The Coast to Coast Cycle: Whitehaven to Tynemouth
If you can’t be bothered to read the whole post but are wondering whether you should do the Coast to Coast cycle, the answer is, of course, yes you should.
Day 1: Whitehaven to Penrith
Day 2: Penrith to Edmundbyers
Day 3: Edmundbyers to Tynemouth
Preparation
It was my sister Rachel’s idea to cycle the Coast to Coast path. She appeared to be having a mid-life crisis which would somehow be placated by cycling across the width of Britain. Clearly she couldn’t do this alone so, with a little coercion, managed to persuade Heather and I, her two sisters, to join her on the challenge. As they both live in Cambridge, finding some hills to train on was going to be tricky, and as I live in London, finding the courage to cycle on the city roads would be equally tricky. I did some training mountain biking on the North Downs and joined a gym to up my fitness levels so I was a long way from being superfit but did enough to make the cycle enjoyable.
Day 0: London – Whitehaven – 293 miles
We booked our trip through Trailbrakes who did an excellent job of organising our itinerary, booking our accommodation and transferring our luggage between each location. On Friday we drove up to Tynemouth. I left my car in the free theatre car park in Whitney Bay and we were taxied with our bikes over to Whitehaven, a journey which takes about three hours to drive – and three days to cycle back.
Day 1: Whitehaven to Penrith
As is customary we began our journey by dipping our back tyres into the Irish Sea along with the throngs of other cyclists who had stolen our idea of doing the C2C over the bank holiday weekend. And then, we were off…
The first section of the C2C leads you out of Whitehaven along cycle paths that wind through through various housing estates, the biggest hazard being broken glass and perhaps the occasional crazy dog that you might want to avoid. The path was busy with cyclists; some looked like did the C2C every weekend (the record is 7 hours 53 minutes and 03 seconds); others looked like they hadn’t ridden a bike since they were 12.
It was good to know that the trail was not entirely inhabited by lithe, fit, young thangs on brand new, shiny bikes (although a group of about ten such types did pass us by – it was difficult to tell where the person stopped and the bike began but they weren’t smug at all so they didn’t bother us).
Our first stop came after only an hour of cycling. We didn’t really need a rest at this point but were enticed by the quirky hut sitting in a field and the view of distant fells. After an enjoyable cup of tea and managing to step in some particularly squidgy sheep poo in my new pink and grey trainers, we continued on our journey.
Our ride took us through scenes of serene, pastoral harmony where the peaks of the Lake District loomed behind a patchwork of various shades of green; where sheep and cattle grazed and fresh lush streams gushed below grey stone arches. Winding country roads took us through charming country villages, past idyllic cottages, over stone bridges to the greetings of friendly locals. It’s just like south-east London.
Whinslatter Pass was our first uphill but it’s fair to say it has a bark much worse than its bite and is not as steep or long as we were led to believe. From here we then had the unadulterated, wonderful pleasure of a long downhill, winding through a forest of tall, cooling pine trees – one of my favourite parts of the ride. We gradually dropped down into Keswick and stopped at a lovely café for coffee and chunky cheese and tomato sandwiches. By this point we had covered about 30 miles, we were feeling good and relaxed, and had been told on good authority that there was nothing more challenging as Whinslatter Pass for the rest of day one.
It was shortly after this that we learnt what lying little foxes people could be.
Due to last year’s flood, our diverted route took us up a long and steep hill to Castlerigg stone circle and 360⁰ views of the Cumbrian Fells. This was a steep, steep hill, far more demanding than Whinslatter and one of many very steep hills that peppered day one.
Shortly after passing through the village of Greystoke we found ourselves at the fabulously quirky and very pretty Greystoke Cycle Cafe where three charming, eccentric ladies were serving cyclists tea and cake. We opted for milkshakes which had a couple of scoops of ice cream in them AND sprinkles. I can’t begin to explain how good they were.
The last leg of the day took us into Penrith where we were staying. Trying to find a decent pub for a post-ride drink, and a good meal was perhaps the biggest challenge of the day. We settled for pizza.
And that was it, we’d all made it through day one, didn’t feel as exhausted as we’d expected and had had pretty fabulous day.
Day 2: Penrith to Edmundbyers
After my breakfast of delicious homemade vege sausage, eggy bread, mushrooms, tomatoes, beans, toast followed by muesli and cornflakes with strawberries and blueberries washed down with two cups of tea, I didn’t feel like cycling up a steep hill before we’d even left the town but this what you’ll find at the beginning of day two.
