My Advent Calendar - Day 16

December 16^th

Welcome to Day 16 of my Advent Calendar, where I am reliving my Coast to Coast adventure!

Day 9

~ Yorkshire is muddy, Last of the hills (for a while), Richmond, England lose on penalties ~

After the wet, craziness of the previous few days we were very glad to get back to simple walking again. We began on the road but then left it for the path to Richmond. The weather was dry with some blue sky peeking between the clouds and we made good progress for a while. The rain, though, had taken its toll on the countryside. The fields and woods were very muddy and the path horribly sticky, which slowed us down considerably.

            We were approaching the Vale of York now and the land was flattening out, although there was the odd difficult climb up slippery slopes. At the top of one particularly muddy ascent we stopped for a while and were caught up by two men who we’d not met before. They, like most people, commented on our large bags and claimed that they had also done the Coast to Coast carrying all their gear (‘doing it the hard way’ as they called it), but this time were walking it in 12 days for a different challenge, which explained why we hadn’t seen them yet.
            We walked on and soon got good views of Richmond ahead as we slowly came off what would be the last hill for many miles (although we could just pick out the moors in the distance). Suddenly, as we entered Richmond in the late afternoon, we felt like we were back in civilisation with lots of people and cars and a Co-op where we stocked up on food. Richmond is easily the biggest place the walk passes through and we saw several people we hadn’t met for a while. Nikka was one, she was back by herself again but still enjoying the walk.
            Most people stop in Richmond, some even take a day out of walking and stay for two nights, but we pressed on for a couple more miles. The next day was to be the longest and we planned to eat up a few miles that night.
            We eventually stopped at a pub, called The Hilyard Arms, in Colburn and waited for someone to open up. Not long later the owner’s son arrived and told us to pitch anywhere and feel free to join them. The tent was beginning to smell and so we left it and went inside. The pub filled quickly because of the England game, which we half watched from the other room. You may remember that England made a predictable exit on penalties. It wasn’t a problem though, there were much bigger sporting contests to come!
 

A pleasant morning.

 

Looking down to Richmond