Carlisle & District Rambling & Fellwalking Club

Walk & Event Reports

The main surprise about today was the number of people on the walk.  29 got off the bus at Maryport Cemetery ready for the flat,  but long walk up the coast to Silloth.   For myself it was a little bit like a primary school outing.  “X and Y have gone a different path”;  “A, B, C and D are walking on the beach”  “Do we go in the sand dunes or on the beach?”   “Are we nearly there?”  I repeated several times – “so long as you keep England on your right,  the sea on your left and Scotland ahead of you,  it doesn’t matter in the slightest which route you take”.  Our first port of call after Maryport golf club was Twentyman’s Ice Cream (and other things) shop in Allonby.  We had a good 20 minutes stop here and on a personal level I can vouch for the fact that the chocolate sauce ice cream was absolutely delicious.  From there it was past the weird grey house that would have been more fitting in a Dickens novel and round onto the long stretch of beach that led to Mawbray.  Talking of Dickens,  he and Wilkie Collins apparently stopped in Allonby while on a walking tour (the footsteps we trace!!) and he disliked the place so much that he incorporated it into one of his lesser known novels.  The other complaint that came out by this time “I’m hungry” so we stopped and perched ourselves on the edge of the dunes for lunch.  After further complaints about the quality of the sand – soft,  wrinkly,  hard to walk on – we eventually made it to Silloth where the excellent café was packed to the ginnels,  though worth the wait for the tea,  coffee and cakes.  Not sure if she popped in at all,  but the café had a lot of posters about Silloth’s most famous daughter – the great Kathleen Ferrier.  Welcome to Brenda from Wigton and Alan from Carlisle for what I believe is their first Sunday trip.

Peter

Sunday 22nd January 2017

Maryport to Silloth

11 Miles Grade 4

Leader: Peter Flynn

Report by Peter Flynn

Photos by Peter Flynn

Ann Kin-Cleaves -John McKay