 The Cumbria Way is a 73 mile linear hike through some of the most beautiful and contrasting landscapes that Cumbria has to offer. Join myself and Fern as we head from the historic town of Ulverston, taking in the mountains, lakes, woodlands and glacial valleys of the Lake District, ending in the equally historic city of Carlisle. We're heading up there into Demdare Hills. Fern's sort of flapping her arms because she's got goose down top on. I think she's a goose. Why are you going round? Why? Where's going the scenic route? Because cow. Because cow. But we all know, we, sorry. I didn't mean, I didn't scare it, I slipped. It's on camera, I slipped and it ran a little bit. And that just goes to show how scared that cow is of me. And it's also turning round. No, don't, don't do anything rash, guy. Just another standard larch and lark. Or is it because somebody's defaced this rock with a penis? Unbelievable. And also, before you say it, it wasn't me, even though I'm not mad at it. It's each to their own as far as tastes, but for me, I like it. They could have been, the shaft could have been a little bit thicker, but we've, we've stopped off for breakfast and we're off again. We're going to try and put some serious miles in now. And this will be our first serious elevation and hike up into the fells. Like I'll film it just in case these, in case it's the last thing I ever filmed, but. When, see that's a warning moo. But we're just giving them a wide berth and they'll be fine. No drama, no beef. And these little cows are sheep, as some people call them. Just getting on with their own, their own lives. Look, we're just heading towards this. That's our first big climb out. And if anyone can think of a fruit beginning with why, chuck it in the comments below, be interested to know. Come on, you're late. Looking forward to getting up there. It'll be colder, the temperature will drop up there, which will be quite welcomed after we've put a shift in getting up there. And this will bring us into Black Moss Port, which was somewhere I've camped out a few times, but never coming from this direction. I've always looked up from there, thinking I wonder what's over that hill. And now I'm getting to find out. Steak, pass or esc house. I think we're this way. That's where we're going, fast track. There we are, to the top of what we thought was the top, full summit. So we've got about half of all that to go again. But the sun has gone behind these clouds now, which gives us a little bit of respite. And I reckon that's probably the hardest bit of today I've done. He's making that water seem very, very inviting. Fern just smashed it out the park with it. Both feeling strong. And the goal is today to get to Keswick, or at least outside of Keswick, either side. And then we're back on track from our slow start. But now I've got to navigate all this. The Cumbia way is beautiful. And I know I'm not talking to you like I normally do, on my long distance hikes, but I can't always, it can't always just be me and you guys. Sometimes it's got to be other people. So I can't just waffle bollocks to you, which some of you might not like anyway. So this is more about scenic views. And there you go. So I was going to follow you. You can see how far we've come. You can see the little river there, or stream that snicks by the side of the path. And then all the way around there, we climbed up there. It didn't look too much for me, but it was a decent climb up. And then we've just stopped. We're calling this morning break. We're going to have a brew, some dried fruit, and then we're going to bat on through there. I think it is between these two peaks. And I think we'll find somewhere to dunk our heads. We've got to do a bit of that. Just chuck it in. Chuck it in. If any audio exists in either of these cameras, Fern has just stuffed a dried banana into my gator slash sock. And I don't know why. It's still there. Just using these posh coffee bags from Harrogate. And not only is she stuffing my socks with dried fruit, she's spilt over our morning coffee is here. Good morning cruel world. Well done, fan. We've just stopped there to have our coffees. Well, we're on the second coffee because Fern dropped kicked the other one off the end of the cliff. And I thought I'd just have a little rummage for ticks. And I found one so far here. And Fern has just found one pretty much in the same place because copycat. And I'll just show you the safest way to get them out. So in my first aid kit, I always carry a mirror and that is to check for ticks from on my own just around the old private parts. And then he's off. He wasn't that far in, I must have just caught him but he's out of there. What you don't want to do, some people say burn them off. You don't want to burn them off because they'll just be sick into you. You don't want to crush them