Day 80 – Ravenglass to St Bees

Travel to the first couple of days walking of 2016 gets off to a promising start with the train to Preston arriving on time thus allowing a leisurely stroll at the station to catch the train for Barrow/Ravenglass. However, there’s a slight delay to its departure and, although this puts us less than 10 minutes behind schedule, the supposed “connecting” train at Barrow isn’t held. We decide not to wait 50 minutes for the next one and phone for a cab instead and buy some sandwiches while we wait for it to arrive. The drive around the coast – past familiar places such as Askham and Broughton – takes some time, and we arrive in the car park of the Ratty Arms at Ravenglass around 1:00pm. Given the floods which have hit Cumbria since we were last here – and which continue to affect the area (mainline trains are still not running north of Carlisle) – it’s a pleasant surprise to continue our northward journey in dry weather. Soon after leaving Ravenglass, we have to stop at a railway crossing as the train which we could have waited for at Barrow passes by. This means that throwing some money at Cumbria Colin has saved us about 15 to 20 minutes. Not hugely significant, but it proves to be quite welcome later in the day. The walk to Seascale, through Saltcoats and Drigg, is a mixture initially of fields and enclosed tracks, and then of pebbled beach and sand dunes. A path alongside the railway gets us from Seascale to Sellafield and, whilst getting past the power station there doesn’t present the problems encountered at, by way of example, Hinkley Point and Heysham (bloody Heysham!) a gentle grassy climb out of Sellafield involves a bit of fence scramblage which indicates that we could have strayed slightly from the prescribed route. However, we get back on track in time to reach the path over the railway bridge across the River Eben. On the approach to Braystones, we manage to get some beach action, but the beach quickly becomes less and less sandy, and the stretch from Nethertown towards St Bees is continuous pebbles and stones. It’s now late afternoon, but at least we can see what’s in front of us because, fortunately, the daylight/twilight just about holds until we leave the beach a mile or so south of St Bees. At one point, there’s also a helpfully illuminating beach bonfire outside one of the many huts in the area, but awareness of underfoot conditions would certainly have been more problematic had we arrived 20 minutes later by waiting for the train from Barrow. Torches are required for the half an hour walk along a minor – and relatively traffic free – road into St Bees and to our overnight resting place, the Albert Hotel which is a small pub with a few rooms. In accordance with custom established over previous years, we have a couple of welcoming drinks before getting ready for supper. This isn’t available at the Albert, so we’ve booked a table at the Manor, about 200 yards up the street. Food nothing special (particularly the fish) but, as always, the wine hits the spot. So do the whiskies which are taken on board by way of nightcappage on our return to the Albert.