Comment: 10 miles
This being such a short day, we had no hesitation in setting out - pleased to be 'back on the map'. The Yorkshire countryside ahead of us looked low, undulating and pleasingly grassy - providing soft walking underfoot.
| We saw so many styles this day we lost count in the first couple of hours, many of which were of the 'squeeze-through' type, which can be difficult with a back-pack. A lot of the fields were tiny; surrounded by dry-stone-walls. Sometimes the route crosses these fields across the middle, and one feels guilty about disturbing sleepy sheep, and yet at the same time compelled to stay on the public right-of-way. |  |
Progress was swift and pleasant, but we had walked 3 days in a row and our feet were hurting again. We arrived in Richmond with time to explore. It seemed a very busy, noisey town after what we had experienced up to now. There were cars everywhere - and I think we hadn't seen traffic-lights since the start of our journey in St Bees.
We wanted to go straight to our B&B to rest a while before the evening. Unfortunately we had to go through the town, down a steep hill to the bridge over the river and up another steep hill. I think it must have looked like we were staggering up that hill, but we made it and were grateful to find a very pleasant B&B with comfortable accomodations. As we settled in, we heard another guest being shown a room next door, and to our great surprise it turned out to be Ian (number 1), who we had seen on days 1 and 4. I am glad to say the three of us decided to have dinner together that evening in Richmond which was terrific, as we chat about our experiences and our aches and pains.
By the end of the evening we had walked up and down that hill into the centre of Richmond 3 times, and we were shattered. We needed another rest-day, and discussed this possibility with the proprietor of the B&B. Buses departed frequently from the centre of Richmond we realised to our horror that we would have to walk up that hill again to catch our bus.
Copyright © 2000 Tim Reeves