Sunday 12th August 2012 - registration is now open

An unforgettable experience and a perfect activity for a summer's day.

Click here to watch a video of 2011's walkers heading out onto the bay, with thanks to Gibraltar Farm who also kindly host the start of the walk.

The 6 mile route for this beautiful and exhilarating walk leads you from the shore at Silverdale out into the heart of the bay before heading in to Hest Bank shore, accompanied at all times by a team of expert Bay Guides.

The walk is suitable for children and dogs are welcome. Support vehicles will be on hand should any walker feel too tired or, for any reason, unable to complete the walk.

Registration is now open at a discounted rate of £10 per person (full price £15 for walkers wishing to register on the day) which includes transport and refreshments.

The walk will arrive at Hest Bank shore in time to cheer the runners through the finish line so it's a great option for family and friends there to support half marathon competitors.

Walkers may either park at Hest Bank and take a coach to Silverdale before the walk or travel independently to Silverdale and take a coach back in the afternoon to collect any vehicles.

The walk takes approximately 2.5 hours to complete.

Cross Bay Challenge exists to raise important funds for CancerCare. Owing to its highly unusual nature, The Cross Bay is an expensive event to stage and this is where your entry fees go. If you would like to support the charity in its work helping those affected by cancer, whether as patients, carers or family members, then please either donate during the registration process or try to raise sponsorship amongst friends and family – a little effort by a lot of people goes a long way!

Crossing the Sands - a History

by Dr Andrew White

Morecambe Bay is the largest intertidal area in this country and is host to a great many migrating birds and a very extensive flora and fauna of its own. The sands of Morecambe Bay have also always held an attraction to travellers. On a clear day the opposite side of the Bay can be seen, apparently very close. The sands at low tide seem inviting, and the route beckons. A sequence of crossings at low tide gives access from Arnside or Hest Bank near Lancaster to Kents Bank near Grange across the Keer and Kent, then from Flookburgh to Conishead Bank or Ulverston across the Leven, and finally across the river Duddon to Millom. Adventurous spirits such as John Wesley even undertook a further crossing of the estuary at Ravenglass on the west Cumbrian coast, all in one day. The alternative was, for centuries, a long and arduous journey around the coast, adding many miles to the route.

But there was a price to pay for the convenience. Records show many hundreds of travellers who went astray on the sands in darkness or fog, or by leaving the crossing too late, and were drowned. The route has probably been used for thousands of years, but written records only start in the Middle Ages. One of the early victims was Michael de Furness, lord of Aldingham, drowned on the sands in 1269 after dining too well and staying too long with the Prior of Cartmel. In 1325 the Abbot of Furness obtained the services of a Coroner to adjudicate on deaths on the sands, 'to the number of sixteen at one time', as his plea ran, indicating the level of risk at that time.

Later the three abbeys with lands adjoining the Bay, Furness, Cartmel and Conishead, provided guides to the sands, and this office survived the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century and still survives, the salary now paid by the Duchy of Lancaster. The guides' duty was to mark a safe route amid quicksands and river channels each day and each tide, and generally they stayed with their horse at the main crossings for a couple of hours either side of the low tide. The traditional method of marking the safe route was with laurel 'brobs' driven into the sands, which had to be replaced each tide. This method is still used.

Fishermen also use the Bay to harvest cockles, mussels, shrimps, prawns and flatfish such as flounder. These all have their own specific methods of catching, which require an intimate knowledge of the Bay and its various habitats. Cockles burrow into the sand and lie at the bottom of a long tube at low tide. The cocklers have to bring them to the surface by simulating the noise of rain or tidal water using devices to rock upon the sand such as a 'jumbo'. Cockles and mussels are flicked into baskets using a long-handled fork called a 'craam'. Shrimps, prawns and flounder are caught at high tide or in the deep channels using hand nets or trawl nets drawn behind a cart drawn by a tractor. This is one of the few places in the country where fishermen go out on tractors. Shrimps and prawns are also caught in trawls towed behind boats.

Almost all traffic used the Bay as a short cut until the turnpike roads around the head of the Bay were improved in the 1820s and until the opening of the Furness Railway in 1857, when a safer and quicker alternative became available. Those crossing included coaches, wagons and carriers' carts, operating daily as the tides would permit, and many pedestrians and packhorses carrying goods to market. For safety many would travel together, and accidents were rare in proportion to the numbers who used the route. However, the Bay was and is unforgiving. Even fishermen who used the Bay regularly were caught out from time to time, while the worst risks came from disorientation caused by dark or mist, or when the time of crossing was misjudged.

The two worst disasters were in the 19th century when in 1846 a cart carrying nine young people including two women, on their way back from Ulverston Whitsuntide Fair, plunged into a water-filled hole on the sands. A similar accident occurred in 1857 when twelve young men returning from farm service were drowned when their cart overturned in the dark on the way to Lancaster.

These accidents were however eclipsed by the tragedy of February 2004 when at least twenty and possibly as many as twenty-four Chinese cockle pickers, most of whom had never seen the sea before, were caught by the incoming tide while working off Hest Bank in darkness and all drowned.

Despite these dangers the Bay still attracts crossers, this time for pleasure, and the journey can be a most delightful experience, especially if the weather is good. Walks are always now supervised and led by experienced guides, and the safety record of such walks is impeccable, aided now by GPS and mobile phones.

Text (c) copyright 2009 by Dr Andrew White