A day for corrections

There are a number of errors that have been congregating in my head, clogging things up and making it hard to think, so I've decided it's time to download them:

1. It is Carol and Bryan Jones, not Brown.  They have been very kind and forgiving of my error.
2. I mentioned Wuthering Heights and Jane Austin in the same sentence, leaving out Emily Bronte altogether.  I just hope she will be as gracious as the Jones' and I trust my bibliophile friends will not hold it against me.
3. It was probably a grumbling of grouse not a flock of pheasants we saw yesterday, but the males did have bright white stripes around their necks, after all.  This one is still up in the air.  I have forwarded the photo to experts to make a final decision.
4. Not all sheep are skittish.  The ones in Yorkshire seem to be a bit braver.  I'll post a photo tonight as documentation.
5. From time to time I have erroneously labeled the various places we have walked through as villages. Being an American I am really unfamiliar with the proper designations.  I'm told that many of them are actually hamlets, a term I adore.  I think we are in a town tonight, but I will check with the authorities so as not to misinform or confuse you.
6. I'm sure there are many more and I beg your indulgence.  Most of these posts are created after an exhausting day of hiking.

So on to today.  We left Reeth in great spirits (apparently yesterday really was our hump day), finding a wonderful farmers market opening as we left so we could buy some local Dolphinholme goat's cheese and a couple of nectarines for our lunch.  

The big white building on the right was our pub/hotel, The Buck. Not our fave.

It dawned a beautiful day with lots of blue sky.  In fact, I'm a little more concerned about it being too sunny and warm than about rain.  It turned out to be perfect, a comfortable temperature with a pretty consistent cloud cover. Ideal walking weather.

So here's our first correction of the day.  I'm asking for your feedback.  If you were walking and came to a bridge and the map said "cross the bridge" or "go over the bridge," what would you do?  We of course went over the bridge and a few minutes later realized that we had taken a wrong turn and missed the path alongside the river.  If they had said, "Cross the road that goes over the bridge" instead we would have shaved about 15 minutes off our 6-hour walk today.  No harm done.  We had a fun encounter with a repairman who was actually of no help, and we would have missed this:

Things went along quite nicely after that for awhile.  Not quite so many stiles or as much mud, but we were still glad we decided to wear our gaiters. The scenery is spectacular, varying from jungley overgrown paths along the river to wide expanses of hay fields to lush green pastures to dark woods.

Here's the courageous Yorkshire sheep.  Looks like a stuffed toy, doesn't s/he?  Maybe it was just hungrier than scared because it was trying to break into the feed trough while I took this photo.

While we are on the subject of sheep, we saw a sign today that said that sheep worrying is a crime.  Well, frankly, I think I'm more worried about the sheep than they are about me.  We have seen dozens of lame sheep on this trip and a couple from Shropshire found a sheep who was stuck in the river up to its neck yesterday and were able to pull it out, shaking all over and probably hypothermic (the sheep that is)! The couple advised us that sheep are very stupid.  But this one is certainly beautiful! And then there's the fact that many of them are destined to be lamb chops.  Enough about that.

So we come to our second "correction."  It turns out that we really were on the right path at first when we had to climb over a gate that was padlocked, but when we found ourselves VERY close to a BULL we figured something was wrong.  I was way too nervous to snap a photo, even though he was quite handsome. Fortunately he was content to lay there amidst his harem and simply follow us with his eyes as we crossed the field.  Whew!!  Shortly thereafter we realized we were adrift but again fortunately for us we walked into someone's farmyard just as the lady of house was coming out.  She was lovely and gave us clear directions back to path and assured us that we hadn't missed anything.  In fact, the accidental detour allowed us to miss the 375 nun's steps!  We are SO CLEVER!

The rest of the journey was uneventful.  The Green Howards greeted us and guided us for the last hour or so and made us feel quite at home (think Travis AFB).  The sight of Richmond thrilled us.  We are so very ready for a day of rest from walking.  Here was our first glance:

Here you can read about it.

Now we are happily nestled in our B&B, the Anandale Lodge, after a HOT TUB, shower, little walk-about, and a delicious Thai dinner.  The restaurant was full of C2C walkers who were tired of pub grub!  We are all quite chummy now.

We can hardly wait to explore this interesting place.  There's a castle, the oldest continuously operated theater in England and a museum with lots of Harrogate's stuff.  Should be a wonderful day.  Too bad we have to use our feet to see it, but we have the HOT TUB tomorrow night too!!!!!  It suddenly feels like we're on vacation.

Remind me to tell you about Paul Bunyan, the preparation to hiking the C2C book we are writing and a description of our daily routine.

Good night for now and so many thanks to you for your sweet, encouraging emails and comments.  We love you.  Mary