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After a month of work after Christmas, through the dreariness of January, I decided to take a random day off.

I wanted to take the day to challenge myself. So, partly inspired by the book Microadventures by Alistair Humphreys, I chose to hike a stretch of the Lancashire coastal way from Lancaster to the seaside village of Arnside. I estimated that from Lancaster train station to the Albion pub on the Arnside seafront would be around 20 miles. As you can tell by the title, it turned out to be slightly more challenging – and an exceptionally different Monday to usual!

At 5.30am on Monday morning, I left to get to tram to Manchester Piccadilly and then a 55-minute train to Lancaster. I exited Lancaster station just after 7am and felt a real spikiness in the air, it was noticeably colder this 50 miles further north. Looking eastwards, I noticed small explosion of pink in the distance, the sun was beginning its ascent, and my official journey had begun.

I’d never been to Lancaster and my first impressions were good. It’s an historic city, with cobbled streets and cobbled houses. It also has a castle, which I noticed had one of its enormous doors slightly ajar as I walked past. Intrigued, I went inside and onto the forecourt. It was quite majestic, medieval, and it felt quite special being alone inside such a place. But I started noticing signs for a prison, and then a voice bellowed behind me.

“Can I help you, sir?”, said a burly, grey-haired, uniformed man in a thick Lancashire accent.

“Ah, sorry I saw the door open…”, I began.

“That’s for the bin men!”, the man roared.

I had broken into a castle, a great start to my journey. The man did kindly explain that there no longer is a prison there, but there is a crown court, as he ushered me away and slammed shut the heavy castle door with a resounding thud.

Under a now incredible pink sky (‘red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning’, thought) I crossed the bridge out of Lancaster’s centre and onto a foot/cycle path towards the coast, the town of Morecambe to be precise. With 5 miles on the clock, I reached the start of the town.

Morecambe was once a popular, thriving seaside town, but now it is infamously deprived. I’ve seen quite a few of these now neglected old Victorian seaside towns, but Morecambe didn’t seem neglected, it seemed forgotten. It’s no exaggeration to say that many buildings here looked to be crumbling down. Most of the shops were these independent second-hand shops with their signs made from A4 paper and written with felt-tip pens, filled with old junk. It was a really sad sight.

I did, however, do a little research beforehand, and I found out that the local delicacy is the potted shrimp. I therefore found an absolutely brilliant fishmongers, that has even featured on TV cooking shows. It’s called Edmondsons and I stopped by to sample Morecambe’s famous local dish.

For £3.50 I bought from the friendly old fishmonger a generous pot of shrimps warmed in this spiced butter. They were genuinely delicious, and I will return to Morecambe for their shrimps alone. They were also a lovely little boost of protein for the bulk of the hike ahead.

 

Heading into the wild

It was time to really kick on. I aimed to simply follow the coast as close as I could, moving as fast as I could. The tide was out so far that I could barely see the sea at all, Morecambe Bay was pure sand. The coastal road became a cul-de-sac, and I departed the pavement onto a ‘beach’ of jagged white rocks. The soundtrack to my walk switched from the swish of cars to the crunch of the beach, the real work was now beginning.

The weather was gloomy, and the feeling eerie. Heavy dark clouds hung above the huge, peculiar sands of Morecambe Bay. The beach was lonely and awkward to walk on, it was a strange, inhospitable place to be on a Monday morning. Suddenly, I heard a stern voice behind me for the second time today.

“This is where the Chinese cockle pickers drowned, just out there”.

I turned around to see a middle-aged man in a dark blue raincoat stood within the shelter of the cliffs, pointing out across the sands. He was referring to an incident in 2004 where approximately 23 Chinese cockle pickers were caught out by the tide and drowned.

“Oh really, it was here?”, I replied.

“Oh yes, this is the spot”.

I stood next to the man as he explained how the tide worked here, following his hand and he pointed across the bay.

“You see, the tide acts in a complicated way here, and those poor blighters were surrounded by the water – then the sand turns to quicksand! Be very careful out here”.

I took his advice, although I did have to venture onto the sands out of pure curiosity – and it really was bizarre. As you know, normally when the tide goes out it’s all flat, but here there were deep canyons of sand, it was like being on Mars, mixed with pools of quicksand. Creeped out, alone, and a long way from any sort of help, I got back onto the beach and picked up the pace.

