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.