Coastwalk

St Bees → Sellafield

Distance: 7.31 miles
Ascent: 239 metres
Duration: 3 hours 29 minutes

Living on the beach
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I didn't look too closely at the map for today's walk so had expected to be walking across wide deserted beaches. I was right to an extent. What I'd missed was the string of homes built right on the beach edge, undefended from the sea.

I stopped to talk with a man who was patching up storm damage. "I'm seventy-four and have lived here forty-one years," he told me. The sea may crash against his front wall but it's not washed him away yet.

"And if it weren't for the wife," he continued, "I wouldn't bother with the car."

Now this surprised me. It's hard to imagine a more isolated place to live yet for this man everything he needed was a ten minute walk then a twenty minute train ride away.

I was quite taken with the idea of living by the sea in Braystones, but I'm sure that feeling would be taken away with one sharp bite of the tide.