Day Eleven: Richmond to Ingleby Cross

Richmond to Ingleby Cross: A whopping 37 km

We had breakfast at seven with the plan of getting on the road as fast as we could. Unfortunately, getting lunch supplies in town took longer than we expected, particularly at the bakery, and we still didn't get started hiking until 8:00. We saw the two English ladies heading up the path behind us and knew that they would pass us sooner or later.

When we stopped in a small village with a phone box, the ladies passed us. We had to phone ahead to the place we were staying that night to tell them that we would like to have supper there. Ingleby Cross is an extremely small center that does have a pub, but our B&B was several miles beyond the community itself and we knew that probably by the time we got there, we were going to be in no shape to back track back into the village to find supper.

A Church in Bolton where we stopped to phone ahead for supper.
There's a man buried in this cemetery who lived to be 169

Today was a day of hiking on and on, plodding along with one foot in front of the other. At one point we took a wrong turn and were stuck on the far side of not one but two rows of barbed wire fence. We attempted to carefully maneuver our way across, and Brent succeeded, but I got my leg, my hair and my hand caught on the wire. It took some careful extraction to get me detached, and we did not manage to do it without drawing blood.

Walking through a barley field
A sad falling down house
Danby Wiske: just over half way and we've been hiking for six hours
Crossing the tracks on a bridge
Another self portrait
Various landscapes through which we traveled

Through another dairy farm

The biggest adrenaline rush we got all day was when we had to cross one of Britain's fastest highways. Unlike the last highway we crossed, which had a bridge, this one we had to run. It took as a good fifteen minutes, first to get across the traffic going one direction, and then to wait on the middle meridian until we could get across the other side.

The highway: doesn't do the speed traffic was going justice
A Manor House: we're almost there!
At last, Park House in the distance

We finally got to the B&B at 6:00, exhausted. The English ladies had beaten us there by almost an hour. Brent's feet had been wet all day (mine stayed dry, thanks to my new Scarpa Goretex boots!) and he had horrible blisters. Park House, however, was lovely. Our room was nice and big and the bed comfortable. The dining room table was big and solid and the floor was slate tiles. Everything was clean and bright and comfortable. Our hostess told us that one of her life dreams was to take the train across Canada, particularly the section across the mountains. This was a recurring theme among British people we wet: they all wanted to take the Rocky Mountaineer across the Rockies.

Our supper was prepared by the B&B owner and we ate with the two ladies, who were also staying at Park House. For dessert I had rhurbarb crisp buried in a big puddle of custard and Brent had the same only with apple crisp. It was SO good. Best dessert of the whole trip.