Welcome!

As the five day Coast to Coast is becoming something of a quest, and with good people coming forward with hard cash for my chosen charity (Cat's Protection), I'm thinking that a blog is the best way to keep track of progress (or lack of it!)
Why 5 days when most people take 10 days to 2 weeks?
The inspiration for a 5 day crossing came from Ronald Turnbull's account 'Three Days to Kidsty Pike' in the (now out of print) book 'Coast to Coasting' co-authored with John Gillam. Ronald is an accomplished outdoors writer and the only author to write a book specifically for the use of a bivvy bag aptly called 'The Book of the Bivvy'. The use of a bivvy bag makes for lightweight and swift travel with early starts and late finishes.
Alfred Wainwright's very popular Coast to Coast route (the subject of a recent TV series with presenter Julia Bradbury) traditionally starts at St. Bees in Cumbria, leaving behind the Irish Sea and finishing some nearly 200 miles farther on at Robin Hood's Bay on the Yorkshire Coast and the North Sea.
Ronald argues that the route is better followed East to West and with a large dollop of artistic license likens the journey westward with the ever approaching high point of Kidsty Pike in the Lake District to an assualt on Everest where the British blister becomes far worse than 'mere frostbite'!