One of my biggest regrets when scheduling this trip was not scheduling a rest day somewhere during the halfway mark. Reeth or Richmond would both be great options to schedule a rest day. Reeth is great because it’s still in the Dales on the River Swale. It has several pubs, a post office, an ice cream parlor (or at least did pre-Covid and I can only hope they all have survived). Richmond is great because it’s a small city with many shops, restaurants, pubs, eateries, art shops, and of course, the castle.
By the time we reached Richmond, we needed a break to rest our joints. The next two days of hiking were transition days, and we just felt so blah about it, particularly after leaving the beauty and serenity of the Dales.
So, we decided to say screw it and made day 10 a cheat day. Rather than hike 14 miles to Danby Wiske, we opted to take the day to romp about Richmond and just take a taxi to Danby Wiske. Yeah, yeah, it’s “cheating.” But, you know what? This was our vacation. We weren’t trying to prove anything, like conquering Everest. We just wanted to enjoy the beauty and splendor that northern England has to offer, so if we wanted to skip a day, so what?
Richmond is all hill, and our B&B was at the bottom of it. Perched at the top of the hill loomed their large castle. Well, maybe not large. I’ve been to huge castles throughout England. But, sitting high atop the hill in Richmond with tall, looming walls, the castle presented an imposing energy.
Day 10, we walked up to the castle, every step up hurting. The castle walls were still in pretty good condition, as well as the castle keep. The foundations of the chapel, toilet, main bedroom and banquet hall were still intact, but the roofs were long destroyed, leaving us to our imaginations.
Ron opted to walk to the top of the keep. I’ve seen plenty of castles, and I really wanted to give my knees a break, so I opted to stay down below. The photos Ron captured of the keep and the view from the top were beautiful… I still don’t regret not walking up though!
After the castle, we went to a pie shop to buy sausage rolls. They had so many different meat pies, it was tempting to try a number of them. But, sausage rolls are easy to eat standing up without a fork… and they’re always delicious. I need to contact an English butcher to find out how they make their pork sausage so I can perfectly recreate them at home.
We strolled down Finkle Street where a number of art shops were located, stopping in several. We found one neat art shop with paintings and sculptures by Mackenzie Thorpe. They had kind of a, hm, how to describe… steam type theme? Like, old dock workers working on steamships or old steam trains. A lot were of the old worker riding bicycles.
We made our way back to the B&B where the woman who served us breakfast has arranged for her husband to drive us to Danby Wiske.
The owner of the inn at Danby Wiske was Basil incarnate from Fawlty Towers in both looks and manners. Too funny. He directed us to an old church in town, that we took half an hour to walk around. Interestingly, it appears that they bury people two to three people deep, and not necessarily from the same family!
So, short, easy day, but such a refresher. Taking that day off really helped equip us to make it through the Moors, which starts with many ups and down mountains. So yeah, we cheated, but we still walked across England; we just did it our way. And I encourage you to do it your way.
Til tomorrow 👋🏻
Missed any days? Check out my Coast to Coast blog for the rest of our two week adventure across England.
