Day 15: Danby Wiske to Osmotherley

Day 15: Danby Wiske to Osmotherly
 

Subtitle:  Fields of Gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love among the fields of barley?

We’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky, as we walk in fields of gold.

See the west wind move like a lover so, among the fields of barley…

Sing it, Sting!

 Okay. I DON’T hate Sting, but he is sort of pretentious anus at times. But I was reminded of him today on our walk to Osmotherly.  After tidying things up and eating an egg or two at the White Swan Inn, hubby and I began our trek across to the Cleveland Hills. We started the day by visiting the church in Danby Wiske.

These are like Tennessee backroads churches...they all have a graveyard.

Like most of the areas churches, the original church on the site was Saxon in origin and later replaced by a Norman structure with an arched ceiling. There were two standout features in this particular house of worship. (1) The church wasn’t affiliated with any particular religion. Most of these churches were initially Catholic then Anglican. This one holds no particular affiliation. (2) There is a Norman “tympanum” in the front of the church. It shows three figures. 

The tympanum. If you squint and look a little cockeyed, you can see the three figures and the scale on the right. Presumably, Jesus or the Angel of Mercy is in the middle.

 The measure of a man is being weighed out between the two figures.  The good he has done is on one side and the evil on the other. In the middle, presumably Jesus or the Angel of Mercy places his hand beneath the evil  to tip the scales to the side of the good. This was a great thought for starting our day. 

The beautiful pipe organ at the Danby Wiske church. Dig the deco!

 We alternated all day walking between roads, both good ones and unimproved farm tracks, and farmer’s fields.  We definitely walked through rows of glistening wheat bowing and whooshing in the winds. 

We are pretty danged sure this is wheat.

 One thing I think we figured out: We don’t know our grains all that well. We also walked through fields of barley and perhaps soybean and hay, but we weren’t entirely sure. We need a grain and fodder refresher course, if anyone wants to offer it! 
Walking 12 miles through endless fields of grain with your husband inspires some intriguing songfests and conversations. Today’s topic : the WORST song ever written (in English). The competition was FIERCE.  I think we both agreed to despise Bobby Goldsboro’s  Honey for sheer sappiness.  Mingo’s greatest hit—My Cup Runneth Over with Love was also a hated rendition. We thought Ed Ames had an okay voice but really bad material to use it on.  We agreed that nearly any song that had a theme revolving around death was pretty much a candidate (with the possible exception of Jamie Got a Gun.)  SO high on the list: Billy Don’t Be A Hero,  The Ballad of the Green Berets, Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast (and pretty much anything EVER recorded by Wayne Newton including Danke Schoen—not even pronounced correctly we might add), The Night that the Lights Went Out in Georgia, Funny Face, I’m Not Lisa, Where Oh Where Can My Baby Be (I don’t care if Pearl Jam did record it), Daddy Please Stop, The Night Chicago Died, Patches, Party All the Time (in fact, if you were EVER a TV star and you recorded an album, the entire thing probably SUCKS), pretty much anything by REO Speedwagon, Someone’s Knocking at the Door and I Got My Mind Set on You (Come on you ex Beatles—my cat could come up with songs more creative than those), and according to Dave Barry: MacArthur Park (although I kind of like it.) And Achy Breaky Heart,  just cause it’s so fun to diss Billy Ray Cyrus (and Miley, too if you ask me.) Watching Scotty Grow? Someone get me some Phenergran!  But I think we both agreed we would rather hear ANYTHING than Honey. How revolting.

So as you can see, the scenery wasn’t all that interesting but we did see (and smell the byproducts of) a lot of cows, a few horses, etc.

We've seen more sheep and cows than humans. This was our first duck farm. Unfortunately, these cuties are likely destined to be "dead ducks."

And just to top of this day of flat walking and great excitement, we ate lunch at a BP service station. If this isn’t living high on the non-present hogs, I don’t know what is! One big highlight of today was that we got to cross the A-19 (something sort of like I-40) completely without any protection while Brits whizzed by us in their cars at 80mph.  For equally exciting time, cross I-75 around Loudon on game day.

After our burgers at the BP, we reached the Cleveland Hills and made an ascent up to Osmotherly, our first climbing in several days and it was thankfully mild. We have about 13 miles of climbing on the agenda tomorrow too. We reached our target of Osmotherly and the Vane House at about 3pm.