because then again, not for Lyme's disease but just for infection. And then keep an eye on it afterwards. If you get any sort of red rings around it or it starts itching, then just go to the doctors, get some antibiotics just to air on the side of caution. But I see it feel good. I was feeling a bit left out not getting any ticks. So we really are on a hike now. So you can see his little antennae. Do you reckon they are antennae? But it's just good to be able to see that the whole top of them, do you know what I mean? Yes, it's near the not, yeah. So you don't want to leave any bit for me? No. And there we go, tick buddies. Yay! This is where we're going. We will crack a black log pot and I won't let you. What are you going to do about that? I was trying to walk really smooth. Absolutely killed it. In the bottom of the valley, when I cut across there, we're doing the coast to coast up onto these. Look how clear that is. What? Do you have a shade of sheep? No of you? The end. I put that here and I built it into the river. It's right. If that isn't a lesson to not walk across there, don't do it because you will fall in there. Are you going to walk across that? With a bag on your back, as unsteady as you are. There by your left leg, we're going to get your left foot forward. I just said can you walk across the bridge and not do some mad stunt where you kick your fur into water and then just walk across it. Yeah, I'll do it. Cut right there. There she goes, look. Intrepid adventurer, Fern. We're not even going over this bridge. It was for nothing. She was going to risk her life. Were you going to, you were going to just... I was just going to crawl across it. No. Liverpool Steel, look at that. I'm bringing this one because it's got hand-carved acorns in these. Looked like nine-by-nine fence posts and someone's just whittled up with a chainsaw because you can see the grooves there, but oh no, we've got to put some shoulder work into it. Don't like that, but I do like that. Seven o'clock day three. It's been our first day of going up and down today, but we're still going at seven o'clock and there's a pub maybe 40 minutes away. And we're taking this detour through the woods just to get to the pub, just to get a pint, maybe get somewhere to eat and then we're going to just camp near somewhere around the pub and then make our way to Keswick in the morning. Do you have a groove off? Lichen groove. There you go, guys. Thank you. All right, talking shit to the camera. A little bit tired, a little bit brain dead. The shores of Derwent water and I wish I could tell you more about it, but I don't have the map or the guidebook to hand, so all I know is that it's a big bit of water. There she is, look. Stomping ahead, leaving me in the dust. We found a huge pair of hands, look. Look at the heat, it's warmer. I think it's a bit warmer. And that would heat the water. It's so still. There's the tent. We had our fire down there and we're on this little nab and then just beyond that hill there is Keswick and that's where we're heading to this morning. And we're going to up the tent relatively early because just we pitched in the dark, leave early, leave no trace, no problem. And we've maybe got 45 minutes of a hike into Keswick, get some breakfast, go see the boys at Nordic Outdoors and then we crack on. Damage report, feeling good. Legs feel good, no blisters. It's happy days. Look at that, look how tranquil that is. And you've got the mist rising off the lake. It's beautiful, isn't it? There you go, leave no trace. Just a bit of flattened grass and we'll skip off as the sun bounces off the Derwent beautiful LNT. So we'll take some of these and sick of more leaves and these can be used as a natural soap, which I'm in need of and I will use later on today. There we are, Derwent water. We camped probably around here, my finger is, and that's Keswick where we've just had breakfast and we're just heading up out of Keswick and then there's a multiple choice question. There's a multiple turn to page 32 if you wanna go the highway, 42 if you wanna go the lower way. We sort, I think we're gonna go the hard route, but let's see how we feel. And there's wild boar in here, deer, wherever that thing is. So this will be our second sort of big-ish day on the bounce. It's the last day of being in Lakeland. So I think we're gonna make the most of it and go the mountain route. Like everywhere we look, as Bill just said, she's just wet in the back of her neck to keep cool because it's a hot one today. But everywhere is just beautiful to look at. And this little stream here is giving us big stream dreams. So we're gonna get a bit of hiking done and we look forward to having a little dunk at some point. That is what I was craving on the South Downs way and the Cleveland way is that. And as I said before, you're never too far away from