Day 11 -Reeth to Richmond

We didn’t have a lot of time to explore Reeth yesterday, but then there’s not a lot to explore. The village green has a couple of benches. Surrounding it are the pubs, tiny stores, and a church.

Jonathan’s pub/hotel has its sign upsidedown. A previous owner had gone to much expense to blast the worn paint from the rocks underlying it. The government informed him that he needed to repaint it because that’s what it looked like during an historically relevant period of time. Grumbling, he repainted it. When the sign for his tavern was put back up, the hanger accidentally put it upside down. Purportedly the owner said, “Leave it that way. I don’t care anymore.” The official site for the tavern, The Black Bull, says that “pranksters” turned the sign upside down in protest of the official command. Who knows?

We have almost always wished to have more time to explore the little villages we’ve come across, but it was not meant to be this trip. The walk is everything. It consumes our waking hours. If we are not walking, we are washing, sorting, unpacking, packing, or buying supplies. As you know, we have been in a new place every night! Last night I asked Tom what The George Hotel was like because I couldn’t remember it. Cyclists, pub, chocolate factory, two hairdryers. Ah, yes. And that is the sacrifice we are making to do the walk. We are not tourists, we are drifters, pilgrims, passers-by. We look in windows to glimpse flashes of an alien culture.

Speaking of looking in windows.

I took this picture of a house next to the bus stop bench where we ate our lunch. I liked the garden (which you can barely see in this tiny shot). I noticed a woman sitting in one of the windows, talking on the phone. I waved to her, and she waved back. Someone in a bigger city would have called the police.

At breakfast at our B&B, we sat with a Dutch father and son. We’ve begun to recognize and fraternize with many of the walkers. We had seen the father and son before but never talked with them at length. (The number of parent and child walking groups has been larger than I would have expected.) When we were saying goodbyes, the father said he had heard that the day would be really stormy. It set the gloomy tone for the beginning of the walk. Storm clouds did look to be on the horizon as we left.




Storm clouds, wet streets, our B&B









A couple of miles out of town, we came to a 15th, 16th, or 17th century abbey. (I read the sign, but don’t remember. Everything is old.) It is now a working farm/retreat. Not far away, our ascent up a hill began on the “nun’s steps,” 375 of them, the guidebook claimed.














The forecasted rain had not started. It was distinctly warmer. Before tackling the nuns’ steps, I briefly wondered if I should remove my rain jacket and pants, both of which can be torture if it’s warm. Nah, I thought, it’s bound to rain. The Dutch guy said so.

(1) There are no steps; there are a lot of flagstones and littler stones paving the way. (2) The nuns must have had big feet, because (3) I took at least 500 steps before the stones disappeared. (4) It would have been treacherous had the steps been wet. (5) Meaning, it didn’t rain. (6) Meaning, the rain jacket and pants were torture.

At the top of the hill I took off the rain jacket and pants. Whew.

Little cool gusts of wind would scare me every once in a while, but it didn't rain the rest of the walk.





The only hill in sight for miles, and we have to climb it -- of course.









James Herriott country












It turned out to be a fairly quick walk. We arrived in Richmond, the biggest town we've been in so far, at 2:30. We hit a tea room, Boots (a pharmacy/health needs place), a bookstore, teller machine, Scottish woolens store, and grocery store within a short period of time, thrilled to actually get to experience a town before everything shut up.

Dinner was at a fancy pub. A half-pint of Guinness and a half-pint of Thurston's something-or-other. A mozzarella salad so I don't feel so sluggardly.






Tom on a turtle bench outside a 15th, 16th, or 17th c. church.

Day 10 - Keld to Reeth

Be wary of anything that starts with, “The guidebook said…” You know what-it-didn’t-say is going to follow

The guidebook said it was a pleasant 4-1/2 hour stroll from Keld to Reeth in a neighboring valley. As a matter of fact, it recommended not rushing this leg, since what would you do if you arrived in Reeth too soon. (Sleep, have tea, get souvenirs, find the internet, take lots of Advil…) As a matter of fact, you could arrive in Reeth in time for lunch. Where had we heard this before?




Keld is rightly proud of their waterfall.











Muker’s main street.









Following the guidebook’s advice, we detoured to Muker (Mew-ker), a village that specializes in handcrafted woolen items, to spend our extra time. It was wonderfully quaint. The store was quaint, the woolen store was quaint, the souvenir shop was quaint, even the washing basin in the public bathrooms was quaint. The people were nice and we tarried far too long. But then that’s our modus operandi anyway. We fiddle and adjust. One person disappears over there, another soon disappears over here. As Tom said, the unlikelihood of the five of us being in one place at the same time is part of our charm. (Actually he said something else, but this is my translation.)






Leaving Muker for Gunnerside, another small village, via a narrow footbridge over the rushing Swale River.








The most charming aspect of Muker, however, was not the little houses, shops, or gardens; it was the flagged path through the sheepfolds.

If you will remember, we have great experience tromping through sheepfolds. The farms of Muker use the pastures through which the path crosses to grow meadow grass to feed the sheep in the winter. The less we hikers tromp through their meadows the better. It was a pleasure to be able to walk through the sheepfolds without dancing around the goop or twisting our ankles in the rabbit holes. We sailed through five or six sheepfolds that way and were in Muker in no time.

Another aside about fidgeting and adjusting. We stopped a record three times within the first hour. This day was the worst day for weather changing on a dime. The minute we stepped outside the Keld Lodge, we were all putting on rain gear as the first drops of the day fell. About twenty minutes later, we were all removing the rain gear as the sun came through and we sweated our way up to the top of a hill. Of course, that meant the rain started again. Most of us ended up with our rain gear half on and half off, meaning one-half of most of us was soaked. (Don’t try to figure that out mathematically.)

It wasn’t really a day for admiring the countryside, although we did that. It was a chance to see a couple of small villages in action. Although the only people we saw were the shop people and a couple of people running errands, we peered into windows and oohed over gardens.

As we came over the rise for the last time, descending into the wide valley that is the home to Reeth, we were overwhelmed by how green everything is. The rain wasn’t really bothering us anymore. A fresh, cool breeze blew up the valley. We saw a strange “swinging bridge,” built in 2003 to replace a bridge destroyed by a flood in 2000. It’s just like the narrow footbridge by Muker. It was rebuilt to allow the congregations on both sides of the river to attend Sunday services. That’s quite a walk!





Although we got to town too late (5:00) to do much exploring, we did manage to search three pubs for pints of Old Peculiar, Frank’s obsession. It is a great ale, and it went well with our pub food dinner.

Our “short stroll” into Reeth turned into an seven hour hike, but we learned a lot today.