Paul in front of Vane House. There were no vanes.

 We enjoyed an ice cream and a nap before exploring two of the pubs.

A common site shortly after our arrival each day.

 One nice thing about English hand pulled beer. It’s comparatively low in alcohol, rarely reaching much over 4%, there is a lot of local microbrew and it’s taxed by alcohol content, so that many varieties are quite inexpensive. We had a couple of half pints each at two pubs and then went to dinner at the Three Tuns. It’s a VERY upscale pub. A “tun” is a barrel, but we had a glass of wine instead. The meal was tapas style although they also serve full size portions. We had a honey glazed Brie, scallops and a five spice cinnamon lamb—all very tasty and worthy even of a food snob.

Pub #1. I didn't even know there was a Queen Catherine.

Pub #2 . A place for a microbrew.

The three Tuns served us about 3 tons of yummy dinner!

All in all, a good day: Sunshine, temperature in the low 60s, flat easy walking until the last three miles, the beautiful village of Osmotherly, a wonderful dinner, the reminder that someone is frequently and graciously tipping a scale in our favor. And barley--- in the field and in the glass. Cheers!

 

Paul’s Ponderings:

Good weather, good food, and good hiking.   Who could ask for more?   Back into our final round of hills and less than 50 miles to go at this point.   The variety of ales in England never ceases to amaze and is one of the best parts of the walk.   Tomorrow we’re off to Clay Bank Top.  Our dinner tonight at the Three Tuns was quite good, including some "double ginger" ice cream....subtle ginger flavor with small pieces of candied ginger.  

Day 14: Richmond to Danby Wiske

Subtitle: Sign,Sign, Everywhere a Sign (except when you need one)

The UK: Home of the walking redwood tree?

We were given another mostly sunny, if a bit windy day, in Northern England. We bid a fond farewell to our gracious hosts at Millgate House, and started out along the River Swale en route for Danby Wiske. Our route today would, in theory, take us down the (Virgin Connie) Swale River for about 8 miles and then across farmland to Danby Wiske It would also take us by the Richmond Sewage Treatment Plant which assaulted our olfactory nerve yesterday as well--but by a different route. Unfortunately, we misinterpreted the sign for a turn off the bike path and by the time we figured it out we were approximately a mile or two from the turn. So we reconnoitered and decided we could follow the road we were on and reconnect in a town called Carrick Bridge. This gave us about 4 miles of walking on a road, something we have not done a lot of. There was also quite a lot of prescribed  roadway walking today, even without this segment. So as we moved along through Carrick Garrison, Brompton-on-Swale, Colburn, Walkerville and other quaint settlements (which are support cities to a fairly big nearby military base), I started looking at the signs. Brits have such interesting ones. Here's some examples:

We need a few of these in Knoxville along interstate 40!

you have to admire their honesty

These are the signs we looks for all day when available In the Lake District there weren't any

Eventually, we were able to catch back up to the Coast to Coast path, but we missed a lot of our last trek along the river. It was really beautiful. Here's the point at which we departed our watery friend after three days of companionship

Goodbye, Beautiful (Virgin Connie) Swale. River .We will miss ya!

We next entered the village of Bolton-on-Swale which is famous for one thing. Henry Walker. No, he was not the father of Johnny Walker or Luke Sky Walker (yeah, that was Darth Vader. I was SO disappointed when I found that out.) He is the humble and temperate man who in the 17th century attained, according to the wallboard and memorial at St Mary's church, the ripe age of 169!!! You go, Hank! After considerable research, it is agreed in modern times that he was probably only a mere 122 years old at death, but hey, I say after 115 you can claim whatever you want!

The daily churchgoing Parrises visited St. Mary's. The triangular monument to the right is the final resting place of Henry Walker who lived a danged long time.

After Bolton on Swale, except for a shortcut along a creek and through some farmers fields, we were pretty much road bound the rest of the day. It got a little monotonous at times. The scenery isn't shabby, but it was mostly hay bales, wheat, and cows. And hedgerows. In fact, six solid miles of hedgerows on both sides of the road. Who had time to plant all that? In fact, we had problems finding a place to sit down and eat our cheese scones for lunch. There was literally road and hedges. During lunch we realized that if there was a bustle in our hedgerow, we would have to walk six miles to get to the stairway to heaven. And we definitely are not going to walk six MORE miles today.