some water that you can just dunk in or drink. It's plateaued out into this sort of huge valley of heather. The purples and the greens is pretty nice. And I think that's where we're heading up there, over the top. The sun's gone behind clouds now, so it's not as fierce. Not as the last couple of big hikes I've done. All very different, giving different messages to me from it's all about the journey to spontaneity. And I think this one is about just slowing down a little bit and not gunning it like I normally do. That's the way it comes out, sir. When you're thirsty, you'll do anything for a sip of their good stuff. We've got not got much left, but we've got all our own trail snacks. We've got some beef jerky. I did do a video which I'll leave there on how to make beef jerky. It's pretty simple, but save you some money, good trail snacks, dried mango, and then I just chuck together some dry banana, some chocolate and some walnuts in there. And Fern made, what's in here? It's a nettle seed energy ball, and there was more of them, and she wasn't my only. This was what, Fern brought this, and it was in a massive box with a ribbon on it, so I've got these trail snacks, and that was what was in there, look. No, it's a nettle seed. It's a nettle seed energy ball, so nettle seeds are like a natural medicine, so a natural stimulant can help the body process and I knew how stressed I'd be hanging out with you. There is shots fired, the link's below to the nettle ball, thanks for watching. Skid or hostel, I believe. Don't know if it's still in use. It doesn't look like there's any roads to it or anything, it's just on its own. And that's where the path cuts off, it can go that way to your left, the easier path, and then this way, where we'll be going over high peaks, if I believe, and that's the way that we've chosen. Here we are, another trail, another bilberry sesh, just a little bit of a sweet treat, gives you a little bit of energy and it tastes nice, it cleanses your palate, and in a small way, it hydrates you. It is a labour of love having to go through them all, but I love them, so I don't mind the labour. Let's see if we can fill Fern's new tux pot. There it is, let's see if we can at least half fill it, so we can have, shovel a few handfuls into us. How long has it been? How long has it been accepted? How long has it been accepted, yeah. I've already started, I'm halfway there. We've got to just half way there. We haven't been going long, that's a good sign. And look at that, already, that's trail snacks. But we're gonna get it half full at least. And there we are, that's probably 10 minutes I reckon, 10 good minutes, both of us foraging. We've got a tux, 900, no, 750 milliliter, and it's up to the 500 milliliters, so there's 500 milliliters of fresh bilberries there that we don't know what we're gonna do with. What should we do, just hand-bolling into our mouths. But look. You can toast them while we're working. There you go, it's done while we're working. Not necessarily, this might mean I'm a bit heavy-handed. There you go, a pot full of bilberries, or bilberries as they call them, wrongly so in Scotland. Blabries. Fight me, blabries in Scotland. I'm gonna eat some. They're pretty much just blueberries. Same family. Uh-uh, they are good as well. And do you know what, normally, when I'm picking them, I'm just putting them in my mouth one at a time, and so to just have a good hand-fulling, nice, isn't it? Mm, it's good. It's good, it's decadent. Aunt and decadent, I like to say. Anyway, we're supposed to be on a mission here, and we're just getting sidetracked. But we'll put a lid on them, or we'll chew them as we go, but there you go, trail snaps. Look at that for a miniature waterfall experience. Pause it if you're that way inclined, but it's the most remarkable mine, apparently, and there it is. I'll give you a shot from the side when I get up there, but know this, I'll tell you what they're mining. They're mining for carrots. They're, it's a famous carrot mine. The Ternip Mines of Maud. I just can't see out, can ya? You can't see anything there, but there is an entrance to a mine. That was some effort. Lingy hook, mate. See what I'm looking at? There's ferns just outside there. Look at it, graffiti, some playing cards, candles, that little notebook that we can write in. Look at the views from the window. Martin Sophie was here. They make a nice little boo-dwaft at night, but that's not what we've got in mind because the dirt cell pints. It's good that we can graph on this wall just because everyone else has done it, and here's a few highlights of mine. The Tabasco sign, whoever's done that, salute. Oh, my mushroom auto salute. Someone's put my bum does that. He's making up a sort of a half-assed salute and shout out whoever did that. Eileen's pretty good. Someone's put their Instagram