We had spent the night in the little village of Ennerdale Bridge. As long as there’s a pub, there’s a village. Even if that’s all there is. And that really is all there is at Ennerdale Bridge. You can really consider this the gateway of The Lakes District, one of my favourite places in the whole of Britain, and home of some brilliant fells, crags and pikes just waiting to be climbed! Bring it on! The first part of the walk sees you skirt the whole length of Ennerdale Water and then onto views of Haystacks, one of Wainwright’s favourite fells and where his ashes were scattered. Lunch was at the very remote hostel of Black Sail. It’s bleak and lonely and we made it inside just before the rain started. But then, what’s a walk in Lakeland without some sort of precipitation, huh?! It wasn’t going to give up and so it was with gritted teeth we had to brave the steepest section of the Coast to Coast walk up Loft Beck, horizontal rain as our climbing companion. The spectacular views back to the coast were to elude us today, but the view of Honister with the slate mine’s tea rooms were welcome indeed. The elements had proved that our waterproofs weren’t quite as their name implied, and soaked to the skin and torturously cold, it was off with the shirt, on with the warm, dry fleece and a hot cup of tea teamed with a bar of chocolate dipped in…all melty, warm and gooey. Mmmmmmmm. A welcome goal reached. Oh! The joys of high Summer in England. It’s at times like these that you wonder wether a sun drenched Greek island may have been a better choice of destination. But hey..…where’s the fun in that?!?!?! So onward to Rosthwaite and the weather improved on our home run. After another challenging 14 miles in 8hrs, we felt pretty good about ourselves.