Where's a fella to have lunch in this danged farmland?

Walking on pavement is quite a lot different than over hill, dale, farm, field, fell, boulder and whatever natural stuff is out there. It get's a little boring at times. Boring enough to spark singing the theme song to Green Acres several times, Gilligan's Island, The Brady Bunch (my husband refused to join me on that one), Rawhide, as well as Teach Your Children, Cinnamon Girl, Wendy, and a rousing rendition of Sugar, Sugar. (Hey, don't say nothing bad about the Archies people.) Paul mentioned that the roads reminded him a little of backroads back home except for the lack of religious messages such as JESUS SAVES. So I sang a chorus of Jesus Saves to him to make him feel at home.
 Finally, we reached the  hamlet of Streetlam and from there, as we progressed along, the town of Danby Wiske was about 1 3/4 miles away on three contiguous signs. What's with that?

I don't know which we found more amusing...our lack of progress to Danby WIske or the correct weight of bovines? What is the next town over: Dogpounds?

Anyway, after 14.5 miles of mostly paved lane travel today, our tired butts finely dragged themselves into the White Swan Inn. There's no white swans, but we were sure glad to see it. Paul will likely ponder about the meal he had, too. Time for me to "sign off."

A sight for sore feet

Paul's Ponderings:

Long hike, mostly on roads, which is in some ways a relief, but in other ways harder on the feet.  Once again, no rain, but a bit blustery along the way.   The food at the White Swan Inn was fantastic.   We were a little disconcerted when the guy checking us in said he would also be the chef, but that sure was a mistaken view.   We had steak pie and lasagna respectively for our main courses and both were great.   That was followed by Tennessee Toffee Pie and ice cream -- also a winner.   I'd say of the pub meals we've had, this had to be the best, although Ennerdale Bridge was a close second.    Tomorrow it's 11 more miles of mostly flat walking over to Osmotherley.   As of right now, we are about 130 miles into the route of approximately 190 miles.   After a day of rest, walking 14.5 miles today was a big change, but we made almost 3 mph time when we were moving due to the flat grade and pavement involved.   Weirdly enough, at one point today we were back to 8 feet above sea level, although Danby Wiske is about 125 above overall.  

Day 13: A Day Out in Richmond

Subtitle: Easy Peasy in Easby

Downtown Richmond, Yorkshire, UK

What's better than a good night's sleep? Not much. (Okay, maybe a shower when you are really filthy!)  We had a wonderful breakfast in the morning room of Millgate House delivered by various teenagers. The three whippets of the house snoozed on the floor near our table (presumably available should scraps materialize.) You can be assured that Paul and I disappointed the dogs.

Breakfast "nook"

We then ran some errands--washed our laundry, bought toothpaste, went to the post office to mail back all the clothes we are not wearing (which is code for making room in suitcase for local beer), and bought a bottle of wine as a thank you for the "family men" who are our hosts. Then it was off on the adventure of exploring Richmond. Tim and Austin and two other guests assured us we would be wasting our efforts if we went to Richmond Castle ("It's really not one of the best castles." We're not castle snobs, so who are we to say?) and suggested we spend our afternoon in Easby. It was a 1.5 mile walk (three round trip) which is usually verboten on the 'rest day', but as they say, "Rules were made to be broken." And break it we did.  They told us to cross the bridge over the Swale River and head for the old railway station. The railway has found Richmond to be lacking and so no longer comes here, but the old station is really lovely and has a plethora of shops purveying local goods as well as a brewery. We got to see a really amazing photographic exhibit in there sponsored by Nikon that included both professional and amateur photographers. Most of the exhibit was really stunning. I wish I could have pilfered a few onto my camera!

All it takes is chocolate and mint chocolate chip to make this man smile (or smirk at least!)

Oh my! It's pie!

The perfect start for an Eton mess.

Cheesy photography

The River Swale. Very lovely but unfortunately always reminds me of the "virgin Connie Swale" on the Dragnet movie. City of Richmond in the background.