here. Born to walk, so go follow them. And they're doing the Cumbrian way in 2022, so give them a shout. And then I went over here and thought, I'll do mine too, and I gave up. I was gonna put his outdoors, and that's as far as I got because I jabbed it in, I need it. And ferns doing something meaningful and lovely, which is a turnip tree. What is it? She's doing bilberries that were just found. It's a bit windy, so her sozif audio's a bit out there. But there we go, look, that's the highest point of today. You can see the wind right, you can see the cairn on top. And the views are flattening out now, so this is pretty much the end of the lakes, like the end of the hilly clobber. And then we'll hit the lowland and the farmland and stuff tomorrow just to make our way to Carlisle. Hopefully be able to see all the pubs that we're gonna be able to go to when we get down below. Meadow, Pipi, hello. Let's fast-track up to the top, by the way. I thought I'd do one of these, God, jeez. The chosen ones. The chosen ones. Cheers. And we'll put this on the cairn, Raiu and Cairn. There you go. There you go, there's our contribution. There we see. That's where we're going towards Carlisle, over the farmland, stuff that flattens out. So this is literally the top. We did it. Yes, mate, here we go. Let's go tap out on this, on this trig point. Oh, this is interesting, yeah. High pike. So you've got, right, where's Carlisle on here? Carlisle, 11 miles. It's only 11 miles that way. So that's where we'll end up tomorrow. Well done, us. Here's a portion of that loveliness that once he made more lovely. In memory of Mick Lewis, who loved all these fells. He died in May, May 8th, 1944, age 16 years old. Big up, resting peace. Lovely. Shilling out there, look. What was she looking at, you ask? Ah! Stunning. Stunklebulb area. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Love me. That's the show, that's the show. Lovely time. Thank you. Good work. They don't look as smiley. They don't look as, they don't look a bit pissed off. This is like a bad dream. This is mental. Are we stepping? Are we? I would let me out. No, you're in there now, Fern. They look like big bad boys. Oh, let me out, you freak. Okay. Look, first scared of she, first, even though she's dressed as one. What's happening here, Fern, look. Fern, Jesus. These guys look aggiers. They look, they look aggy. But, hey guy, that isn't cool. So, how much she... Oh, right, I'm doing it. I'm going for it. Fern, quick, I'm gonna get crushed to death by loads of sheep. That'd be really embarrassing. Quick, I'm gonna die with a red face. Right, there you go, guys. You ever seen two fully grown adults be bullied out of a field by some sheep? Kept under this ash tree. It was dark when we pitched up. It's just got light. Leave nature, Ace. We've got our rain clobber on, because it rained last night and it might rain today. Final day. How many miles? 11, 10 or 11 miles, four hours through flat country, flat farmland. Like this. I've just found these bins here. And if you recognise them on my face, just slide into my DMs and I'll meet you in the nearest pub, because you can't if you can find it. And I'll give them back to you. I thank you. They'll be there. Some sort of festival going on our summit. Oh, it's gonna rain. It's just the weather's turned. We've got the boiling the bag suits on, but I've just felt a little bit of water come down. So this could be our first downpour of the trip. It is raining. Can you see it bouncing on the water? That's good. That's good. Right, I bet put the old camera away. Just enough in our rain gear, look. It's raining. Coming down now. Just want to say, just seeing a lad doing the, he's doing Land's Entered John of Grotes. He was just in his tent and I was shouting out some tarot readings to Ferd. And he was like, hello? Totally. I think he thought he was gonna get sacrificed. Well, I got his Instagram. He's only got 92 followers, so it'd be nice to go and follow him if you want. Just check out his journey as he's going from Land's Entered John of Grotes. And it's that. If you can see, focus. Over grass and stone. So go check it out. He hasn't? Yeah. He's so good. They're still good, even though they've got grit on them. We've found this, look. We've got so much to tell you guys. This is how we're gonna break the news. We're getting married, aren't we? We're just gonna sit on this city and watch some telly. It's up there somewhere, but here we are in Carlisle. We've just done it with three miles from Dalston to Carlisle, but I'll tell you about it later anyway, or maybe I've done a voiceover about the road closure, the famous road closure of Dalton, 2022, which meant we had to walk down the, like a B road, which was just shit, no paths. So we just got our head down and got ourselves into Carlisle, and here we are, looking for the