The woman showed us her camping area. It was pretty overgrown with grass. We were able to put up our four tents. The camping fee was 5 pounds with that you get a towel and shower. The best part of that was the towel. I get very tired of drying off with a 10" x 20" towel.
I cooked my dinner of Ramen again then showered. For dessert I had strawberries and short bread that were chocolate covered. It is a nice treat having dessert at the end of the day.
The midges were out which sent me to my tent about 7:00. While I am laying in my tent there are all kinds of animal sounds. We have the birds, the flies, the sheep, dogs, and the cows. The cows are so loud I wonder if they are in heat. It is a continuous stream of noise. Hopefully it will quiet down when it gets dark.
I forgot to mention that Mike will be heading out home tomorrow. We hope to see Paul and Stewart in a few days. We have a meeting place and time. That might be the last time that we will see them because they are trying to finish a day earlier than we are. I am just happy that Pete is with us to naviagte us across to the North Sea,
July 5, 2003
I woke up to a fine mist which soaked my fly of the tent. I packed up, had cereal, and we were off about 8:00. The mist never really turned to rain which was nice. It was a pretty easy walk today.
We arrived in Richmond about 11:30, which was about half way to where we were headed. We stopped at a tavern to have lunch. It was a great big lunch for only three pounds. We had to get some groceries and as we were in there Paul came in. He said the others were also there, but we didn't see them. We did some shopping then went to the teahouse for something hot to drink.
We headed out about 2:00. We still had about seven miles to go. Paul joined us for awhile in this section. He had a place to stay before our place.
We were staying at Layland Farm. We camped in nicely cut lawn. The landscaping was very nice with a pond and flowers, and ducks. The owner brought us tea and coffee. I think that is the English thing to do, Very nice!
My fly from the tent was wet. So I hung it up hoping it would dry a little. I am just glad it didn't rain except the mist we had early this morning.
Pam, the woman who lives here, came out and talked to us for awhile. They have a dairy farm and I was getting an education on dairy farming.
I have an infection in my eye. I am hoping it goes away. I might have to cut this hike short if it doesn't get better.
July 6, 2003
I was happy to wake up and have a dry tent. Especially when they said it rained. I didn't hear the rain, but I certainly heard the cows this morning.
We started walking about 8:00. Most of the walk was on roads. It was actually very nice because the roads weren't busy and they went through the tiny villages. All the homes seem to have beautiful flowers.
We stopped about 10:00 at Danby Wiske. We had drinks and toast. We spent about 45 minutes there before we moved on. For the most part the day was over cast. We have been pretty lucky for three days.
We met a couple from Vermont doing the Coast to Coast. We walked with them for a little bit before they headed off in a different direction for their lodging. We hope to see them along with Paul and Stewart tomorrow night. We ended up doing about an extra mile because we took the wrong trail. Total mileage today was about 17 1/2 miles.
We have a nice little campsite behind The Blue Bell Hotel. It is very nice of them to let us camp and they offered showers to us. They also have a room with four computers that we can use free of charge. So of course I checked my emails.
I am just waiting for the pub to open so I can have dinner. We had a nice dinner at the pub. The Pete and I took a walk to the store which was suppose to be about a mile. We wanted to get bread for tomorrow. When we got there the store was closed. Someone suggested we go down the street about another mile. We could see the place so we decided to go. The walk was on a major road. It probably is the busiest road since we have started this hike. We got to the store, I looked around for the bread and I couldn't find any. I asked the man at the counter. He looked at me like I had two heads. He said it's Sunday, of course we don't have bread. It's all gone. I couldn't even find crackers. I bought a couple of candy bars and Pete and I headed off. So we did about an extra four miles for nothing. Well, I can't say that. The sky was very lovely. I haven't seen a nice sky like that for a long time. We got back about 9:30
July 7, 2003
I heard Richard and Pete up. I really didn't feel like getting up but I did. It was a little cooler this morning, so I had hot chocolate to warm up.
We started hiking about 7:45 and the weather looked pretty good. We had four climbs up. The book said it was a total of 2700 feet elevation. It was the first day in a long time that I worked up a sweat.
We were in woods for awhile which was nice. The majority of the walk is all exposed. The trail was terrific. We hooked up to the Cleveland Way Trail. That is a National Trail and it is well marked and maintained. The climbs weren't bad at all. The views were beautiful. We could see all the different
farms boundaries and the different colors of the fields.
I think it was the best day of hiking. We are in what they call the North Yorkshire Moors.
Paul and Stewart caught up with us. Stewart was suppose to have a friend meet him in Richmond.