After sampling the local ice cream, we walked down the old railway tracks (a rail-trail) to the town of Easby. The features there are the 12th century St. Agnes church, still in use and the Easby Abbey. According the Venerable Beade (I have always wanted to use the VB in a sentence and now, only 50+ years after hearing about the esteemed one, I've done it!), there was a Christian conversion of the Saxons around 700 AD. Some sort of worship facility has been on the site since about 790 and the oldest parts of the St. Agatha church was built in 1150 AD.

St. Aggy inside and...

Out!

The oldest part of the church is the bench in the back which was the only place for anyone to sit down and predates church pews. The baptismal font also has been around that same amount of time. There were paintings from the 13th century as well. I am not sure when the organ dates from, but the details on the pipes were really gorgeous.

For your christening pleasure since 1150 AD

For your viewing pleasure since the 13th century

Get out your magnifying glass and check out the carving on these pipes.

Anyway, Paul and I have been regular churchgoers on this trip, rivaling the three times a week of my childhood and the zealous five times a week of my college years! (Yes, I probably did knock on your door and ask you to come to Bible study.)  In many of these villages, there's only a few houses and an amazing old church. It's been really enjoyable to see them.

Next we moved on to another religious site, the Easby Abbey. This place was in ruins, but absolutely fascinating. When it was established, there were orders of communal non-ordained priests, many of whom served the community, and this was one such residence. It was very large and had many buildings, remnants of which remain intact.  Nearly all of these abbeys were given up to private owners during the reign of Henry the VIII who apparently really got p.o.'d with the pope over his desired change in marital status. The community in Easby supported their priests, but good ole Henry (never a Willie or a Sam), threatened to hang them if Easbyites didn't desist. In fact, no one knows what happened to the priests there. Hopefully, they escaped with their cervical vertebrae intact.

Easby Abbey. A big place!

More views of the Abbey

The communal dining hall of the abbey. Note the beautiful windows. The priests ate in silence.

From the Abbey, we ambled back across the Virgin Connie Swale River along the old railbed. We passed a stone dedicated to the "drummer boy." This tale is so sad, I hate to repeat it, but since it appears to be ingrained in the folklore of Richmond, here it is.  A battalion of the kings soldiers encountered a secret tunnel in the Richmond Castle. They were too large to fit into the opening, so they implored a young drummer boy to go down into the tunnel and beat the drum whilst they followed him on the surface. They followed quite a distance, almost to the abbey, when the drumming ceased and the boy was never seen again. The rock we saw is his headstone. It is believed the tunnel was an escape route to the abbey for the royals in the event of raids by the nearby Scots.

Paul reads the Legend of the Drummer Boy while sitting on his tombstone. (He ain't afraid of no ghost.)

Eventually, we returned to our home away from home at the beautiful Millgate House. We walked up the street to Ken Warne's upscale grocery and secured a local beer and some cheese and had a snack in the garden.

The Cheeseman of Richmond grocery!

We finished off this fine day with a magnificent meal at Richmond Brasserie and Grill: Oysters on the half shell, cod for me, spaghetti with crab for Paul and two great desserts--a caramel cheesecake for the man and I had a lemon posset. It's sort of like a mousse...very zesty. To this point in my life, I had eaten more possums than possets!

Holy Posset, Batman!

Paul's Ponderings:

A very relaxing day in Richmond.   The abbey was huge and it's hard to imagine what life would have been like during that period -- cold and quiet perhaps.   We had some local Richmond ale in the garden and then the best meal since Manchester at the local brasserie.  A nice change from pub-like food, which has been good, but one can only eat so much lamb and venison.  The locals we've encountered are very nice folks....I've been coming here since 1991 (or to various parts of the UK anyway) and have always enjoyed the people I've met along the way.   Tomorrow it's off to Danby Wiske.....another place never visited before.

Day 12: Reeth to Richmond

The living area at our Millgate House apartment opens onto the garden.

BEFORE! Leaving our accomodation in Reeth. We'll spare you the sweaty AFTER photo!

Subtitle: Over Hill Over Dale

After mile upon mile of climbing either mountains or hills, today didn't offer very much in the way of elevation as we covered mostly flat or minor hilly farmland. We bid farewell to our very fit host at Cambridge House (who of course ran down the stairs with our bag in a show of his prowess--and we were impressed. My bag portering would best be described as "dragging." He insisted on taking our photo in front of his sign. Great businessman there!

Paul and the cyclist owner of Cambridge House. Yet another Brit who makes us feel like American underachievers!