 

Doubt creeps in

Just as a powerful wall of torrential rain arrived, I hit marshland. A frustrating maze of boggy long grass, canyons and mini rivers. It was terribly awkward terrain, impossible to walk in a straight line, and I was constantly getting blocked. I was an hour behind schedule, so I retreated inland to fields of sheep. This was a mistake. The fields were waterlogged, my boots fully submerged as I stomped past smirking sheep, and I managed to waste an hour in these fields before retreating to a main road. I was now caked in mud from my toes to my knees and still 3 miles from my ‘base camp’ of the town of Carnforth, so I decided to run.

1pm, Carnforth, 17 miles on the clock. Soaked through, exhausted, left hamstring knotting up and causing me to limp, was this enough for the day? I sat in a warm supermarket cafe having a coffee break, the wind and rain pelted the window next to me as I pondered. The Lancashire coastal way was proving too tough for a southern softer like myself. 

I decided to ignore any lazy doubts, I wanted to reach Arnside and complete what I planned.

Hitting 5th gear

My compass pointed north, and so I walked in that direction reaching a country lane with no pavement. Cars were infrequent but fast, 70mph fast, and because the road was windy you weren’t always in sight. This was dangerous, but there was no other way to keep going. It was 4 miles to the next village of Silverdale, I wanted to be off this road as soon as possible, so again, I ran – but this time I was sprinting. When I heard cars coming, I had to pin myself against a stone wall and hope for the best. This was stupid and reckless, but weirdly exhilarating. The moment the cars passed, I’d sprint again in my heavy boots and muddy soaked clothes.

Eventually, I reached a footpath with a sign pointing to the coast. The rain was now unrelenting, the fields were more like lakes. I managed to again spend an hour getting lost in sheep fields before, finally, I was back on the coastline.

The sea angrily crashed into the rocks below me, like an almighty grey beast. All I could hear was the roar of the wind, as it threw seawater over the cliffs where I was running. Yes, running. I was overjoyed that I’d found my way and was now in an environment I loved. And then, of course, I slipped and went absolutely flying.

I stood back up with a streak of mud imprinted down the left side of my body. Seagulls laughed above me, and I smiled to myself. I felt like a kid running around and falling over, but after a month of sitting at a desk, it was a release of energy. Although admittedly my day job involves sitting in front of a computer at a quiet desk, it’s a totally unnatural way to spend your life. Charging about the Lancashire coastal way in the wind and rain, I felt alive.

The home straight

I had now covered 24 miles and was on the fringes of Silverdale. It had just gone 3pm and the afternoon sun made a brief appearance, although it was beginning its descent. Kids were on the way home from school, everything felt ‘end of the day’, but I was still plodding along to reach Arnside.

The knotting in my left hamstring had now spread to the back of my knee and calf, and I could feel the lactic acid building in both quads. Every step was now laboured and squelchy, as my boots had been soaked through from the earlier sheep fields. I was still covered in cold mud, and mentally a bit jaded as the day began to close in.

I attempted to take a shortcut by walking on a deserted beach only to find a slab of cliff blocking my path – with the only way around to go onto the flats of sand. Getting desperate, I went onto the sand for around 20 steps before my right foot was swallowed up, forcing me to abort the sand mission and go all the way back. The ‘shortcut’ cost me another 45 minutes.

 

Signs for Arnside started to appear and I crossed the border of Lancashire into Cumbria. It was now twilight and the temperature was dropping again, steam clouds bellowed out on every heavy breath as I trudged through fields of watching sheep.

An enormous hill stood before me – Arnside Knott. “One last sprint”, I thought. I drove my legs, ignoring the pain, my heart pounding so much that my Apple Watch started panicking, telling me to breathe. At the top I had a banana whilst taking in the fine view of Morecambe Bay, which felt quite Alan Partridge for some reason.

And finally, thirty minutes later, the Albion pub in Arnside came into view – the mission was complete. I gratefully tapped the white wall with exactly 30 miles on the clock, I was done. The orange lights of Grange-over-Sands twinkled on the opposite side of the bay (which you can walk across when the the tide is out), and the great fells of the Lake District retreated into the darkness. I slumped into a chair in the Ye Olde Fightings Cocks pub, as it was closer to the train station, and ordered a coffee and chips (Dry February, unfortunately, as Dry January didn’t go very well!). I was totally exhausted but felt a great sense of achievement for this one-day expedition.

This stretch of the Lancashire coastal way was gruelling and required a degree of toughness and grit. The obstacles, terrain and the moody Lancashire weather made it like taming a wild beast. If you want something both physically and mentally challenging – a true disruption to the regular routine – then the Lancashire coastal way is for you.