A fortnight on foot
Alfred Wainwright is famed for his guides to the fells of the Lake District, but for one book he walked right across the national park and out the other side, striding on through the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors to reach the North Sea. That 192-ish mile route is now known as the Coast to Coast and the mileage is ish because there are often high- and low-level options, so you can finesse it to match weather and energy.
Most people walk it in 12 days from west to east, St Bees to Robin Hood’s Bay, but there’s a lot to be said for being contrary and walking west, saving arguably the most spectacular, and definitely the toughest, miles in Wainwright’s beloved Lake District for a finale.
You can also walk from coast to coast on the 214-mile Southern Upland Way which bowls over plump Scottish hills between Portpatrick and Cockburnspath, or the 177-mile Offa’s Dyke Path through the Anglo-Welsh borderlands. Or, if you prefer coast, coast and more coast, the Pembrokeshire Coast Path is 186 miles and two weeks of seaside magic.
If you walk 268 miles and climb 36,647 feet of ascent you can claim a free half pint of beer at Kirk Yetholm’s Border Hotel. The pub, and that welcome drink, mark the northern end of the Pennine Way, Britain’s oldest and most famous national trail: an expedition along the spine of northern England that takes most walkers three weeks – three challenging (Cross Fell with its very own wind), often boggy (Black Hill although the flagged path is better than it’s ever been), surprising (stumbling on the yawning chasm of High Cup), wonderful (Malham Cove) weeks.
Or you can build an even bigger thirst in that time by tackling The Cambrian Way across the peaks of Wales. Known as ‘the mountain connoisseur’s walk’ the 298-mile route was devised by rambler Tony Drake and runs from Cardiff castle in the south to Conwy in the north, by way of every bit of high ground it can find – Twmbarlwm, Pen y Fan, Pumlumon, Cadair Idris, Snowdon, Conwy Mountain to name a few – totting up over 70,000 feet of climb in the process.
Fierce opposition meant the trail was never officially designated – the guidebook Drake wrote was once even banned from sale at a national park centre – and for decades few walked it and few saw the traditional Welsh hat on the trail’s single waymarker in a forest in the middle of Wales. But those who did hike it adored it – for the superstar peaks, for the discovery of all those inbetween hills, and for the way its upward trajectory from gentle south to gnarly north lets you break in your climbing legs without breaking you. Happily its profile is now on the rise – there’s a Cicerone guidebook, more waymarks are going in, and it’s being added to Ordnance Survey mapping too. The only down side? We don’t think there’s a pub in Conwy offering a half pint to celebrate.
In Scotland, the Cape Wrath Trail offers miles of wild, often trackless, often jaw-dropping highland trekking, or for something with gentler contours there’s the Southern Coast to Coast, which links various trails into a 276-mile traverse from Weston-Super-Mare to Dover.