Scourge of the Trail, Part 6

Previously on The Scourge (link to part 1)

Part VI: St. Bees.

Virgin Trains – they look fast, with that sloped front and stripes down the side, but they’re not. Fast enough to kill you if you crash, yes, but not fast enough to get to Carlisle in less than four hours. By any standard that’s not a good deal – if something is going to be dangerous, it should at least be efficient.

It was five before we wandered out into the citadel of Carlisle. We had half an hour to waste here before our connection to St. Bees, so we bought coffee, newspapers and sandwiches and wandered around the city gates. Being on the border of England and Scotland, the gift shops are all full of Scottish souvenirs. It was comforting to know that I could come away with Scottish souvenirs without having to set foot in actual Scotland. I wondered if there were English souvenir shops just over the border on the Scottish side.

In the news, the hitherto peripheral figure of Jeremy Corbyn was making seismic leaps towards political leadership, and astonishing pundits in the process; and a British scientist was being ripped apart by the lions of social media for making an ill-advised joke about women.

As we debated the efficacy with which a slip-up can turn into a career-threatening scandal, our train came and very nearly went. Carlisle station confused us and we found ourselves, heavy bags and all, clambering along the platform hunting for our train. It was hidden on one of those special little platforms, saved for the loser trains which the other trains don’t like. All the cool trains went to London, Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh. Ours, a rickety contraption, perhaps one of the first trains to have been ever rolled out back in the 18^th century when Britain was in the throes of empire, contained only the poor sods that time left behind, who had no choice but to venture, or return, to the bitter countryside; and the two poorest sods, all going to one destination: St. Bees.

We entered St. Bees cuddling the fields, looking over the Irish Sea towards the Isle of Man and a rocky-looking Scotland to the north. With these chunky bags, I felt conspicuous. I could hear the locals’ thoughts: another couple of city boys doing the Coast to Coast. Bet they won’t last a day.

Dave, being the man with the book, was responsible for finding places to stay. Coast to Coast not only gives you maps, but also a roundup of reputable accommodation in any given place, complete with a little review of facilities, price, and phone number. Our first night was to be spent, for a cool £6 each, in the garden at Stonehouse Farm on a delightful patch of grass overseen by a blond chap who sounded, to Dave’s ears, like his uncle. It was all very homey.

It was our first time putting up tents and we were grateful to have no one watching us, judging our ineptitude. Pegs were getting lost and bent, and refusing to go in the ground. Arms were too weak to force them. Poles were being thrown around, as were muttered expletives. Half an hour later, however, we were able to look with pride at our new homes, Dave’s palace and my pod.

The weather had turned, and a brisk wind had picked up. We flip-flopped down to the beach to take a look at the sea. The water was wholly uninviting, and we put off the C2C ritual of stepping in it until tomorrow. We found the Queen’s Head and I had a fish and chips while Dave had a vegetarian curry. We savoured it as if it were our last, for we were sure it would be. Back in the tent, our ‘kitchen’ awaited.

I read The Whitehaven News which told of the attempts of workers at Sellafield nuclear plant to save their jobs, and the contestants for Miss North West Great Britain, for which local farmyard animals were added to make up the numbers. It was also reported that hundreds of moon jellyfish had washed up on the beach at St. Bees, and the advice, against all popular remedy beliefs, was not to piss on the sting. Another story was about selficide – the act of dying while taking a selfie. People were electrocuting themselves, falling into ravines, getting run over by trains, and so on; and the craze was catching on all over the world. “Don’t take selfies,” Dave told me with authority. “It’s simply not worth the risk.”

“I suppose it’s comeuppance for an immoral act of narcissism,” I mused.

Sadly for me, the camera on my phone was half broken, meaning only the selfie shot worked. To take a picture of something, I had to take a ‘selfie’ and then awkwardly remove my self from the frame. This was a bit of a balancing act even of steady, safe ground, but on a windy mountain top...

“You’re going to die,” said Dave, and took a sip of IPA.

I considered this for a moment. “Fuck it,” I said. “I’m getting a beer.”

--

In darkness we reached the tents. A cat was in mine. I pushed him out and waddled in. The night air was brisk but my pod-tent kept the chills at bay. With my tiny torch a-fixed to my head, I read a Matsuo Basho haiku and went to sleep.

First winter rain,

I plod on,

Traveller my name.

Take me to Part 7.

Scourge of the Trail

Part 1: Proximity

I suppose I should've known better. After all, it was summertime in England - a wretched time that even the most hardy seaside go-getter can attest to. Perhaps I had been away from home too long, and a cosy fog which suggested warmth had clouded my judgement, and filled my head with the English summer of pub gardens, beach parties and cocktails on the lawn. Pym's. On top of that, I hadn't erected a tent and shivered my way into a sleeping bag in a good fifteen years, and I had long since ceased to remember the discomfort, the sheer depravity of camping in England. More than once did I consider uttering that immortal line, that of the sacrificial Captain Oates - "I'm just going outside and may be some time," in order to save my frozen friend, Dave, from certain doom. I'm sure he thought the same thing.

Our mutual friend, the generally-more-reluctant Chris, had declined to join us, citing an absence of hair straighteners and naturally sourced lime and aloe moisturiser on the trail. "There are a thousand better reasons to reject this trip, Chris," I said to him, number 1 being me and number 2 being Dave. Proximity, it could be said, is the greatest test of a person. It has to be delicately handled. If you're stealing oxygen from your neighbour, oftentimes this is too close.

One tent each, said Dave. That should be enough. Enough to save us from ourselves. Lord of the Flies was flickering across the back of my eyelids, crossed with some twisted version of a weekend getaway on the Goode Life. I pushed the idea of murder (which had now evolved to murder-suicide) from my mind – seriously, the chances of being killed while camping in the English countryside must be tiny, perhaps as high as being killed in a terrorist attack, which, I assure you, is lower than you’d think – and looked over at Dave. His pale brown flop of hair had been recently shawn and he peered through his glasses with an alert keen. His newly shaved head accentuated his neck, somehow increasing the enthusiasm in his eyes. “I’m really looking forward to this,” he said.

the idea had been raised a few months before, while I was in China. Coast to coast, said Dave, west to east. “it’s Wainright’s walk,” he iterated, “and a woman did it on TV. With a film crew.” A film crew, I pondered. There could be something to this. Just shy of 200 miles, the walk stretches from the sea to the sea, starting at St. Bee’s and ending at Robin Hood’s Bay. Before you ask, we saw no bees at St. Bees and no Robin Hood at Robin Hood’s bay. Alfred Wainright, grumpy countryside wanderer par excellence, did the walk over a number of occasions – not in one go ­– and wrote about it in 1973. Since then, the trail has been tweaked a little and attracts 10,000 people a year (according to Henry Steadman’s map-cum-guidebook Coast to Coast Path), mostly in summer when the weather is it its shittest, each of whom curse the skies, their friends, and the long-dead Wainright for coming up with the blasted idea in the first place.

But, as I mentioned just a paragraph ago, I was in China. And I had to return to China because of work. This meant my trip east from St. Bees was going to take on something of a marathon quality far beyond the 192 miles of Wainright’s puny walk. It did, but that’s a story for a later time. Before that, we had planning to do, and as everybody knows – planning is cool and always, always fun.

Take me to Part II.