Day 14 - Osmotherly to Great Broughton

We're headed to one of those lumpy things in the distance. Way in the distance.












And this is where we came from viewed from one of those lumpy things.








This was a perfect day.

We got started at 9:00 for a change.

The guidebook had scared us by declaring this a "difficult" day. Granted, in the end we took our own course, but we did the double arrows (harder ups and downs) and fairly skipped through it. After two weeks of hiking every day, most of the days with unexpected physical challenges, our legs are stronger and our ailments are manageable. Plus we are a band of very stubborn people.

In contrast to the irregular stony paths of the Lake District, the paths through the moors were paved with large, flat flagstones. We all thought, You're kidding me; this is too easy (relatively speaking).

We went from road to meadow lane to forest to moor to forest to moor to meadow lane to road, with various other elements thrown in for good measure.





Large, flat stones pave our path through the moors.







There were many more people on the trail than we were used to. It's a bank holiday weekend, so there were day trippers who joined the walk-about. There were runners (!) who were doing a Lyke Wake Walk endurance challenge. There were dogs and babies.

Unexpectedly, in one of the dips from the moors to a rural area, we came across a café. It was near a road, so not only were there walkers, but there were motorcyclists, mountain bikers, caravaners, campers, day trippers, dogs, and babies. (The Lyke Wake Walkers/Runners just hurried on by.) It was a treat to drink hot tea and share a cheese scone. Frank said there should be one posted every thirty miles or so on the trail. I agree.














We gave ourselves a treat in the end. There are many ways to get into Great Broughton, where we were spending the night. The traditional way is to go to town through Clay Bank, site of the wainstones, huge rocks that some people rock climb, but most people just stare at with their mouths open. We, however, chose one of the earliest footpaths leading down to G. Broughton, giving the wainstones a miss.

As we neared the town, Frank found a shortcut on his map. He later said the only reason he suggested it is because Tom, Mary, and I seemed so fond of "shortcuts." In fact, our shortcuts, as I've related, have worked out only sometimes.

In any event, we turned off onto the shortcut. It was a footpath that skirted the edge of cow pastures. As we walked by one of them, a calf started looking at us strangely and sort of charged the fence. Then it began running alongside the fence to keep up with us. Then it got a lot of the other cows interested in following us. Soon there was a small stampede in the pasture. The cows were hightailing it to beat us to the end of the pasture. At the end of the pasture, the gate of that pasture and the gate of the next pasture were open and tied together. In other words, we would have to climb the gates, run across the path some of the cows had stampeded across and others were now patrolling and climb over the other side. Did I mention the bull? We walked back to the road and took that into town.

When we got to our hotel, we immediately went to our rooms and fell asleep.

The end is so near!

(P.S. In England a "thwaite" is a meadow. When we passed out of the meadowed area to the moor onto the Cleveland Way, a famous national park trail, I said, "Thwait is over, we're now on th'way." I thought that was pretty clever. I think I was the only one.)

Day 13 - (Near) Danby Wiske to Osmotherly

Quelle disaster! The Sherpa van arrived on time, but we were not packed. Tom and I jammed everything in sight into our suitcases and sent them off to Osmotherly. Ten minutes after the suitcases left, I tried to get dressed to go. Where were my socks? Answer: They were all on the van on the way to Osmotherly. Frank and Mary were very sympathetic, but did not have extra socks. Tom donated his liners to me, as did Frank. Frank had the genius idea to ask the landlady if anyone had left socks behind. Previous guests had left lots of pajamas, but no socks. Sorry.

But wait. The landlady had bought a pair of socks for skiing. Would those do? They were a perfect fit. She wouldn't take money for it, so we made a donation to a local charity instead.

It was a good thing we only had to go ten miles of mostly flat countryside. The delay wouldn't harm us; we'd be to Osmotherly in no time. (Where have you heard that?)




In front of the wonderful Lovesome Hill Farm









On one of the first roads we walked down, we saw a man on an ATV with a dog on his lap and another one running like hell in front of him. I wished I could have taken a picture, but he was gone too fast.

Later down another road, here he came again and pulled into the farm we were headed straight for. The trail ran through his farm's property. In his driveway were these two turkeys, Sid and Chad. They had been destined to be Christmas dinner one year, the farmer's children fell in love, so here are the most spoiled turkeys in all of Yorkshire.