tourist information centre, which is the end of the Cumbrian way, apparently. So... Have you ever been to a B&M? And then she says, have you ever been to a B&M? And there you go. That's the vlog. Welcome to the vlog. Welcome to the end of the Cumbrian way. Have you ever been to a B&M? It's still, yeah, of course I have. Wasn't it? Do you want to vlog it? Do you want to go in there? Hey, welcome to our B&M tour of art. And that's it. We're in the centre of Carlisle. I think that's what you touch at the end, but I don't know. Did we get something? Flight eye. Hey, there's a tap. We could, celebration water. You can have a celebratory water. That's what it's here for. For the end of the Cumbrian way. So they just celebrate it. Cumbrian way, Cumbrian way. See you later, see you later, Cumbrian. Joy. Gather round, gather round to see the girl. Is it good gear? Right there, there we go. It's worth hiking five days for, I'd say. Absolutely terrible. And that's it. I don't know what, I don't have any final thoughts. It was a tough day today. That road has really just killed us, deaded me off. And then being in civilisation like this, after being in the beauty of the Lake District, cut to montage. And when I say cue montage, what I mean is cue map time, because I'm not letting you down ever again on map time. So, if you remember, I barely do because it's been a long time since the trail, but we work up on what has been called sheep hill. A little wash in this stream here carried on. We worked to another glorious morning. We were really lucky with the weather. We came over here and we stopped here, Stickel Barn, and which was a lovely little, I think it's a youth hostel, but they serve food there. So we had a leisurely breakfast and checked the map and then off we went. Along here through this valley, to begin our first real ascent of the hike we came up here. This is a bit of a leg pumper and this is where we stopped. So we came over here, then we looked back to black crags and we decided to make a little detour around here. We had a morning break here, so we had views of the valley. We had a coffee, removed a couple of ticks and then cracked on. Around here, up over here, once you get over this ridge, it opens up to some beautiful scenery. This is probably my favourite bit actually as far as scenery goes. We dropped down here. This is where we had a little swim here because Black Moss Pot was overrun with people. It was like butlins. So we had a little swim around here, down to here. Now this is the coast to coast path that I took when I did the coast to coast. We went left through this campsite and to this pub where we managed to get a sandwich and a soup and then we decided, we had another look at the map and we decided to back on and see where we could get to. All around here we hit these woods. This is lovely hiking through these woods. Nice and cool. Some really nice scenery. Lovely little water stops. This is a bridge over here where Fern just decided to boot her phone over edge. We were feeling it on legs a little bit round here. We hit Derwent Water and it was just beautiful. This is a really nice section by the side of the water there. And all through here, we were looking for somewhere suitable to camp. We'd sacked off the idea of a pub and here, I've drawn a little tent, here is where we camped for the night. We had a fire, boiled our water on the fire and had some camping meals. It was beautiful, really beautiful. The morning was beautiful. Really still, lovely sunrise. And then we carried on. Some lovely little scenes through here with the sun peppering through the trees and then we started to make it into civilization. We hiked into Keswick. We stopped for a breakfast and then I went to see the crew at Nordic Outdoors to pick up some stuff for the Fjellraven Classic and then we cracked on out of Keswick and up and it started to, there was some decent elevation actually up and through these woods. Nice to blow the cobwebs out and get some actual hiking done. We skirted round here, again, wonderful views. Now, we got to this spot. This is where we stopped to fill the water and we stopped for a little bit of a break and I've written boots there because there was another couple who came past and they stopped not so, you know, they stopped quite close to us and then they set off hiking up here and they got to about here and then Fern just started screaming at them, your boots, you forgot your boots. And they were like, what? And I was like, Fern, they're your boots and they were Fern's boots. They hadn't left the boots because they were hiking in their boots, Fern's boots. She didn't have any, it basically Fern shouted, you've left your boots and there were Fern's boots. We had a good laugh about that and I still laugh about it to this very day so that's good content. So you get to Skidow House