What Rishi Sunak can expect on the Coast to Coast walk – as he bids to make it ‘UK's greatest national trail'
The Coast to Coast walk may just be the holy grail of British long-distance footpaths: a rambling 190-mile trek from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood's Bay in Yorkshire, crossing the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors national parks on its journey between the western and eastern seaboards of England.
The route was created in 1975 by legendary hillwalker Alfred Wainwright in his book A Coast to Coast Walk, but in recent years another, perhaps unlikely, figure is attempting to position himself as its saviour: Rishi Sunak.
While not known primarily as a vigorous outdoorsman, Sunak has made much of his successful campaign to have the legendary Coast to Coast walk, which passes through his North Yorkshire constituency of Richmond and Northallerton, turned into an official national trail. At the end of October, in his final Prime Minister's Questions as leader of the Conservative Party, Sunak called on PM Keir Starmer to ensure that the planned upgrades to the route, which are due to be completed in 2025, go ahead – and he even claimed that he is planning on walking the route himself.
If Sunak does decide to follow in Wainwright's footsteps, what can he expect now that his mission to turn the walk into an official national trail is almost complete?
Muddy boots
It is hard to imagine that many people could single-handedly obliterate the cultural cachet of a fashionable clothing item quite as devastatingly as Rishi Sunak did to the ascendant Adidas Samba in April. Rishi would be well advised to leave the snow-white sneakers at home, however, if he does embark on the Coast to Coast.
For one thing, tradition dictates that the first act of this coast-to-coast walk is to stroll across the sand at St Bees and dunk your boots in the Irish Sea. Only when you have done the same in the North Sea at Robin Hood's Bay can you consider your journey complete. Another tradition demands that walkers pick up a stone on the western beach, carry it with them the whole way, and then deposit it in the ocean upon reaching Yorkshire's east coast.
In between, sturdy boots are needed to tackle some of the country's most beautiful and (in places) challenging footpaths. The Lake District is the prettiest part of the walk but also the trickiest, with lakeside scrambles on Ennerdale Water and lung-busting ascents up fells such as Eagle Crag.
If he's feeling brave, Rishi can claim his place among the most hardened Coast to Coasters by choosing to tackle Helvellyn's vertiginous Striding Edge, a knife-blade ridge which will include one of the national trail's optional 'braided' sections (as it does in Wainwright's book).
Sensible signage
In keeping with all 16 UK national trails, the Coast to Coast will soon become very well signposted with waymarkers bearing the national trails' ubiquitous acorn symbol, ensuring it will be more or less impossible to get lost.
Some Coast to Coast purists, however, are concerned that this will injure the spirit of the trail. Wainwright's intention, as stated in his book, was not to create a prescriptive route, but to inspire people to choose their own adventure.
'I want to encourage in others the ambition to devise with the aid of maps their own cross-country marathons,' he wrote, 'and not be merely followers of other people's routes.'
Historically, part of the fun of the Coast to Coast was getting lost, having to pick your way across boggy mires or navigate crumbling footpaths. That will no longer be so commonplace after the 'upgrades' to the route, which include not only signposting but laying flagstones over some of the boggiest sections of the North York Moors.
However, the national trails planners are making concessions to these concerns by braiding some sections of the route, so that you will still have the option to choose; and, of course, you can always go off-piste anyway.
Rich history
Natural beauty is everywhere on the Coast to Coast, but so is rich human history. Rishi should take the time before embarking on his walk to stop into St Bees Priory, where the body of a medieval crusading knight was discovered in 1981, remarkably preserved by a covering of lead and pine.
In Grasmere, Rishi would do well to join the throngs looking around Dove Cottage, former home of William Wordsworth. Sunak came under fire in 2020, when, as chancellor, he suggested that the creative arts were not a viable job. Wordsworth's career may give him pause for thought. The laudanum-laced travails of Wordsworth's brilliant but troubled housemate from hell, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, not so much.
Elsewhere, cultural and historical highlights include the crumbling ruins of Richmond Castle and the Lion Inn on Blakey Ridge, an atmospheric pub which marks the highest point on the North York Moors – a non-negotiable place for a pitstop.
Proper scran
Sunak raised more than a few eyebrows when he boasted, during a 2022 interview about the cost of living crisis, about the 'whole range of different' breads which can be found in his house. The Coast to Coast, it turns out, is the perfect walk for a man of such diverse culinary tastes.
In the western half, Rishi can sustain himself on the coiled Cumberland sausage. This is a stalwart on restaurant menus like the Black Bull in Kirkby Stephen, the town often considered the spiritual capital of the Coast to Coast. As Rishi heads east into Yorkshire and towards the coast, he will no doubt be propelled by the thought of fish and chips at a cosy pub in Robin Hood's Bay. The Smugglers Ale House is the classic place for Coast to Coasters to end their walk with a very well-earned pint.
Where to stay
If Rishi is to tackle the entire Coast to Coast, he will be laying his head in all sorts of places, including, presumably, his constituency home in Richmond, around halfway through the trail. The whole thing takes an average of two weeks, and unless he's camping – hard to imagine for a man worth £651m – he'll be choosing from a succession of pubs and B&Bs. Many of them are extremely welcoming and comforting, like The Old Croft House in Kirkby Stephen, run by passionate walkers who will set you on your way with expert tips for walking the next leg of the path.
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