Shortly after passing the beautiful iron bridge of Langwathby we embarked on the long ascent to Hartside Pass. This was one of my favourite parts of day two because although the journey to the top was a long, relentless uphill, the gradient was fairly gentle. I felt completely immersed in the landscape; the road was carless and narrow and we were surrounded by beautiful, untamed moorland.
We eventually arrived at the Hartside Pass café where Pete our Trailbrakes hero supplied us with bananas and chocolatey snacks.
The next section of the ride was gentle and undulating, past farmhouses and fields of cows and sheep. We dropped down into Garrigil to the next uphill of the day which went on and on and on and on. There is really not much to say about it except it was long, it was exhausting and I wanted my lunch. The proceeding down hill was joyous. And lunch. Nenthead was a bit dismal on the food offerings and I have to say, with all the cyclists pouring through this village at precisely lunchtime, I couldn’t help but think they were missing a trick.
Much to my dismay, immediately after Nenthead, the trail takes you up another long, long up uphill. This was the point when I started to feel tired but we were immersed in the beautiful moorland of the North Pennines, the sun was shining, birds were floating and sheep chomped on grass demonstrated a cool indifference to us cyclist, everything felt pretty good really. The sisterhood were doing well; we had found our natural pace and just peddled away until we reached the top. This was the third long uphill of the day and we now fully understood why we were advised not to drink too much wine the night before (which we hadn’t, thankfully). Of course, what goes up must come down, and the downhill here was blissful.
Shortly after the village of Allenheads we left the C2C route so we could get to our accommodation in Edmundbyers. The path here took us UP again, this time on a rough off-road track. The path was much more desolate, we had lost the crowds of other cyclists and the landscape had become rocky and barren, and later quite boggy. We then had a very, very, very long downhill into Edmundbyers. It was pure bliss, especially as we knew this was definitely the last leg of the day and we would soon be sat in a pub with glass of red wine.
At Edmundbyers, our accommodation was a sweet little chalet at The Burnside. After a competitive, frenzied attack on basket full of complementary biscuits, we showered and walked to the village to find the Punch Bowl Inn where we were booked to eat. Now THIS was a country pub, this was the kind of place we were looking for in Penrith. The food was good, the wine was good and we chatted with various other cyclists who we’d met over the last couple of days.
Our total mileage for the day was 53 and this time we were definitely exhausted. We had been blessed with fabulous weather and the scenery was worth every curse uttered to cycle through it.
Day 3: Edmundbyers to Tynemouth
I was not relishing the thought of the long, long uphill back to the start of the C2C route; in fact Pete had offered us a lift but the sisterhood were keen to cycle and I had to go with the majority vote. As it happened, this part of the ride was fabulous and the UP seemed fairly gentle compared to the speed we whizzed down it the previous day. The mist was thick and we could barely see each other as we rode along the more or less deserted road through the moorland; I felt like an intrepid explorer.
This final day of the C2C is more or less flat and although the scenery doesn’t quite compare to the wild beauty of the Pennines, the mist made it all rather magical. I couldn’t be sure what the scenery did offer as I couldn’t see it. What I do know is that the day seemed to get colder and colder. We didn’t actually go into the town of Consett but skirted around the edges but my resounding memory of this place will be coldness and lots of it.
After a few hours of cycling, being British, we found ourselves in desperate need of tea and scones so made a slight detour from the path to track down a suitable refreshment establishment. After a little asking around we were directed to the Hagg Hill Farm Tea Room at Winlaton Mill. This was friendly, quirky cafe no.3 on our trip, full of artefacts, glass wear, interesting old furniture, and warmth which is what we were really after. We ordered fruit scones and they were delicious.
The last section of the C2C took us through the outskirts of Newcastle, along the Tyne through the city and on into Tynemouth. In fact this is a pretty interesting part of the trail in an industrial kind of way – unfortunately our photos were a bit shit.
The C2C end point in Tynemouth is not obvious and there isn’t a big monument to the end of trail as there is at the beginning which is a shame. But we finally found our final stopping point where Pete was waiting with a bottle Prosecco (we love you Pete).
So Prosecco consumed, front tyres dipped in the North Sea, celebratory ice cream quickly devoured – we’d cycled the width of the UK and were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves.
