St. Bee's

Today I travelled on the train from Newcastle to St. Bee's. Pleasant train trip. I met Sarah and David from London. They are hiking the first part of the C2C and will be staying at the Ullswater Inn where I will be staying on Day 4. They are carrying all of their stuff but not camping. Hopefully I will meet them out on the trail.

St. Bee's was quite rainy today. Not a heavy rain but constant. I wandered around for an hour and a half. They had a monastery here which is now a church. Very beautiful. The church was open and inside they had the history of the church and region. Interestingly they had dug up some of the graves a few years ago and discovered the preserved body of a 700 year old nobleman who had died while fighting in Lithuania in the 14 century. He was brought back and buried at the church and forgotten until renovations required digging up his grave. Miraculously his body was intact and they performed an autopsy on him. He had a fractured rib and lacerated lung and hemothorax which led them to believe he had died in combat. They even had pictures on the wall illustrating the autopsy. Pathology is everywhere.

I walked down to the Irish Sea where the trail begins and got a pebble to carry with me to the North Sea. I also dipped my feet into the Irish Sea which is a pre trip tradition. It was raining pretty hard so I walked back to the Fair ladies Barn where I am staying to chill out before dinner. I was pretty wet by the time I made it back to the hotel.Read more