The New Lyke Wake Club

Crossing 24-25th July 2020.

I would like to report our crossing and just-about-successful completion of the Lyke Wake Walk starting on the night of Saturday 25th July, ending the evening of Sunday 26th July.
Our party included four London flatmates who are all friends from university (me – Sally, Jess, Katherine and Matthew). Having been born and raised in Yorkshire, I had the Lyke Wake Walk on my bucket list and was pleased I had successfully roped in three friends who were also keen walkers. I am not too proud to say that I definitely underestimated this walk.
We roughly began from Osmotherley at 22.35 and ended in Ravenscar at 19.40.
We started out pretty well, battling the rain, wind, darkness and an early injury. Jess set a pretty fierce pace at the start – this would not last long… Navigation in the dark proved not too taxing due to the well-signposted Cleveland Way. “It’s not just a path, it’s a way of life. The Cleveland Way”. Safe to say, it wasn’t long before the sleep-deprived delirium settled in, particularly as we had already been awake for that day (and one of us had done a whole day’s work in London! Shout out to Katherine).
We eventually reached the Lion’s Inn, once we realised that it was not another mirage in the mist. We were greeted there by one of our support team, Ian, who met us with bacon baps, tea, flapjack and dad jokes. Lifesaver.
It’s probably fair to say that it all went downhill (mentally) from there. The bog was a real highlight just due to the soft ground underfoot.
We regrettably lost one of our party to injury just after the bog so it was just the girls that continued onwards. RIP Matthew.
Conversation slowly dried up after that as we reallised we were actually still really far away. We did not Lyke this.
Seeing and waving at the steam train as we crossed the railway was one of the few highlights that came after that. Honestly, the rest was a bit of a blur of misery. We were met at Checkpoint 6 by our support team Ian and Rebecca (and Matthew now). They managed to spur us on to the finish, as we brought meaning to the phrase ‘walking hard or hardly walking’. Credit to Jess for that pun.
So, 21 hours and 1000 blisters later, we made it! Just. Wooo! ?
All in all, a harrowing experience, but one that I am really glad (and amazed) we did.
Thanks again to our truly amazing support team! ??