Day 15 to Robin Hood Bay ( 13th day hiking - last day - 32.5 K)

WE MADE IT! 309 kms coast to coast from St. Bees to Robin Hood Bay! Today, 32.5k, 9 hours. We stayed last night in Glaisdale in a lovely new house - 1.5 miles west of town. There were two other hikers staying there, Emily and Matthew (M was hiking the C2C in 7 days). The B&B host drove us to the pub for dinner (where we caught up with all the usuals, as it was the only place in town) and the landlord drove us home. We left the B&B at 8:15, and while it took us some time to make our way to the route, we surprised several hikers today as we were ahead of them. Most of the regulars are seasoned long distance hikers and cover the ground a bit faster than we do. Today, from a positive perspective, was a review of the whole trail. We hit woodland, stone paths, hills, with steep ups and downs, metalled roads, gravel roads, BOGs, (including the last bog, which was 'toxic'), stepping stones, moors and fords. The less positive way of looking at this day is to say it was a long meandering path to the end. We aimed north of Robin Hood Bay, we suspect intentionally, to get us 5 kms of walking along the coast. This was wonderful, yet a LOT of additional up and down at the end of two back to back 30+ days. We finally saw Robin Hood Bay, a very sheltered cove (and popular resort town). We came in at the top end, and everyone warned us it is a very steep walk to the bottom. Fortunately, our B&B, Cote Bank, is halfway down the steep. We dropped everything off, had a quick shower and made our way to the sea, to drop off our pebbles (picked up at St. Bees) and have a pint at the Wainwright Bar where we saw several of the hikers we knew, some with families that had come to meet them. It was a busy spot and we carried our beer outside to sit on the steps with our fellow travelers. We are weary but completed the whole walk without any blisters. Looking forward to a slight sleep in tomorrow and limited walking as we make our way to Manchester taking a cab from the B&B door directly to the train station at Scarborough. We left one pair of worn boots each for the landlady - she uses them for flower pots.