The challenge is to walk Wainwright's, 190 mile Coast to Coast path from St. Bees in the West to Robin Hood's Bay in the East or vice versa and be totally self-contained and unsupported with no re-supply. Wild camping, obtaining water from natural sources and carrying all food and equipment for the proposed 12 day trip. In this manner the walk becomes free or "unplugged" and is part of my larger Four Nation's coast to coast endeavour, of which details can be found at Transnationcoast2coast.com


Looking back from the other side of this self-imposed challenge leaves me with the satisfaction that I have achieved an incredible journey of freedom of movement that is very rare in this day and age. Constraints such as time and place were reduced down to two, water and miles. To complete in 12 days I had to walk 16 miles, on average, every day and I needed water to live. Easy I thought, sitting at home fully fit, hydrated and fed, not so easy in reality.The importance of water I underestimated, having it, saw me continue happily safe and able to enjoy the journey, not having it consumed my thoughts, like some hooked junkie in search of his next fix. Sometimes I overcompensated and carried too much, which made me tired, sometimes not enough, which made me tired, overall, I was tired most of the time. Dehydration has a big effect on human physical and mental output, as is well known and with this I suffered, increasing the demands on my body and requiring a strong will to overcome. It's effects on appetite I also overlooked, less able to process food in this state, especially dry foods, energy levels decreased, compounding my situation.Why put yourself through this? An understandable question, I have long been fascinated with the psychology of survival from the great explorers, mountaineers and sailors throughout history who have weathered adversity, to those that just give up without a fight. Potentially pushing myself out of my comfort zone, albeit in a safe environment, was one reason for this trip and in this respect I succeeded and was pleased with my mettle.Navigating by following a GPS trail, allowed for the most part, a free flow of movement through the landscape that was quite surreal, in that it was constantly unfolding before me and I was eager for it and able to move through it with little fuss. I realise that this may be not every bodies cup of tea but I wanted that unexplored feeling, not the feeling of reading from an explorers book and I got that in buckets.I now feel assured that, using this system, I am able to go to the remotest places, for at least this length of time, preferably without the constriction of a daily mile count and be confident and comfortable, there-by achieving my desired goal.
Hi to everyone I met along the way and thanks for your encouragement.
The C2C is a very good walk and I would recommend it to anyone, combining physical challenge with diverse scenery, historic locations, friendly people and a quiz chase of navigation but if you want to enjoy it, don't do it my way!