and then this is where you've got your multiple choices. I'll zoom out a little bit here, look. So you can see an overview. You could go this way all the way around to meet up with her and we went this way along here, cut around this ridge. This is where we found our bilbris. We stopped for like 15 minutes and filled the tokes pot with bilbris. Kept going. I had a little swim in this waterfall here. Really nice and really just needed at that time of the day and it sort of set us up for getting up here. Passed these carrot mines up. This is all nice hiking here. Then it gets a little bit steeper. This was a real chew. We would just sort of head down, crack on and Fern nailed it to be honest. She absolutely just not complaining whatsoever. Just, you know, and I know her feet were hurting but she's a trooper. So we got up here. The boff is around here somewhere and then we keep going up to High Pike to the trig point on High Pike. We had a little rest there and then you start to make your descent down. This is really the last bit of the Lake District. You've got beautiful views out to the Irish Sea and back from whence ye came and then we headed down and this is where you join up with the alternate route. I can't remember where it was but we after getting bullied by some sheep it might have been here. It might have been here but it might have been here. I'm not sure but there was a pub. It could well have been here. It was a really nice pub. Really nice atmosphere. We had a few, I think we got three main meals and just shared them all out. Desserts, the locks were starving at this point. So we filled our boots and it started to get dark so I know we came off pieced around here maybe and we pitched the tent. We pitched in the dark, got up early and off we went. My camera's not waterproof so I couldn't do much filming but it was still really nice. It's all lowland sort of farmland, woodland things like that. And we stopped off at a church somewhere around here because we saw people loading up the church for a wedding and they kindly let us fill our water bottles up in the church. And then we cracked on and then along here and we got to Doulston. And a couple of the people that we'd met on the trail had said that this track here was closed off and that you couldn't use it which was a bit of a shame. We had a lovely breakfast actually in Dalton and the lady sort of felt sorry for us because we looked absolutely naked and we were really hungry so she gave us some free toast before our breakfast as well just to keep us going. Marmelade on toast. Shout out her, that was a wonderful gesture. So we had to go down this B road instead of going through this nice bit. So we would just sort of head down, crack on as cars going past. So I didn't do any filming here because we just really wanted to get it done. We could sense the finish line into Carlisle and that's where we ended up at the end at the Tourist Information Centre in Carlisle. I'll take you back. It's very different, very hustly and bustly. And now we've got to get the train back to the start. We've got to, we get to. We get to get the train back to the start. And then we get back in Alaska and he loads of snacks. And that's it. Thanks for joining us along the way. Thanks for having us for everything. We did some foraging, didn't we? We've got some stuff foraged. We foraged some mashrooms that we lost. I haven't bought it. I haven't bought the foraging, but I've been doing the work. We foraged them, then lost them. So someone else got to forage them for us, maybe a bin or a seagull. And we've got some bilbris and stuff. And she smashed it to be fair. Like there were times when I looked back and she was just trooper. Absolute trooper. Another one. Another one. Too many knuckles, right? Anyway, thanks very much for watching. Take care yourselves. See you soon. Bye for now. And there we have it. The Cumbria Way completed. This was the first multi-day hike I've done where I wasn't focused on smashing out the miles. And it was really nice to go at a more leisurely pace and not have to worry about things like chafing and blisters. This walk is perfect for those just starting out in the world of multi-day hiking. And it gives you some truly breathtaking scenery. I'd like to thank Fern for being my first ever multi-day hike partner. And I'm looking forward to lots more adventures in the future. I'll leave links to her YouTube and Instagram below. So go check it out if you fancy up in your foraging game. Thanks as always to everyone who followed along. I really do appreciate all the kind words. I'll be back soon for another multi-day solo hike with plenty more blisters and moaning. But for now, it's been a real treat to slow down the pace and stop and smell the roses. I send you no but love, take care of yourselves, and I'll see you all soon. Bye for now.