Friday, September 14

I walk 27 miles, from my Esso station north on the A6, then the B6430, to Garstang, returning to the A6 to go through Lancaster and Carnforth. I jog right on the A6070 and continue on to the road to Yealand.

Alan Cook Finishes Phase III
Photo copyright 2001 Alan Cook, Used by permission

More of this Feature • Part 1: About the Walk • Part 2: Sept. 4-10 • Part 3: Sept. 11-13 • Part 4: Sept. 14-18

Related Resources • Phase 1 of the Walk: 1999 • Phase 2 of the Walk: 2000 • Final Phase UK End to End Walk: 2002

From Other Guides • UK for Visitors

Elsewhere on the Web • Alan Cook

The English walk much faster than typical Americans, and I am sometimes passed when I am in cities where pedestrian traffic is heavy. When this happens I have an urge to ask the person passing me if he could keep up his pace for 25 miles. On my own for lunch, I eat a chickwich at a pub in Lancaster. The weather is cool and pleasant in the a.m., cool and cloudy in the p.m.

There are footpaths until the A6070, but traffic on this road is light. It also features many warning signs concerning Foot and Mouth Disease, urging people to keep out of farms and off side roads. Many rural footpaths are closed.

Saturday, September 15-This is a planned day off. We were going to put our sister-in-law on a plane at Manchester, but since the flight is cancelled we go sightseeing in Chester, instead. We take her to the Holiday Inn at the Manchester Airport so she can catch a flight on Sunday.

Sunday, September 16-I walk 24 miles, south to north on the A6070, which changes to the A65 south of Crooklands (the change is not shown on my map). At Kendal I pick up the A6 again. We eat lunch in a cafeteria at a Kendal supermarket. The only significant hill we have encountered is north of Kendal, where the road rises to about 1400 feet. I stop beyond the peak of the hill near Shap. Walking paths are scarce on the A6070 and the A65, but traffic is light on these roads.

The weather is ideal for walking-cool, with scattered clouds. It is photo-op country, with rolling green hills dotted with white sheep and black-and-white cows. At one point all vehicles heading south on the A6 are being sprayed with acetic acid (vinegar) for Foot and Mouth Disease. In some places blankets are put across the road so that vehicles have to drive over them. The blankets are saturated with acetic acid. We stay at the Greyhound Hotel in Shap, built about 1600, where we eat the best meal of the trip.

Monday, September 17-I walk 27 miles, south to north on the A6 through Shap, Hackthorpe and Penrith, to the road to Cotehill. We eat lunch at a Safeway in Penrith. The A6 and the M6 (one of the main north-south motorways) twine around each other like snakes south of Penrith. It has cooled off to the point where I wear the hood to my North Face all day and my rain gloves (for warmth) part of the time. There are walking paths some of the way.

The A6 follows an old Roman road for a while, as have others on this route. Roman roads tend to be straight and well-engineered. We stay at the Terracotta Restaurant and Lodge, south of Carlisle, which has been recently renovated. The food is good here, too. We are on a roll.

Tuesday, September 18-I walk 24 miles, north on the A6 into Carlisle, then north on the A7 and northwest on the A74. The A74 becomes a motorway, designated the A74(M). I get off at this point (at Gretna) and continue on the B7076, which hugs the A74(M), to Ecclefechan.

This route differs from the route Noel Blackham walked in "One Man and His Dog Go Walkies" in 1988. He walked on the A74 north of Gretna, but that was before it had become a motorway. In addition, I don't think B7076 existed then. It isn't shown on older maps. Noel complained about the heavy traffic on the A74 and the proximity of the big trucks to where he had to walk, so I am glad the B7076, which has almost no traffic, has been built.

I enter Scotland at the village of Gretna, and we eat lunch in nearby Gretna Green, at a place called the Old Blacksmith Shop. Blacksmiths could marry couples and the law apparently used to permit marriages at a younger age in Scotland than England, so teenagers would elope to Gretna Green.

On the A74, a divided highway, I walk on the left, riding on the slipstreams of the trucks, as long as the shoulder is ten feet wide, but when it narrows to three feet I switch to the right side and buck the slipstreams, holding onto my hat to keep it from being blown off my head. We go back to the Terracotta Restaurant and Lodge for another night.

The walking part of the trip ends here. I estimate that I have about 100 miles to go to finish the End-to-End, mostly on laid-back B roads.

Alan Cook

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