Our Easter Weekend

We hope all our readers have had an excellent Easter break and haven't eaten all their Easter eggs yet.

Sorry we're a bit late with our Easter greetings, but we've been very busy bears, attending Easter services and also having a great time with our friends from the Suffolk and Midlands branches, who we've been delighted to have visit us this weekend.

We spent Good Friday in the Garden of Gethseme, which you see above, and other places on the road to Calvary including Pilate's Palace and the scene of the Crucifixion itself (not pleasant).

Happier times came on Saturday, when our visitors arrived and we enjoyed an outing in the Sheringham area and a fine meal together. It was also great to see the Suffolk Branch's wonderful photos of their adventurous trip to Peru - they're only just back and still getting over their jet lag.

Those of us with lots of stamina and owl-like tendencies, stayed up 'til midnight for the Easter fire and lighting of the Paschal candle which was quite thrilling.

We were at full strength on Easter morning proper (Sunday) for rousing Easter Sunday celebrations of the resurrection. We sang our hearts out and admired the wonderful floral tributes around the church ...

... every year one of the talented flower ladies does a massive floral decoration in the shape of a cross. It's always slightly different and we always look forward to seeing what is unveiled - we're never disappointed.

The great thing about Easter flowers is that the simple tributes are as interesting as the intricate ones.

We enjoyed sitting on the window sill with the garden tomb on our left and the 3 crosses on our right, with lilies and spring flowers in between.

In the afternoon we we went walking again, and enjoyed the grounds of Felbrigg Hall and some fresh sea air on Cromer pier.

In the evening it felt like it was Christmas again, as we tucked into turkey with all the trimmings - delicious. Lamb might be more traditional, but some local post Christmas turkey bargains were too good to pass by.

Today we've finished off the Easter break with one of our favourite things to do, a visit to the races at our local track, Fakenham racecourse. There was a huge turnout and lots of exciting action. We were excited to spy Dr Richard Newland, trainer of the Grand National winner, among the trainers. However, after the National winner, a winner at Fakenham eluded him yesterday and his horse did not run at all well. That's racing for you. As for us, we had 2 winners so went home happy, but we'd have enjoyed it anyway. It was just sad to wave goodbye to all our visitors, but hopefully we'll see them again soon.

Lots of love

All at bears Unlimited xxx

Final Thoughts

So how was the walk for us? Hopefully you'll have picked up from our posts, our enthusiasm for this great walk, which is one of the British classics. We had a real ball walking it and loved almost every minute - we say almost, as it wasn't all plain sailing.

Arriving at Robin Hoods Bay was a particular achievement for Wooly, who achieved his ambition of becoming the first sheep to walk the Coast to Coast walk. He'd already been crowned the first sheep to walk the Cumbria Way and we all wonder where his silver hooves and unquenchable ambition will take us next

There were 3 things which made our Coast to Coast pilgrimage quite special.

The first was the excellent route, and we have the incomparable Mr Alfred Wainwright to thank for this. It is interesting that the route is not actually a National Trail, probably because Wainwright always referred to it as 'a' Coast to Coast walk, not 'the' Coast to Coast walk. He was offering a suggestion, and all walkers are free to choose their own variation. We thought his route was so good, and kept us off the roads, so we stuck pretty faithfully to it, and were pleased we did.

As it is 'a' Coast to Coast walk, the way is not officially signposted, unlike National Trails which are. However, there are lots of way markings, some official, and others very informal. Our direction indicators ranged from the traditional wooden finger posts to these traffic cones which, if you look hard, do say Coast to Coast with arrows pointing the way ...

You had to keep your eyes open, as some direction indicators were quite small and subtle, such as this one, built into a stone wall ...

The second great ingredient of our trip was the fantastic Bed and Breakfast accommodation we  enjoyed. We've talked about many already, as they played such an important part in the journey, providing a warm and friendly welcome, comfortable beds and hearty cooked breakfasts.

We enjoyed the sheer variety of accommodation and this covered both the buildings and our hosts. It was so exciting to arrive a journey's end for each day and to discover what was in store for us. We were invariably pleased, and we even got to make some new friends ...

We'd didn't select the accommodation, and we were glad we hadn't as there was no way we could have done so well. The organisation we have to thank for booking us some great places to stay was the Coast to Coast Packhorse.

This brings us to the third, and most important ingredient of our trip, and this was our choice of the Coast to Coast Packhorse to arrange all elements of the trip for us. They booked our accommodation, arranged car parking, in their 2 minibuses they transported us out to the start and back to our car from the end, and each day they picked up our luggage and moved it on for us.

It was a friendly and efficient service and it ran like clockwork. We wouldn't choose anyone else and would recommend them to anyone considering the walk. As many of our Bed and Breakfast hosts told us, they are a 'country mile' ahead of the opposition.

Thanks Packhorse for looking after everything, allowing us to get on with the walking and having one of our best walking holidays ever.

We look forward to doing it all again one day, perhaps in another 18 years!

Lots of love

George, Yorkie, Gio and Wooly xxx