They love the farmer and let him ruffle their feathers. The farmer also talked about the dogs. The one on his lap was sick and the farmer had just been taking him for a ride. The other dog was running just for the hell of it.

Nailed to the side of the stile that took us off his property were a couple of playful toy rats. This farmer was quite a character, and he now has four fans.





My new substitute socks were great but hadn't been washed and were a little stiff. They chaffed a couple of toes, so I had to stop to apply moleskin. So this was the scene. Frank was hunched over applying some sticky stuff to my toes so the moleskin would stick better. Mary and Tom were hovering over me and holding my things. The father and son Dutchmen and the two English brothers came on this scene and after they determined no one had died, burst out laughing. They took a picture of all of us, Frank, Mary, and Tom hamming it up, like I was the queen of the wheat fields, or something. The four guys offered to put together a litter and carry me to Osmotherly. I should have taken them up on it.

I wish every part of the trail had been as clearly marked as this!

Shortly after this picture was taken, we were crossing over a teeny tiny stream, but the banks on either side were incredibly muddy and slippery. In trying to help Mary up the other side, Frank pushed her a little too hard and Mary landed in the mud. I then made it over to the other side and in trying to help Tom up the slope, pulled him a little too hard and he landed in the mud. Is this an example of "pushy" spouses?


Our last push into Osmotherly was through a forest. The area around the road had recently been logged. The path was littered with small branches. Logs were stacked by the side. The place smelled like Christmas. The further along the road we went, the more worried I got. Although we were headed in the right direction, according to the GPS, we were not on any marked trail or road. At one point a faint footpath showed up to the right. Some were convinced this was the first path to Osmotherly. I saw a faint path on the GPS, but it led down the west side of Osmotherly, not into it. We were "discussing" this issue, when a woman happened on us. She had a hat in her hand. Is this yours, she asked us. Why, yes, it was Mary's. She had lost it way at the bottom of the big hill we had been climbing for the last twenty minutes and didn't feel like going back down for it and climbing back up. Isn't this the path to Osmotherly, we asked her. No, we should continue down the big road and take the right hand lane at the fork further on. She was right.

First the little old man with his canes at Lovesome Hill Farm and now this woman who just happened to be walking through the woods. Sometimes you just have to believe that things were meant to be. My first half-pint of Theakston's Black Sheep Ale was toasted to them and to what a lucky day it turned out to be.






Tom has them eating out of his hand.









Tom is pretending to be lost. A few minutes later we almost were lost for real.













Celebratory ale.

Day 12 - Richmond to Danby Wiske

Goodbye to big town Richmond.











The sewage treatment plant, one of the big sights on today's hike.








This day has no outstanding features, except that we said goodbye to Jonathan, who had to return to the U.S. There are no dramatic fells, no sudden sight of a wide, green dale, no bleak and imposing moor. What it does have is 14 miles of road. And hail, thunder, lightning, and incredible amounts of sticky, gooey mud.

This is the first day that we've had truly horrid weather. As we were standing around getting stoned by the pebble-sized hail, we had to laugh. Hail in May. We have been repeatedly told since we entered Yorkshire that the weather is unseasonable. No duh.

Since there are no great vistas or challenges -- except for the last mile -- we found ourselves walking down a country lane or a pasture, increasingly devoted to cows instead of sheep, with our minds wandering and thinking deep thoughts. For instance, almost every town has a distinctively brewed ale. It has a peculiar name, like "Old Peculiar." Maybe it's my surroundings, but I immediately thought that if I had an ale, it would be named "Big Muddy Boots." Then I'd have an ale that would change from a light to darker color as it sat there. I would name that "You Think Your Socks Are Clean, But They're Not." (This is actually what Mary said as she washed her muddy socks for the second time a few days ago.)

There's a note on the map in the guidebook that labeled a path as "muddy." We know from previous experience what that means: big time muddy. This time it surpassed even our expectations. There was not a single blade of grass, leaf of weed, or root of tree to break the monotony of mud. With my walking sticks, I felt as though I was skiing as I slipped and slid down the path.



