DISCOVER - CUMBRIA'S PRECIOUS COAST

Travellers flock to Cumbria's fells and lakes, but few visit its rugged coastline. That may be about to change with the opening of a dramatic new stretch of coast path,

- Julie Brominicks

"The Lakes? Who’d want to go there?” The first coast-path users I meet are local as will all the others be, save for hikers leaving St Bees on the Coast to Coast Path bound for Robin Hood’s Bay in North Yorkshire. I have pointed out how quiet the Cumbrian coast is compared to the Lake District National Park, just a short way inland. They'll be crawling over each other like ants there today,” my new friend from Millom snorts. And it will cost them a Sharm and aleg to park.”

His companion pokes him cheerfully with awalking stick before adding, witha sweeping gesture that takes in the Duddon Estuary: You don’t need acar here. It’s grand! And it’s all free.” look at the sparkling sea, the bird’s foot trefoil gilding the derelict iron-ore quarry now a nature reserve), and heartily concur.

I am walking the coast between Millom and Whitehaven. Offshore is Walney Wind Farm and the Isle of Man, while inland the Western Fells of the Lake District press close then collapse into sheep and dairy pasture, hedged lanes and maritime grassland that sprawls to the shore. Yet the coast is largely ignored by the multitudes who frequent the Lakes. A few come to Ravenglass, the only settlement in the National Park that is also on the coast, to St Bees for the Coast to Coast Path, or to the beach at Seascale, a former Victorian resort. The rest are presumably deterred by mountains, rural roads (unaware of the excellent coastal railway network), weaponstesting ranges, industries and particularly by Sellafield Nuclear Power Station.

Nuclear activity is scaling back these days, while the iron-ore quarry at Millom and White haven colliery have closed. Despite all this activity, the coastal margin includes key habitats for terns, natterjack toads, orchids, adders and auks. Fishermen are out now, digging for worms in channels left by the ebbing tide.