The Coast to Coast walk may just be the holy grail of British long-distance footpaths: a rambling 190-mile trek from St Bees in Cumbria to Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire, crossing the Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors national parks on its journey between the western and eastern seaboards of England.
The route was created in 1975 by legendary hillwalker Alfred Wainwright in his book A Coast to Coast Walk, but in recent years another, perhaps unlikely, figure is attempting to position himself as its saviour: Rishi Sunak.
While not known primarily as a vigorous outdoorsman, Sunak has made much of his successful campaign to have the legendary Coast to Coast walk, which passes through his North Yorkshire constituency of Richmond and Northallerton, turned into an official national trail. At the end of October, in his final Prime Minister’s Questions as leader of the Conservative Party, Sunak called on PM Keir Starmer to ensure that the planned upgrades to the route, which are due to be completed in 2025, go ahead – and he even claimed that he is planning on walking the route himself.
If Sunak does decide to follow in Wainwright’s footsteps, what can he expect now that his mission to turn the walk into an official national trail is almost complete?
Muddy boots
It is hard to imagine that many people could single-handedly obliterate the cultural cachet of a fashionable clothing item quite as devastatingly as Rishi Sunak did to the ascendant Adidas Samba in April. Rishi would be well advised to leave the snow-white sneakers at home, however, if he does embark on the Coast to Coast.
For one thing, tradition dictates that the first act of this coast-to-coast walk is to stroll across the sand at St Bees and dunk your boots in the Irish Sea. Only when you have done the same in the North Sea at Robin Hood’s Bay can you consider your journey complete. Another tradition demands that walkers pick up a stone on the western beach, carry it with them the whole way, and then deposit it in the ocean upon reaching Yorkshire’s east coast.
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at The Independent Travel…