Coast to Coast Walk - 17 Days

From Shap, cross limestone moors to Orton, a quaint village home to Kennedy's Chocolate Factory. Walking between Cumbria and the Yorkshire Dales, traverse attractive farmland and moors around Sunbiggin Tarn, an important site for birds. After a steep descent to the Scandal Beck at Smardale Bridge, ascend over Smardale Fell for the pretty descent into Kirkby Stephen, an attractive market town. Spend the night at a fine-looking guesthouse that retains many delightful original features.

Climb out of Kirkby Stephen to the cairns of Nine Standards Rigg, an ancient boundary feature marking the Watershed of England. Cross squelchy moors down to Keld in Swaledale, passing a famous farm at Ravenseat, where they breed prime rams. The moors become increasingly gentler as you walk into Keld with its many waterfalls and old stone barns. Spend the night at a medium-sized guesthouse in Keld, enjoying traditional Yorkshire fare in an attractively decorated dining room.

Choose between two options today: a slightly longer and higher alternative over wild moorland with long-abandoned lead mines, or a pretty route via Swaledale. Either way, your day finishes in Reeth, an attractive green village that flourished at the height of the mining age and today thrives on tourism. Spend the night at the oldest surviving Inn in Reeth, dating from 1680.

Your morning walk through pretty Swaledale, lined with limestone crags on either side, leads to the extremely picturesque North Yorkshire town of Richmond. Explore its cobbled market square and Norman castle, and follow the Swale to Town Falls, which are quite impressive when the river is in spate. Spend the night in one of the various guesthouses or pub accommodations in this busy town.

Enjoy a gentle rural day, walking out from Richmond beside the River Swale and across the fields to Catterick Race Course. Continue to Brompton on Swale, an ideal lunch stop in the churchyard, before threading your way along tiny streams and quiet country roads to the village of Danby Wiske with its village green and single pub. Spend the night at one of the guesthouses or pub in this small village.

Today is primarily a road walk with cross country sections. Visit East Harlsey Castle and carefully cross the main A19 road to take a lovely woodland footpath up to Osmotherley. On the way, you may want to visit Mount Grace Priory, a ruin that has had some restoration work. Osmotherley is a quaint hill village with three pubs to choose from. Spend the night in an extremely picturesque village on the edge of the North Yorkshire Moors.

This is a roller coaster walk. A steep stretch from Osmotherley introduces you to the North York Moors and its sandy, heather-clad hills with areas of forest. After coming off Scarth Wood Moor, there is a long ascent up Live Moor and Carlton Bank before descending to Lord Stones Café. Continue the succession of Cringle Moor, Broughton Bank and White Hill. Great views in clear weather, including Roseberry Topping, Vale of Mowbray and back to the Pennines. Spend the night at the Wainstones Hotel in Great Broughton.

Today, the walk follows a moorland ridge up over Round Hill and the track maintains its height as it follows the line of the old dismantled Rosedale Railway line. The moor can be bleak in bad weather and is punctuated in places by standing stones, some marked with inscriptions. Spend the night at the Lion Hotel in this bleak moorland location, a refuge from the elements for 400 years or so.

Follow a delightful, private road to Grosmont, where you might want to try and get in time to see a steam train pull out for Pickering. You then follow a very steep pull up across heather moors with views down to Whitby and its Abbey. But the sea and journey's end is still tantalizingly far as the route abruptly changes course to visit the May Beck valley with its Falling Foss waterfall. Finally, reach Robin Hood's Bay, a village of red-roofed houses clustered around its harbour on the North Sea coast. Spend the night in an elegantly refurbished Victorian guesthouse.