 And off we went down the Swale River for a while which is actually very lovely.  Mr M Wise probably said it best in his short poem about Richmond, our destination:

Up above a castle!Down below a stream!
Up above a ruin! Down below a dream!
Man made the castle, rude, forebidding, bare
God made the river, swift, eternal fair.

Upon leaving the river and passing a farmhouse, we essentially bid farewell to the Pennine Mountain Range (pronounced Pen NINE like the number.). We are told we will be on essentially flat ground until almost the coast. The spot of interest on today's hike was the Marrick Priory. This is now an outdoor center and unfortunately,  private. But you can see the old ruins from over the gate. Between the priory and the town of Marrick about 1/4 mile away, the nuns built a set of stone stairs for making the path easier. God bless em! We walked up their handiwork which was probably a back-breaking labor of love. The views yesterday were pastoral and beautiful, but I don't think we will be in for anything stunning until we get near Robin Hood's Bay.  We had a pleasant bog, incline and boulder free descent into Richmond. We had our meal at the Shoulder of Mutton in Kirby Hill outside of town. It was really tasty and a cut above the usual pub fare. One note is that it is about 7 miles outside Richmond, so for those looking at Trip Advisor, be warned that a taxi or a fourteen mile walk is in store should you choose it. But we do recommend it. Probably the highlight of our afternoon was walking into Millgate House, our accomodation. First off, the garden at the house (and we have the garden apartment. Wahoo!) is open to the public and has received the Royal Horticultural Society of England's annual award presented by...Prince Charlie of course! (It's what he does...run around Britian and handout achievement awards--best cow, best rose, best shoulder of mutton, best toilet? Poor man. With all the longevity in his mother's family, he will be entirely shrivelled up before he can hand off the duty of recognizing the UK's gaudiest military uniform to William. Not that Prince Charles won't put the danged thing on and wear it the following day!) The house is also a museum of sorts run by Tim and Austin. They are so amazingly gracious! They were telling us a story about communicating your sexual orientation in Britain. Apparently, if you say, "Are you family?" in the UK, it's a polite way to ask if you are gay.  So when they attempted to go through customs in NYC years ago, they described a queen sized African American lady eying them suspiciously as they both came up to the customs counter, giving them the once over and then asking, "Are you family?" They were so stunned at her perceptiveness, they failed to answer, after which they were told one of them had to go back and get in the line. Anyway, the house is a masterpiece and our room is so relaxing and comfy. Our advice for coast to coast hikers: Stay with "family."

Paul's Ponderings: A welcome low elevation day for hiking across mostly dry fields and paths.  The day started off misty, but became very warm by day's end, perfect for lounging in the garden at Millgate House.   The property was a surprise oasis just off the square in the center of Richmond, with a huge garden apartment for our use -- easily over 1000 square feet with a living room and a large bedroom.  We are about at the 2/3 point of the hike and holding up well, but still glad to have a day off to enjoy this incredible part of Yorkshire.   Our hosts were very gracious and offered us some wine to enjoy on arrival, recommendations on where to dine, and more.   We had a very fine breakfast as well -- one thing I've noticed again and again is that mushrooms are breakfast fare here regularly and they are excellent (if you enjoy them).    We enjoyed more local game fare at dinner last night....more venison and duck.   We heard periodic shotgun fire at a distance during the walk, no doubt related to grouse hunting.   Richmond is the largest town we've seen (and will see) since Manchester, so it's unusual to have traffic and such again.   Tomorrow we start two days totaling about 25 miles of mostly dead flat hiking, which will be our first extended experience of that in some time.    With about 70 miles left in total (leaving out wrong turns), it means we will knock out about 1/3 of what's left on level ground.    Swaledale has been good hiking so far -- dry, not steep, etc.    I won't say "the worst is behind us" just yet, but each passing easier mile is welcome.    Today it's off to see the Richmond Castle and the Easby Abbey (formerly St. Agatha's Monastery).    In particular Easby Abbey is another Premonstratensian one, built in the 1100s originally and, like many others, dissolved by King Henry VIII as part of his vendetta against the church -- his destruction seems to know few bounds across England.   It's a beautiful warm sunny day here in the heart of Yorkshire.

The priory at Marrick. Vehicles not from 1540.

What our hike from today looked like. Audio would be shotguns blasting for grouse.

