Day 11. Lovely Day in the Dales

Day 11.  It is Friday evening at the Three Tuns, a small pub in Osmotherley.  Standing at the bar are several local gents, two in tweed jackets and formal English hunting attire and another in kilts.  They are jovial and obviously enjoying their pints. Fellow traveler Dave has joined them and learned that they have just returned from hunting pheasant and grouse (at a cost of £600).

We walked 16+ miles today.  We began at The White Swan, a small pub in Danby-Wiske where yesterday's walk concluded, and walked along roads and lanes for a while until the path took us back into the pastures.  We've walked through many farms, observed farmers hard at work, haying, tilling, rounding up their sheep.  As we walked down a dirt drive toward a farm, we noticed a massive black hulk of a bull on the ground in front of us.  The farmer and his daughter were just leaving, but stopped their car to chat with us.  Seems that some of the farmer's herd had gotten loose earlier in the morning and the farmer had rounded them up and brought back in.  In all the commotion, this bull had become overly stressed and had had a heart attack and dropped dead, all 800 pounds of him.  A big loss to the farmer.

Onward.  The footpath brought us out to a busy, nine-lane highway.  There is no pedestrian crosswalk.  Nada.  The cars zoom by.  We wait for an opening and "sprint" across the first set of lanes to the median, then wait, and sprint again.   With all the C2C walkers -- 10,000 per year -- one would think a signal might be installed!  Onward.  My blister began to sing so I broke down and asked Liz to tell me about episode one of Downton Abbey.  The diversion worked and I settled back in.  One step at a time.

Mount Grace Priory was our lunch spot.  Ruins of an 11th or 12th century priory where monks lived in isolated cells are the backdrop to a stately manor that was restored in the 1700-1800's and used as a wealthy business man's residence and is now a museum.

With a mere 3.5 miles ahead we all opted to continue on, leaving Dave to drive to our day's endpoint alone.

There was a steady climb from the priory that took us through a lovely wood of silver birch.  Not much elevation today for our daily "high point."

We heard wood pigeons cooing; we saw them in New Zealand, too.  I heard another bleating sheep behind a dense hedgerow.  Ben stopped to investigate -- its head was stuck in the wire fence.  A few snips and off it went to rejoin the flock.

We have begun to leave the Dales.  Our path today took us into
Scarthwood Moor.

Dave was waiting for us at the car park.  He drove us to the village of Osmotherley where we're staying at a small pub known for its beer and delicious food called The Three Tuns.  16.5 miles today.  The same tomorrow.  The body is growing a bit weary but I'm not ready for our journey to end!!