The Walk
Day 10 – Monday 23rd June, 2008 – Richmond to Danby Wiske
I awoke at 5am, read some of Stedman’s about today’s walk, set up
maps and GPS, showered and packed. Breakfast was at 8am, we had
ordered it at this time, and as usual one or two of the group
were on the drag, so when we got down for breakfast five minutes
late, the man of the house reminded us! However, it was good and
wholesome and set us up for the days walk of about 13 miles.
We were ready to leave at around 9, but had decided to stock up
on a few things like compeed and fruit. Eventually after doing
my best to prise them away from the shops we got moving at just
after 10am.
Leaving Richmond via a walk below the castle walls and beside
the Swale was lovely and we were glad that we had chosen not to
find a more direct route along the A6136, which we had to
eventually join anyway.
Richmond
Castle from the C2C path
The path beside the sewerage works and through Iron Banks wood was very muddy, but the woods were full of song birds and wild flowers, well worth getting our boots muddy just to be in such a tranquil setting.
Iron
Banks wood
We stopped at Colburn for a 10 minute break and to get rid of
some of the mud we were carrying on our boots.
The walk to Catterick bridge was uneventful, passing through
fields and farms with cattle and sheep grazing. Crossing the A1
was a bit tricky, with traffic coming from all directions – we
were not used to so many vehicles. Once across the road the walk
alongside the Swale to Bolton on Swale was relaxing and we ate
our lunch beside a stream in a field with a herd of bullocks who
were very curious about us and surrounded us. Most of the group
had by now, become accustomed to animals and were not too
bothered, although one or two didn’t like them coming too close.
They couldn’t understand that the animals wanted to know what we
were doing in their field, the same as we would want to know
what they were doing in our garden if they came to visit.
Inquisitive
Bullocks
We picked up the path again which took us through Hodber Hill
and Fatten Hill plantation, an old man smoking a pipe and
leaning on a gate nodded to us as we passed, and the look on his
face said it all – ‘daft b***ers’.
Thereafter the walk to Danby Wiske was along a very long road,
and we were glad when we had arrived at our B&B. I just hate
road walking, not necessarily because of the traffic, we didn’t
see any, but because it’s usually boring.
We arrived at Ashfield House around 4pm where tea and home made
cake awaited us.
A shower and time to relax and reflect on the days walk, whilst
putting our feet up, we had ordered our evening meal at Ashfield
House and were not disappointed with our choice, it was
excellent.
With full stomachs and aching legs we tottered along to the
undedicated church, which is plain by most standards, but still
a beautiful building. The solid oak door and the stone font date
back to the 11th century. This is one of the very few
undedicated church’s in England.
Danby
Wiske Church
On the way back to the B&B we stopped off at the White Swan
where we met up with other walkers, a group of young men
(everyone looked young to us), who had named us the ‘Golden
Girls’ were already there enjoying a drink.
We didn’t stay too late as we have a 21 mile walk tomorrow, so
it was back to our rooms, sorting out clothes, packing and
generally getting ready for an early start.