Drigg to Ravenglass, the Esk Estuary and Muncaster

At the end of our previous walk on the Cumbria section of the England Coast Path, two years ago, we'd been frustrated that the official route of the path just stops in the middle of nowhere, some distance to the west of the River Irt, because although there is a railway bridge, there's no way right by the coast for walkers to get across the river. We'd terminated our walk then in Drigg and, after careful research before leaving home, we now knew that there was a perfectly acceptable route from here across Drigg Holme and over the lovely old Drigg Holme Packhouse Bridge. I really don't know why they don't just send the England Coast Path this way (excuses are made about Drigg Holme flooding, but the route was fine today, certainly better than just giving up on the enterprise). So today, we were heading back to Drigg to start our walk from there.

We had two cars with us, so we'd started by leaving one of them in Muncaster Castle carpark (SD097966), then driven on towards Drigg. We'd spotted a layby at SD072993, quite close to the Church and the path down to the Packhouse Bridge and we parked here, but before heading off we walked back to the station to join up with where we'd got to last time.  After retracing our steps, we took the track across to Drigg Home and on to the Packhorse Bridge. It was lovely, and on the other side there was a Cumbria Way sign and we followed this, climbing up away from the river, 

We came to a minor road and turned right, heading back towards the coast. By Hall Carleton,  the official route of the England Coast Path restarted. It's in a direct line with where we'd turned left away from the river, rather than crossing one of the "fords" across the River Irt that I wouldn't be too keen to ford, after our perambulation of the marshes when we were here two years ago. It's also in the middle of nowhere. Hey ho! We continued around the road to Saltcoats, and then on a path around the edge of the estuary, with increasingly good views to Ravenglass. A railway bridge heads across the River Ant and, thankfully, this railway bridge has a footpath alongside it; and so we reached Ravenglass. 

We have very much enjoyed the BBC television series "Villages by the Sea", and Ravenglass featured in this series. It's a fascinating little place. There is a high tide and a low tide route  leading south from Ravenglass for about a kilometre. We wanted to use both of them, to make a circuit; high tide was not that far off, so we didn't stop for a proper look around the village,  but rather walked along the main street, and out at the far end onto a path alongside the beach. It was lovely. We reached the end of the path, which is close to the point where the high tide route comes down to the coast. It is best to ignore the public right of way shown on the map as continuing along the coast from this point, unless you want to get wet feet, and it is certainly best to avoid the route marked as a ford that leads across the Esk Estuary to Eskmeals.  Of the three rivers that reach the coast in tis short section, we'd beaten the Irt and the Ant, but the Esk beat us. Again there is a railway bridge, but this doesn't include a pedestrian route, and there are no other reasonable and safe options.

That was the end of the England Coast Path for now, but it wasn't the end of our walk. First of all we wanted to explore Ravenglass properly.  We headed slightly inland, under the railway, and joined a cycleway back towards the village.  We passed the remains of a Roman bath house, which was once part of a large Roman fort. The cycle path was quite busy, but we took a path running parallel with it through trees. Close to the village, we chose a path that led to a closed footbridge over the railway, so we had no real choice but to head onto the platform of the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway (perhaps better known as La'al Ratty), whose terminus is adjacent to the main Ravenglass Station.  We've been on the Ratty when visiting the area with the children; today we just stopped for a cup of tea. Had we been planning to travel on the first train of the day we'd have been disappointed because it was hauled by a diesel engine not steam, though I suspect that some aficionados would be equally excited by the diesel engine. After leaving the station, we headed back to the coast, where the tide was now noticeably higher; we sat on a bench to eat our lunch and were rewarded by an "ordinary" train crossing the River Ant and amused by other visitors, including a man who for some reason was wearing a kilt.

In deciding where to leave our cars this morning, we had made the decision to follow a path above the Esk Estuary up to Muncaster Castle. This route turned out to be part of what is now known as the Eskdale TRail (the capital R is not a typo), an 8 mile end trail linking the beginning and end of the route of La'al Ratty. We'd spotted yesterday, when visiting the Castle, that the trail is signposted from close to the entrance to the Muncaster Estate. The section we walked was a delightful wooded track, though we actually didn't take the route past the Estate entrance, instead following a track which brought us out a few hundred yards down the road from the car park.