Caldbeck to Carlisle – The Cumbria Way

Caldbeck to Carlisle – The Cumbria Way – Day 6. A relatively easy and flat 15 mile walk on the final section of the Cumbria Way.

We awoke on Saturday 4th May to beautiful blue skies with puffy white clouds and the birds singing.

An amazing freshly cooked English breakfast with all the trimmings at our B&B, Wallace Lane Farm was plenty to set us up for the last day of this years long distance walk, The Cumbria Way.

Make sure that you’ve checked out the previous 5 days walks first. To catch up!

Ulverston to Coniston – The Cumbria Way – Day 1

Coniston to Great Langdale – The Cumbria Way – Day 2

Great Langdale to Borrowdale – The Cumbria Way – Day 3

Borrowdale to Skiddaw House – The Cumbria Way – Day 4

Skiddaw House to Caldbeck – The Cumbria Way – Day 5

Day 6 was going to be a relatively straight forward and uninteresting walk into the suburbs and Industrial surrounds of Carlisle. Still, at least there would be a couple of pubs to visit to stop us from getting bored!

Caldbeck to Carlisle – The Cumbria Way – Day 6

We were extremely grateful to get a lift from the owner of the B&B back into Caldbeck. Thus saving us an hours walk to get back to where we had left off yesterday.

In Caldbeck we visited the local shop to get provisions for the day.

Although we had not long finished our filling breakfasts I have to say I was tempted to dive straight into my locally made pastie but I managed to force myself to hang off until lunchtime!

The picture above looks back on the village of Caldbeck in the trees. The summit of High Pike is to the left and had been covered in a light dusting of snow last night. So fortunately we were not having to walk over that bit today!

Make sure you watch my short video at the bottom of this post to see all the stunning scenery we enjoyed!

Although todays walk from Caldbeck to the city of Carlisle was to be pretty uneventful with scenery, there were still a few interesting buildings to be seen.

The first one we came across was Sebergham St Mary’s Church.

Restored in 1880 the church is medieval in origin and a grade 2 listed building.

Unfortunately we didn’t have the time to investigate the inside. Our celebratory dinner in Carlisle that evening had already been booked!

I can’t remember passing many people (if any at all) on the early part of today’s walk.

There was a lot of farmland to cross and the occassional dodging of cows and sheep.

Plus watching what your feet were stepping in!

Today most of The Cumbria Way also followed the course of the River Caldew into Carlisle.

Walking through picturesque woods, a lot of  these paths are new having been previously washed away and rebuilt since the devastating storms of December 2015 and January 2016.

These woods, and this area in particular are said to be a sanctuary for the increasingly rare red squirrel.

Well, we never saw a glimpse of a single one. We we’ll just have to trust those details are in fact correct!

Continuing to follow the path of the River Caldew, Rose Castle can be seen in the distance. 

Rose Castle was home to the bishops of Carlisle from 1230 to 2009.

Although the castle looks Victorian it has parts dating from many centuries.

The oldest and still surving part of the original building is the pele tower, Stricklands Tower built in 1340. 

These towers were small stone buildings built on the outskirts of the Lake District designed to keep Scottish conquering armies out of England.

There’s a whole history of the castle being attacked and burnt down and then rebuilt. 

If you are able to expand on the information board I take a photograph of above then you can read all about it!

Then suddenly we were back in civilisation again.

We had arrived at Bridge End on the outskirts of Carlisle.

No more fields to walk through or mountains to be seen. The rest of the route to Carlisle would take us through the commuter belt. 

However before that, as is tradition on any of our long distance walks we had a pub to visit and to quench our thirsts!

In fact just one mile and twenty minutes later after having left The Bridge End Inn we found ourselves in another pub!

The Square at Dalston presented us with The Blue Bell pub. So of course it would have been rude to have left that pub out of our itinerary for the day.

We were only 4.5 miles by road from Carlise now so for a final push we felt it was justified to have another pint!

We pushed on for the final few miles past the Nestle factory on the outskirts of Carlisle.

Here we shared a long tarmac path with cyclists and dog walkers. 

The River Caldew is still on our right but now we were joined by the Cumbrian Coast railway line on our left.

That railway line is the very one we had taken from Lancaster to Ulverston 6 days before. If we had stayed on the train instead of getting off at Ulverson we would have ended up in Carlisle!

Just after 5pm we arrived into Carlisle. 

The first place we headed straight for was our accomodation for the evening, The budget chain Ibis. What a come down from all the lovely places we’d stayed at on-route!

Still, it was clean and warm. Our bags had arrived before us so after hot showers we were able to head out straight away for a pre-dinner celebratory drink at The William Rufus (pictured above).

Dinner that evening was again in Carlisle’s best Thai restaurant, the Royal Outpost. Exactly where Lynne and I ended up after our final day on Hadrian’s Wall Path!

So folks that’s the Cumbria Way Walk done.

Next year we were planning to see the other side of the country, and do The Yorkshire Wolds Way. However this was cancelled due to Covid.

Caldbeck to Carlisle – The Cumbria Way Video

For now though, if you enjoyed reading this then you might also be interested in reading about our other walking adventures such as our 96 miles hike of The West Highland Way last year or our videos of our coast to coast walk of Hadrian’s Wall.