The Longest Walk

Climb ev'ry mountain: Or, at least, walk up every hill on this coast-to-coast tour of England. The Longest Walk

“England’s green and pleasant land” up close and personal.

by Toby Zinman

"And we're away."

With this quietly delivered line -- a line I’d hear many times in the week to come -- our group of 12 walkers began our hike.

After weeks of watching scenery fly by outside BritRail's windows, I was finally going to step into this lovely and well-ordered landscape. Literally: I was going to walk across England.

Seventy-six miles in six days -- two strenuous and four easy -- through the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales and the North Yorkshire Moors to Whitby, where we ceremonially dipped our hiking boots into the North Sea and drank champagne on the beach.

Organized by The Wayfarers, a group that arranges luxury walking vacations in the U.K. and Europe, this coast-to-coast walk is their most arduous, although given the warm sunny days (only once did it drizzle) and the confidence I felt as I got stronger each day (I did it! I did it!), I felt by week's end I could have walked right through the next month. The old wish, "May the wind be at your back and the road rise up to meet you," suddenly made sense; we walked west to east to keep the prevailing winds at our backs, which is far less tiring than walking into the wind, although the road -- well, footpath -- often rose up to meet us rather too steeply.

And although the word "luxury"is usually combined with ones like "limousine" and "private jet," it works perfectly with walking. You get lots of strenuous exercise and fresh air, and then, after trudging through sun-drenched fields of hip-high barley and across meadows of buttercups, up sheep-covered hills and through dark scented woods, over and through stiles of every description (stone, wood, ladder, kissing, gate) until, when you're thinking there's nothing in your immediate future but another hill, there, in the middle of nowhere, is an 18th-century country inn, or a manor house that looks as if it's a Masterpiece Theatre set, or even a full-fledged 17th-century ivy-covered turreted castle. Your room is waiting, your bag is magically already in it, the shower is hot and drinks in the "snug" await, with an elegant dinner to follow. And, with this much exercise, I didn't even debate with myself about dessert.

Lunches were at country pubs along the way. One, The Foresters, was actually built in the 11th century, and another, called The Mortal Man, was established by Sally Birkett in 1689 and has this poem painted on its bar wall:

O mortal man, that lives by bread,

What is it makes thy nose so red?

Thou silly fool, that looks't so pale,

Tis drinking Sally Birkett's ale.

Along our route, we walked by two of Richard III's castles, and through the ruins of two beautiful abbeys (destroyed when Henry VIII had all the roofs removed and the monks driven out). We had a little ride on a steam railroad train -- the same one they used in the Harry Potter movies for the Hogwart's Express -- and one day, if we got up early, we had a half-hour to walk through a village market. We saw classic English cottages covered with roses, and we walked by ancient stone walls built without cement hundreds of years ago when the fields were first cleared. We met two men who were repairing a stone wall in the old way, fitting the shapes of the stones together.

The black-and-white Holstein cows were "normal"-size cows by my totally urban standards, while the gorgeous brown-and-cream Jerseys were huge hulks and had long, pale eyelashes. There was the occasional hand-painted sign on a fence saying "beware of bull." Sheep, I discovered, awaken at daybreak (about 4:30 a.m.) and call to each other; this is called "the sheep's dawn chorus." Sheep have really, really loud voices.

Wayfarers' guides are the kind of guys who immediately inspire confidence and then earn it -- no bracken is too dense to hide a footpath -- and, complete with broad Yorkshire accents, courtly manners and steely blue eyes, our guides kept us all, seemingly effortlessly, on schedule. No hurrying, no coddling, just steady, cheerful walking.

The walkers were Americans and Canadians and all good company. We sang, we told jokes, we narrated life stories and sometimes just walked along in companionable silence -- nothing like an uphill climb to shut us up. Many of these people have walked the world and tell sensational stories about leeches in their bloody boots in Nepal, and walking through 12 days of solid rain in Sicily.

On the last morning, during our ride to the railroad station in a van, I discovered how radically altered my sense of distance had become; 15 miles by car takes about 15 minutes, while 15 miles by foot takes a whole day. I looked out the van window and the world zipped by with barely time to register the landmarks, much less the details, and I realized I'd had a very privileged week, moving through the world at an old-fashioned pace with old-fashioned perspective, moment by moment, step by step.

For more information about walking tours or rail tours, contact The Wayfarers (www.thewayfarers.com) or BritRail (www.britrail.net).