below. The path wove its way along the cliff edge and all around me grass meadow with buttercups and grasses waved in a cooling breeze. I could take 180 miles of this I reckoned. But off course it was not to be.

The path slowly curved around to head east, meadow was replaced with fern, dank and heavy in the air, and then by narrow lanes. By this time I had bumped into another single walker - Allan from Preston - who would spend the remainder of the day with me and we plodded along through village and meadow and road heading steadily east and towards the first climb of the walk: the imposing (from a distance at least) Dent. We started the ascent on a bit of a low point (geographically of course, but I mean mentally) since we had been led to understand there was a tea shop in the tiny village that lay at the foot of the hill and we had planned a stop there prior to the ascent.  Sadly we were misinformed and consequently missed out on this small morale booster.

A steady climb up through pine forest and out onto windy Dent Fell led to the descent towards Ennerdale Bridge, the 'recommended' first night's stop over fourteen miles on from St Bees. Despite the fact I was now beginning to suffer from tiredness (a combination of lack of sleep and lack of food in the previous 24 hours) Allan and I had agreed to press on past Ennerdale. But first we had a refreshment stop in the first of the two pubs in the village.

We left the village and continued east. What followed was a lovely walk around the edge of Ennerdale Water although we were both suffering with sore feet and tiredness to enjoy it fully and wandered heads down watching the path and trying not to trip and stumble. We are now in a youth hostel eight miles further on from Ennerdale Bridge and feeling revived after pasta and copious tea. Tomorrow I head high over the hills while Allan will press on along the low route.