This was the second outstanding sight of today's walk, far and away better than the sewage treatment plant. Although the mystery of why the sewage treatment plant did not smell is intriguing.












Today's view was either a pasture or a country lane. This is the typical country lane.








And this was the hands-down winner of outstanding sight of the day: sheep playing soccer. We think their rules might be different than ours, with players lying near the goalpost to distract the opposing side. It seems to be working, as the opposition has forgotten about scoring and has gone quietly to sleep.







The storm, having writ large, has moved on to frighten other sheep and hikers.











That's hail at the edge of the grass, still there about 20 minutes after the storm passed.










After negotiating the mud path, several pastures, many country lanes, more pastures, another country lane or two, the sky darkened. We saw sheep run to stand in the shelter of the hedgerows. The wind gusted and big drops started to fall. The drops turned to small hail, which rapidly turned to pebble-sized hail that really stung when it hit our bare skin. Then a humongous thunderclap sounded right over us. Okay, we're not supposed to be by a tree if there's lightning, but we'll be darned if we'll let hail punch holes in our head. We decided to head quickly down the path and pretend nothing was happening. The path ran down the side of one of the hedgerows where some sheep were cowering. It was a miserable battle in their pea-sized brains about which was worse: the hail/lightning or us. We won. The sheep stampeded back to the middle of the pasture and collected a fair amount of hail on their backs. As far as we know, no sheep or hikers were harmed in the making of this storm. But now we were soaked (no rain pants) and the water had run down our pant legs into our boots.

The other advantage to wandering down the road with nothing spectacular to look at, I find myself listening and looking at the ordinary more carefully. There are beautiful wildflowers scattered all over the place: bluebells, buttercups, a pink thing, another blue thing, and the white flowers of wild garlic. The birds are singing like crazy. There are nests on many of the trees. A heron pauses to let us almost take its picture. Six bunnies sit on a highly manicured lawn in front of a modern mansion.

But nature can be vicious. Besides "Mud Path," we wandered through "Prickly Lane." Within a short space (maybe 100 feet) there were nettles, thistles, holly, gorse, and hawthorne, all things that sting, jab, prick, and stab. It was a prickly convention. Ducking and dodging became a matter of survival.

The day mostly wasn't as miserable as I'm making it sound, it mostly was just ordinary. Until the last mile.

We actually are not staying in Danby Wiske, but about a mile and a half out of town at a place called "Lovesome Hill Farm." We were sent instructions on how to get to the B&B using a "shortcut." I put "shortcut" in quotations because that it was not. Supposedly there was a footpath across several fields leading straight to the farm. We managed to find the start of the path, but then it petered out in one of the many fields that were planted with some kind of crop.We extemporized and wound up slogging through heavy mud, the kind that clung to our boots and made each foot weigh 20 pounds. Then we found ourselves in a field with no exit. Tantalizingly, I could see the farm on the GPS and the right footpath one and a half pastures away. We clambered over a fence, trespassing on someone's field to get back to the path. The GPS said it was just one more field over, but there were horses in that field and it just didn't seem right. I wanted to go back, but Tom had had enough, so we walked through someone's backyard and exited through their driveway. I was sure I could hear the police sirens. As we walked by the house next door, the one whose backyard I wanted to go into, a HUGE dog came barking over and placed its massive paws on the fence. It was salivating and its eyes were on fire. Food, he said, come here. Eek, we said, and walked quickly away. Close call.

So there we were:on a path up the bank on the side of a busy street -- I mean those cars were really moving -- and no visible means of crossing over. We couldn't see how to get down the bank either. And there was Lovesome Hill Farm. Right across the street. Right there. The sign said so. We could almost touch it. If our arms had been fifty feet long.

We looked up and down the path we were on and saw nothing that could help us out of our dilemma. The only thing we saw was an old gentleman, slowly toddling along with the help of two canes. What could he do to help us? He saw us looking around, and immediately sussed out our problem. He pointed to right where Mary's foot was and said, "You go down that path to the highway. Careful crossing over." Sure enough there was a path hidden in the grass. We never would have found it. Never underestimate where your help may come from. And never underestimate how much 20 pounds of mud attached to your shoes will slow you down as you play "Frogger" over a highway.

Ree-bit. We made it across.