There is not a lot of information online about this walk, described in “The Alternative Coast to Coast – Walney Island to Holy Island” by Denis Brook and Phil Hinchcliffe (1988, ISBN 978-1852842024). The book itself is from the 1980s. I’m writing this page to give help to anyone considering giving it a try. Having done the Wainwright coast-to-coast more than once, I and my co-conspirators took on this new challenge in summer 2024. As with all proper expeditions, we used Ordnance Survey paper maps (we used the Explorer edition, which was a good choice as there was plenty of rain – even hail – and page-turning – the map sequence is OL6, OL7, OL5, OL31, OL43, OL42, 332, OL16, 340) and a compass. Don’t forget to check the Holy Island tide charts! I read the book, made notes, bought the maps, searched for suitable accommodation and then plotted our route accordingly.
I’m not going to give general information or advice that is available in many other places – and which you’ll largely all know by experience if you’re attempting something like this. My aim is to help anyone interested in this specific walk to see how we managed it in 2024. We did the walk in 12 days (two Monday to Saturdays, with the middle Sunday resting). We enjoyed the challenge of taking on something comparatively unknown, only having found online one brief comment by someone who’d done it.
Our journey in brief
We carried tents, sleeping bags and cooking equipment. Our most primitive campsite was one cold tap, two Portaloos and rubbish bins. We used a mix of campsites and hostels, depending upon what was available, plus one inn and a glamping pod at the weekend. Particularly in the second half of the route, campsites or hostels are in very short supply; it seems like a lot of landowners have found that luxury glamping (two nights minimum) is much more lucrative. This is a pity – please leave some field for traditional walkers, and don’t let this activity be closed off to the next generation! Since wild-camping is illegal in England, we didn’t consider it. Our route and the day splits were determined largely by the locations of our accommodation, with a maximum planned day of 22 miles, which turned out to only be (we think) 20 once we were in the forest and could re-route having understood what kind of terrain different routes on the map corresponded to. The accommodation was mostly booked well in advance (and in one case was a single-group off-grid building far from any alternatives).
For some overall comments, as per the book’s comments from 35 years ago and the only online comment I found, the paths vary in how well-used they are. We had no real troubles, but you’ll need to be prepared for places where paths in woods are not marked and/or paths are obscured by fallen trees or by cows, and be prepared to use your wits and your compass. Occasionally the true path is very hard to spot unless you’re standing right on top of it. There are plenty of boggy sections (and on these you’ll be especially grateful for spotting the true path) which were tolerable in the summer when to our knowledge it’d not rained too much recently (for these parts of the country), and some long grass to thoroughly soak any non-waterproof trousers or any boots/gaiters not done up properly. Our latest arrival at our accommodation was somewhere around 19.30. These are things to bear in mind if you’re thinking of doing this any time other than summer. You’ll need to carefully plan your supplies and make use of shops when available – sometimes you may see no shops or one shop only during a day (and of course, post offices marked on maps may have closed long ago or have the smallest of opening windows). We encountered nobody else doing the walk, and only met other walkers at the popular locations (Lake District, Holy Island, hostels).
A survey of all our group showed that we were all agreed that this was a step up from the Wainwright coast-to-coast. We don’t know the exact mileages (and Google often won’t help with more than the roughest of estimates since it won’t recognise the routes), but the great majority of days were long (by which I mean around 9 hours, the longest being 10 – as I say, we were carrying full packs), and 4 long days across the Lake District (with the St Sunday Crag high route into Patterdale) followed by 21 miles with a good climb on the 5th day constituted an intense start. Overall, with any walk of this sort, you’re left astounded by the beauty, and the variety within that beauty, of our isle, and of the privilege of connecting public paths and the freedom to walk across it. We have an amazing Creator.
Finally, we saw plenty of the notch-horned cleg fly (horse fly) every day the first week; it bites hard (including through clothing) and draws blood. Stonehaugh had enormous numbers of biting midges; you will surely want insect repellent and face nets.
Locations for stops and other notes
We started from the west side of Walney Island, via a taxi from Barrow-in-Furness station (there’s no taxi rank, so book ahead).
How far you can walk on the mud flats on the east side of Walney Island or whether you have to return over the bridge will depend upon the tide and weather. Below, I do not list distances for individual days because we did not have a method to measure them accurately; our own plan had estimates, but these did not always correlate with our “on the ground” experience of how long the day took even after taking into account the terrain, breaks, etc. Give or take some rounding, each week was 100 miles. We were very happy with all the accommodation.
Night 1: Moss Side Farm campsite. We were too late through Broughton-in-Furness for any shops to be still open.
Night 2: BaysBrown campsite, Chapel Stile. Watch out for the 20.00 cut-off for arrivals.
Night 3: Side Farm campsite, Patterdale.
Night 4: WayFarers’ hostel, Penrith.
Night 5: Alston youth hostel. When the book was written, the part of the walk in the first half of this day had no option but plenty of roads; nothing has changed since.
Night 6: Langley Dam (glamping).
Night 7: Stonehaugh campside – the number of midges was enormous; though on the other side, nobody was expecting a hot bath.
Night 8: The Bay Horse Inn, West Woodburn – in this part of the walk, we found no viable routing options for camping or any hostels.
Night 9: Chartners (off-grid house/hostel in the forest, single group use only).
Night 10: Low Hedgeley Farm campsite – glorious location; the facilities are a cold tap, portaloos and bins. This was a 20-mile day to get here, which resulted in the next day being shorter (nothing stops you making it longer, of course!).
Night 11: Wooler Youth Hostel. From here it’s an 18-mile walk to Lindisfarne. Check the tide times, otherwise you’ll either just have to see the island from the mainland and not visit it, or get stuck upon it. Note also the poles (marked on the OS map) if you’re at the low-tide point. Don’t blame anyone else if you take your chances with tides or quicksand! We started walking at around 07.40 and arrived on the island just after 15.00, with just a short morning snack break and about 35 minutes for lunch. There’s a compulsory telephone call to the signal box at the last rail crossing. We treated Lindisfarne Castle on the east side as the end of the walk.
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