The New Lyke Wake Club

Crossing Report 19th September 2021. David Gibson.

This is a follow up email with a few details of the Lyke Wake walk I emailed you about a few days ago.

So, as planned me and Shaun was driven to Ravenscar (on Saturday night, 18th September.) by Shaun’s partner Alyson. We got there a little after 11pm and after getting ready we touched the stone and off we went at 12am. Bang on time for once haha.
Alyson met us at the second check point (from Ravenscar end), made a quick coffee grabbed a sandwich and off we went again. Everything was going great until we got to the boggy bit and boy was that difficult, we fell and sank up to our knees a few times, it was hard going.
We eventually got through all that and met Alyson again near the pub and refilled our drinks and set off again. That was a difficult section for Shaun who lagged behind quite a bit but I stopped and waited for 20 minutes here and there for him to catch up. We reach Clay Bank carpark and Shaun decided after about 30 miles he just couldn’t carry on from that point so I made a quick decision that I’d come this far I wasn’t giving up now. With a bit of encouragement from Shaun I carried on, toward my finish in Osmotherley at the reservoir. Last 10 miles was hard going but I reached the reservoir at 5.30pm, touched the Lyke wake stone and gave myself a pat on the back. Shaun was asleep in the car. Haha
So the crossing took 17 1/2 hours which included the stops and waiting about for Shaun when he was struggling. Taking all of that out I think my crossing would have been 16 hours. This was a 3rd time lucky thing. Since June this year we’ve tried 2 other times. I quit the first time after 20 miles, Shaun quit the second time after 10 miles but this 3rd time I was determined to finish. And finish I did.

All the best

Dave