"But it wasn’t supposed to be this hard!”, I remember thinking sometime on Day 5 of the C2C, as we tramped along the shores of Haweswater, better known as The Lake That Never Ends.  And compared to the 2003 and 2004 Swissikes, it shouldn’t have been.  Each of those hikes had had much more climbing and descent on an average day than the C2C.  Sure, the daily distances and hiking times were longer on the C2C, but how more difficult could that be?  Well, the answer was:  quite a bit.

All seven of us on the trip felt that this was the most difficult long hike (a week or longer) that we had ever done.  Since one of us, my cousin Oliver, had climbed Kilimanjaro the previous September, and others of us were Swissike veterans, this is saying something.  The primary physical complaint that most of us had was that our feet hurt:  hiking an average of 26km (around 16 miles) a day, for the most part on flat ground, seems to do a number on your arches in a way that mountain ascents and descents do not.  Leg muscles were much less tired than on Alpine trips, but at the ends of the days oh did our feet hurt.

Undoubtedly the demanding schedule set by the C2C planner was in large part to blame (leading to the coining of the phrase QB-Splat, about which more later), but in his… well, my… defense I have to say that the 14 day schedule (with 13 days hiking and 1 day of rest) was fairly typical of other trip reports I have read on the Net.  In fact it lies more or less in the middle of the range recommended by the website of Sherpa, the baggage transport company we used:  they suggest itineraries that vary from 17 days to 11.

And let’s face it: one of the reasons for doing a hike like the C2C is to stretch yourself… to confront and overcome challenges… to see what you can achieve!  Right?  Ummm… why are you all looking at me like that?

Nevertheless, if I were to do it again, I’d definitely introduce another rest day into the schedule.  Doing 32km (20 miles) and 1000m of climbing the day after going 39km (24 miles) across fields and stiles was, even I am forced to admit, a bit much.

Apart from the above, here are my primary impressions from the trip:

• What a GREAT bunch of people to hike with!!  All hikers should be as fortunate as I was on this trip with such upbeat, easy-going, optimistic, unselfish, uncomplaining, interesting, funny, and fit hiking partners.  Sally, Russell, Miles, Dad, Oliver, and Dave – thanks to you all for making it a truly enjoyable hike!
• England has spectacularly beautiful and spectacularly varied countryside… and the route taken by the C2C showcases both the beauty and the variety superbly.  I now understand why the C2C was voted the second best long hike in the world by the readers of one of the big outdoor magazines.  It is a WONDERFUL hike.
• We hit the weather jackpot again.  Two weeks of hiking across England and only 1 day of rain and 1 thundershower at the end of another?  Through the Lake District??  And with cool weather when we needed it (while climbing up and down hills) and warm weather when the days were mostly flat???  Somebody up there likes us.
• The quality of English restaurant, inn, and pub food may not be quite at the level of France, but it is on the whole very good, vastly improved over what it used to be, and we had a few meals that would have been memorable even if we hadn’t brought Olympian appetites to the table after each day’s hike.
• Lastly, hiking using a baggage transport service such as Sherpa is soooo civilized :-).

And now to the first stage of the hike: Arrival at St. Bees.