Day eleven was a short hike, mostly still transitioning into the moors. The day was pretty uneventful until we neared Osmotherley. At one point, we had to cross 6 lanes of traffic as there was no bridge spanning the highway. After that, we made our way into Ingleby Arncliffe, which noted that we had 50 more miles to go. Three more days and we would be In Robin Hood’s Bay.
After crossing another large road, we started making our way up the first incline heading toward the edge of the first moor. The path wound us through Arncliffe Woods, the last woods we would walk through on our trip. Grouse were everywhere. And we would continue to see a ton of them throughout our hike through the moors.
The Coast to Coast path makes a sharp turn to the left near the top of the wooded hill. As we were stopping at Osmotherley for the night, our path stayed straight toward town. As we came out of the woods, the path continued to lead us up.
At the far end of the path, we saw a herd of cattle. As we approached, we saw they were huddle around the gate we needed to pass through.
Having been thoroughly spooked by all the tales we heard about cow attacks, we were unsure of how to approach. Granted, there were no babies, but we were still wary.
We skirted far to the right, through mud. A family came through from the other direction, nudging around them as we were trying to. Then, this old woman comes walk through, lifting her arms high in the air: “Go on! Get on with you! Move on!” And the cows parted ways for her to pass through, but immediately closing the gap again. We were gobsmacked at her audacity, feeling pitiful for our cowardice!
After we made it through the gate, we stopped to take pictures of the cows. So, to back up… we have a Brittany Spaniel that we adore. He is the biggest kook of a dog. The second time Ron and I went to Ireland together, we saw a field of orange and white cows. We weren’t in a position to stop and take photos, though. We started referring to orange and white cows as “Bubba cows” (Bubba is the nickname we have for our dog… Odysseus, Odi, or Bubba…. or fat ass…. or fat mother fucker ~ he answers to any of those 😂).
Anywho, so for years we have been trying to find another field full of Bubba cows because I have some weird desire to photoshop Odi into a field of Bubba cows. Don’t ask me why; I just do. As we walked through all of these fields of cows, day after day, we hadn’t seen a single Bubba cow. This group of cows, besides one oddball black cow, these were all Bubba cows! A WHOLE PASTURE OF BUBBA COWS!!! I was stoked! AND these turned out to be the last pasture of cows we saw, so man did I feel lucky!
We probably spend half an hour photographing these bloody cows. This is also the second part of the journey where an animal cozied up to me. One cow came in for a good scratch and some love.
So, I’ve warned about dogs and cows. Really, the best way is for your dog to be off leash if they’re well behaved and won’t kill sheep (😒 looking at you day of the dog). Well, as we were standing there, a man walked through toward town with a wee little dog… maybe a jack russel? As we stood there for ages, the man ended up returning, walking through again with his dog. And the cows were NOT happy.
Behind us, a group of cows and babies came running down the path toward us, baying and moaning. We stepped back and decided to continue down the path toward town. The herd of cows stopped at the gate, complaining to the cows we had just been photographing. We imagined they were kvetching about the damn dog that came through not once, but twice! How dare that man bring a dog through twice? Doesn’t he know that they don’t like dogs?? Doesn’t he know that they think dogs are meeeaaannn?? Doesn’t he know that this is their pasture, thank you very much…
Well, we start down the path only to look back and see the entire herd of cattle running for us! We had no idea if they were coming for us, returning to the other side of the pasture, or what. But, when you see a herd of cattle running directly at you, what would you do? Probably you would do what we did, which was hop a gate into another pasture!
We wrapped back around, reentering that pasture after the cows had passed and settled. We squeezed through, making it safely out of the pastures. Whew!
The path winds down into a neighborhood of beautiful English homes before meeting up with the main road that winds down into the town center. Before going to the inn we were staying at, we stopped for a pint at another inn and grabbed fish and chips and sausage from a fish and chips place in town. The next two days we would travel into the heart of the moors, face blasting winds, the ghosts of the moors, and the best damn meal we would have over the course of our month vacation.
Til tomorrow 👋🏻
Missed any days? Check out my Coast to Coast blog for the rest of our two week adventure across England.
