New guide to Coast to Coast Walk includes Ordnance Survey mapping for the whole route.
The original Coast to Coast Walk route is one of the classic long distance outings in the UK and now it has a new guide book by Martin Wainwright featuring Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale mapping for the entire route.
The Coast to Coast was originally devised by the legendary Alfred Wainwright and runs 192 miles from St Bees in Cumbria across to Robin Hood's Bay on the North Yorkshire coast near Whitby. It's a cracker of a walk taking in stretches of three National Parks and deceptively tough as it cross the spine of the country.
Out right about now and published by Aurum Press, the new 188 page paperback - it has rounded corners presumably to stop the corners being rounded off in use - has been rather appropriately put together by another Wainwright, in this case Martin Wainwright, the Northern Editor of the Guardian who lives in Leeds and who, along with the words has also provided the bulk of the rather nice photos used to illustrate the book.
It's a neat little volume. First, it contains the entire route mapped out on strips of Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 mapping. You wouldn't want to use it for stand-alone guideance, but it's an ideal complement to a full map or a GPS mapping unit.
On top of that, the whole route is also described in chapters, each of which covers a single day of walking - obviously you can extend the suggested days if you want, there are 12 of them, but some are admittedly on the short side. Chapter headings tell you each day's distance, suggested time, ascent and descent and the highest and lowest points reached, which is nice and gives you some idea of how tough the walking is likely to be - from Patterdale to Shap, for example, covers 15 miles with 995 metres of ascent.
Flicking through the detailed route descriptions suggests that the author has actually walked the entire route and we like the little asides based on the author's own experience of the day plus the clear, unpretentious writing style.
Finally, the book's dotted with stand-alone pages of detailed information and stories about particular towns or areas and topical detours into cultural stuff like 'Ghosts on the moors' or the background of the mining industry which mean you're not walking in a cultural and historical vacuum.
Overall it seems like a really nice - the rounded corners are somehow friendly too - and definitely one to investigate if the Coast to Coast is on your list. Price is £12.99 more details at www.aurumpress.co.uk.
