C2C Day 11&12 Richmond

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Reeth to Richmond, England

July 24

13 miles

We all left Reeth a little bit later than expected due to very slow breakfast service for Xavier and Katrien at the Buck Hotel.  While waiting for them I walked to the center bakery with Dave to buy lunch sandwiches for the day’s hike.  I ran into the Salt Lake City family at the bakery.  We all (Xavier, Katrien, Dave, Mark) met at the Hackney House, where Em and I stayed, around 9:30 AM and headed out.

This day’s Wainwright Coast to Coast hike, which was our final day within the Yorkshire Dales National Park, and the last before a rest in Richmond the next day, started surprisingly more difficult than we had expected. It seemed that we hit a lot more inclining grades than anybody anticipated. There was a lot of thistly brush along the path as well, all had exposed legs on the hike, so that was a bit unpleasant at times.

The biggest challenge was a very steep incline up the “nuns” steps, or causeway, along a tropically shady hillside. The steps climb steeply up through Steps Wood, connecting Marrick Priory churchyard (a 12th century Benedictine nunnery) to Marrick Village. There are 375 steps, but it may well have been 825…wow, it was hard!! The story is that the nuns built the causeway connecting it to the village purposely steep to discourage the men in Marrick Village from attempting to “visit” the nuns for socials.

There were some pretty muddy spots along the way, too. We got surprised by the wet mud a couple of times, and Emilie’s foot went completely submerged once. Katrien was hiking in her Tevas today and so climbed down an embankment at one point to wash her sandals in the water. She hiked quite a ways with wet, muddy feet.

The trail went back and forth between dry, sunny open fields and tropical, shady wet narrow trails. But almost always uphill…at least it seemed like it. We passed cows and more sheep.

We stopped off at St. Edmunds church in Marske.  They had a welcoming sign for hikers indicating snacks and drinks for sale inside. We went up the steps, through a small ancient cemetery to the church. We all hoped for a restroom, actually, but no…just an honor system snack table. Nobody was there, but the 17th century church was such a relic, it was worth the diversion. We ate chocolate on a bench in the graveyard. We ran into Chris from Switzerland, and Olga from The Netherlands at the church.

As we got closer to Richmond we stopped for lunch under a tree along the trail.  Then finished up with some easier, level hiking with more beautiful scenery.

We arrived in Richmond around 4:00 PM. The town was the largest settlement on the trek across England, and it is on the eastern edge of the Yorkshire Dales. Xavier, Katrien, and we stayed at the very nice “BnB at 43” on Maison Dieu, just outside the bustling market center area. We checked in and chatted with our friendly hostess Jenny for a few minutes, then rested a bit in our room which had tea and cakes awaiting us!

Xavier, Katrien, and we decided to have dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant called La Piazza. Mark and his wife Karen joined us there, and it ended up being a group affair.  The food was very good, and service was professional and friendly, but it took three tries for the wait staff to bring us the correct bottle of wine that I ordered…funny.  After dinner, Em and I walked around town to discover the very cool town of Richmond, England.

Richmond, England Rest Day

July 25

After hiking about 130 miles of Wainwright’s Coast to Coast walk (120 uphill) we took our second rest day, in Richmond.  We would have five hiking days remaining after this rest day. We lucked out in that this rest day turned out to be the hottest day of the whole trek.  It was in the mid 90s, so a good day to not hike.  We awoke for 8:00 AM breakfast with Xavier and Katrien who were not resting today but going on. We would catch up with them in a few days. After breakfast and saying farewell to our new friends, we happily crawled back into bed until 11:00 AM.

We eventually made our way out and walked the 10 minutes to downtown. We stopped off at a foot care store first.  Our feet (mostly Emilie’s) were in need of supplemental cushions to the existing pads, braces, and stents.  Then we sweated our way to get some milkshakes for lunch.  We tooled around outside the impressively tall 12th century Richmond Castle.   We got some nice views of the River Swale from there as well.

We stumbled upon a cozy beer garden nestled within the tight stone roads around town.  It looked right up at Richmond Castle.  We stopped in for a couple of beers, and we met a local named Tom who bought a round for us because, according to him, that was the polite thing for a local to do for visitors to his town.

While talking with Tom he asked us where we planned on having dinner that night.  When we told him about this fancy place we were planning to go to he just said, “No”.  I said, “Why?”.  He said, “The Chef”.  He told us where we really wanted to go, The Black Lion Hotel.  So, after leaving the beer garden and saying goodbye to Tom we headed to The Black Lion Hotel to make reservations at their tavern.  When we got there, there was one person behind the bar, and she was on the telephone.  Once she hung up she looked at me and said, “Are you Dean?”  Turns out, Tom had called ahead for us to be sure we got a table.  How great is that?

Before dinner, I had made an appointment in town for a massage.  It was in somebody’s very historic home.

My massage was very nice…my body was very appreciative.  I walked back to the BnB to get Emilie and we headed back to town for dinner at The Black Lion Hotel per Tom’s recommendation.
On the way back to the BnB Emilie stopped off at an old cemetery that required walking down a steep hill then back up again.  I figured we had walked enough on our rest day so I waited for her up the street.

Then off to bed.  It was a much needed rest day, and with the sweltering heat…even better to have laid low and off the trail for the day.

Next: C2C Day 13&14 North Yorkshire