We reach the outskirts of Richmond. I think this sign is an icon for "coast to coast" types.

The award winning garden at Millgate House.

Paul enjoys the garden and the byproduct of grape production.

Comfy bed....it's making me sleepy just looking at it.

Day 10: Kirkby Stephens to Keld

Nine Standards

Butt House in Keld

Nine Standards from Slightly Below the Crest

Subtitle: A blog about bogs

We woke up to bright sunshine--a rarity in Northern England. And lovely temperatures in the 60s.  After our last meal with our lovely hosts, Gillian and Stephen at Fletcher house, I headed to Eden Outdoors, the local outfitter to see if they had any boots I could wear. Due to having a slightly deformed right foot, I overran my right boot and indented the lateral edge of the nice Keen's I bought causing a pain in my right ankle. Although they didn't stock my exact size,. with some heel inserts and such, I was able to get a nice pair of German leather and Gortex boots that would do the trick. So we got a slightly late start out of Kirkby Stephen. Our journey started with a slow but steady uphill climb--1700 feet over 5 miles. This is MUCH milder than what we experienced in the Lake District. In fact, it reminded us of hiking at home. We passed an old quarry and then up to the halfway point on our journey from St. Bees to Robin Hood Bay. Paul posed for a photo of this momentous occasion. We continued our journey on to the Nine Standards. We could actually see these manmade rock formations coming over from Scar Side two days ago. There are nine big tall rock collections on the top of a mountain in the Pennines. No one knows exactly how they got there or what their purpose is although it is proposed that they are some sort of navigational device. I find it amazing that they are mysterious since the appear to have been installed in the late 1800s. Didn't someone brag about setting up nine huge stone pillars or write someone a letter about it? Apparently not. So even though these pillars stand tall and visible for many miles, they remain enigmatic. After hiking up and taking a close look, we then , of course, hiked DOWN the same mountain. I have to say the hiking was much easier than what we experienced to this points although we were plagued by bogs...and I mean PLAGUED.  We were lucky to be in dry weather without recent rains, but the ground on top of the mountain is eroding. It is naturally an area of heather and peat and that equals bogs. Real deep ones. You only need about an ankle deep to have a miserable day and we were wading through them the whole afternoon.  Remember the part of the Princess Bride where Wesley tells Buttercup that hazards of the fire swamp? And when he gets to the giant man-eating rodents he says, "I don't think they exist."  Well, that is what Paul and I thought about the reputed man-eating bogs. They don't exist either, right? Wrong! Somewhere along the blue trail, I saw my husband disappear up to his hip. Fortunately, only on one side, so the other was out and he escaped relatively unscathed, if you consider icky muddy boots and wet pants something less than a tragedy. My husband doesn't like things that are messy. Sometimes if I drop a plate or a glass, he appears from nowhere with a broom and frantically cleans up my big mess ...or small one. But I always feel like it's big, because he is so distressed by disorderly things (Yeah, I know. I have no clue why he even likes me, much less why we're married !) But Mr. Dot-Your-I-Cross-Your-T took it with remarkable aplomb and continued down the valley. One interesting thing that happened on this hike is that we crossed the continental divide of sorts and the water in Whitsundale Beck (creek to you Americans) ran the opposite direction from the creeks we crossed to this point. It was  beautiful, if boggy, hike down the valley and into Keld. We stopped for a local brewsky at the Keld Lodge and asked for direction to our night's lodging: Butt House (No, I am not kidding.) They poured us a pint and then said, "It' s across the street." And indeed it was. The proprietors, Linda and Tony, run a nice ship here with great rooms and amazing food which we enjoyed in the company of the owners, a couple from Australia and 3 siblings named Oldham(from a family of ten) hiking across the country.  All in all, a much easier and very pleasurable day (if you forget the bogs and all the pain of getting around it.) And it seems fitting that in England a girl named Lou (loo?) would end up in the Butt House.

Paul's Ponderings:

This was a bit of a slog with bogs all around.   However, the day was beautiful and we are now way over half way to the North Sea.   We crossed over the continental divide (so to speak) for the UK, so now the rivers are flow in the direction of the North Sea.   My boots were so muddy it took a good scrubbing to clean them up and they are in the drying room.   Otherwise, this was much less  strenous hiking than the Lake District.