It’s a linear route, but in County Durham the route braids and you’ve a decision to make. Following the hillier northern braid between Barnard Castle and Bishop Auckland through Hamsterley Forest gives you the total mapped distance of 153 miles (246km). Following the southern braid saves you a couple of miles and is easier on the legs.

Being a ‘coast to coast’ route across the more northerly part of England, it’s ‘up hill and down dale’ for much of the way, so if you’re not reasonably fit and used to cycling a decent distant on consecutive days, then some training is probably in order. We think going by the northern braid is comparable overall to cycling the popular C2C route. The aptly named Bigland Hill (just 20 miles into the route from Walney Island) and the lengthy climb up Tan Hill, the highest point on the route at 1,732 feet above sea level, are two particular treats that lay in store – and where you’ll rapidly come to appreciate that it pays to travel as light as possible, and with your tyres pumped up.

The majority of the route is on quiet roads (much of the time) and country lanes, linked together with sections of cycle path, forest road and roughish track. The route through Barrow on Abbey Road can be a tad busy, but cycle lanes do appear, so stick with it and you’ll soon be cruising down the tree-line approach to the impressive remains of Furness Abbey.

For Whitby option info click on the sign or here

Route Profile
Click here to see the Route Profile via Oxenholme (as opposed to going in and out of Kendal), it will open in a new window in PDF format. The total climbing for this route is approximately 1380 metres. Sections on unsealed roads or paths and track account for approximately 14% of the route.

Distances
Here are the cumulative and split distances between the main towns and some villages on the route.

	point to point distance	cumulative distance
Walney Island	0	0
Barrow in Furness	2	2
Ulverston	11	13
Cartmel	12	25
Grange-over-Sands	2	27
Oxenholme / Kendal	15 / 18	43 / 46
Orton	20	63
Kirkby Stephen	13	76
Tan Hill	11	87
Bowes	8	95
Barnard Castle	8	103
via Hamsterley Forest
Hamsterley	14	117
Durham	18	135
Sunderland	18	153
via Bishop Auckland
Bishop Auckland	18	121
Durham	12	133
Wearmouth(Sunderland)	18	151

 

W2W in Cycling Plus
In May 07 the Walney to Wear route was featured in Cycling Plus magazine as a Classic Ride - to read a copy of the article click this link

Route in more detail
The route breaks down into some distinct landscape character areas and we aim to add more details soon. Suffice to say, and as the accounts and photos from early W2W cyclist show, the scenery is superb, with plenty of fascinating heritage woven in with abbeys, castles, museums and market towns:
Barrow and Lake District Peninsulas
South Cumbria's Low Fells and the Lune Gorge
Eden Valley and North Pennines
Land of the Prince Bishops
Sunderland and Wearmouth