From Industry to Farming

They play a lot of soft rock oldies in pubs.  I’m sitting in the Crossed Keys in East Marton, squeaky clean from a hot bath and waiting for an asparagus centered starter that may be too elaborate to trust in a pub.  I’m on this trip for adventure, though, so I’m giving it a swing.

 

Had breakfast this morning with a fellow who was staying at Cross Farm just last night because he’d been to a football (real football, the one you play mostly with your feet) match in Manchester Saturday and was on to a game in, I think, Bradford today.  Not much conversation as he was sport mad and I’m me.

 

Alan picked me up at about 9:30 and caught me still strapping on my gear.  He dropped me back exactly where he’d picked me up last night.  This time he finally took my big yellow bag away with him, so I won’t see that for a week.  It’s been something of a burden to haul up to and down from rooms and can’t have made the transfer services very happy, but I had taken advantage of the chance to refine some decisions about what to have along.  Most notably, I figured out how to clip a separate pair of shoes for after hike wear to the outside of my red bag so I won’t have to put my boots back on to go get dinner.

 

It was a 40 minute drive, during which we talked about the walking business.  Alan is one of the only organizers to offer a money-back-if-you-cancel policy.  Usually, anybody involved with vacation planning here wants money up front, and it’s forfeit if you cancel for any reason.  They’ve got something they call holiday insurance that people take out to pay you back if you’re unable to take the holiday for reasons beyond your control.  The routine on any document or web site is a statement to the effect that all fees are non-refundable and recommending that you buy holiday insurance.  I asked Alan how he afforded the policy.  He said he’d been running the business for several years with only one cancellation, the services he books people to now require only modest deposits from him, so he decided the differentiator was worth the risk.  Rather smart.

 

I also asked him whether he could refer me to anyone who could organize a similar through hike for me on the Thames Path for after Sara leaves.  I’ve become confident I’ll be tired of mountains by the time I’m done with the Pennines, the Costswolds, and North Wales.  I’m enjoying this thoroughly, and look forward to further heights, but the idea of 85 miles of riverside strolling with lots of stops in scenic towns like Oxford is really looking like the right dessert to me.  Alan said he’d think about someone to refer and also figure out whether he could do it himself.

 

The first push from the reservoir (finally spelled that word right without Word having to fix it) was a calf-burning climb on slippery grass.  The views back down were glorious each time I turned around to rest.  It took me immediately to my tired and holding point, I think partly because of accumulated weariness but mostly because I essentially stepped out of the car and started climbing, with no initial flat walking to get my motor started.  Also, a small child who lived at one of the farms gave me maliciously bad directions, due to which I lost the path and had to walk an even steeper stretch but don’t I have that coming for trusting an entertainment starved farm child?  I mean, how much better fun than sending an American scrambling up a steep hill was likely to come her way today?

 

Culinary aside:  The asparagus whatsis wound up being very nice, it involved smoked salmon and fresh field greens in a nice dressing.  The steak and ale pie I had for main was better yet with mostly good vegetables on the side.  There were some broccoli florets boiled softer than I would have done to make cream of same soup.  I hate to leave even a bit of vegetable on the road as they’re the hardest things to eat if you’re not cooking for yourself.  I dredged them in the pie gravy and tried to convince myself they were some uniquely English vegetable I had never previously encountered, with modest success.  Still debating whether I’ve got an appetite for an assortment of local cheeses.

 

Fellow who heard me order asked whether I was an American on holiday.  I confessed to the offense, and he pressed upon me the Winter 2003 edition of Relay – The Newsletter of the Wensleydale Railway Association.  Everyone knows that England breeds a fine railway crank, but the most extreme and best organized cases actually buy trains and reactivate derelict lines.  This one looks as though it would be a beautiful ride, but I don’t know that I’ll get close enough to where it rolls from.  Nice to be looked after.

 

But back to the trail.  We last left me wiping my brow and enjoying the view from the top of Old Bess Hill.  The guide was all excited about the fact that today I was pressing into the next section of the Pennines.  The soil would become sandier and the human use of the landscape would be more consistently agricultural.  There is also a sort of implication that the walking would get easier, and I suppose it did somewhat.  After that monster climb, the path began, as Alan had described it, to undulate.  There may well have been more sand in the mud, but it still managed the trick of skidding out from under my boots as I set them down but then sticking fiercely to them when I lifted them up.

 

The views were gorgeous, if a little constrained by a middling mist.  There were a few passages of blank moorland, but an increasing percentage of neat, walled fields full of sheep and more and more cattle.  Even the moor tracts were busier.  For about a quarter of a mile, I was walking through a virtual rabbit metropolis.  I’d see eight or ten of them tearing away at any given time.  Lots of grouse.  Another determined bird of prey – the last time I saw him stoop, he didn’t come up again, so either he scored or he brained himself on a rabbit shaped rock. 

 

Had a lively moment when I rounded a corner of wall and came face to very big horns with a large, brown, shaggy animal.  I tried to remember what I was to do if I found myself in a field with a bull, but all that really came to mind was that I had a form in my bags to fill out and complain to the council.  I figured I’d have plenty of time to do that while recovering under the care of the National Health.  Not a bull in the end at all, it was the udders that gave her away, but that wasn’t where I looked first.  When I get around to posting the photo, you’ll know why.

 

I also saw many other walkers, still only about four dozen in the whole day, but that was a flood after the last few days.  Most entertaining was a family group – daughter, son whinging about walking up hill, mother prodding son forwards, and father counting up all the good parent points he was earning by being along and thinking about how to spend them.

 

Had another unnerving cow experience, though the photo on this one isn’t as much help.  I climbed over a stile and turned around to find 15 cows staring at me with the most expectant looks on their faces.  They then all started walking towards me, slowly, ponderously, but sort of inexorably.  I thought briefly of backing over the stile again, but I was embarrassed to be afraid of a bunch of cows, so I just started waving my arms and making hyah noises.  That eventually broke my fascination. 

 

Just before leaving off the animal theme, I also saw three beautiful white dogs coursing a rabbit down a field edge.  They were all as silent as could be.  I never saw that kind of chasing without any barking.

 

I have somehow walked my way back into spring as well.  The last few days, I’d been walking by plants in bud that Mom and I had seen blooming in the lake district.  One of the reservoirs is going to be a real riot of rhododendron blossoms in a few weeks.  As I’ve gotten into this new chapter of the Pennines, more plants are already blooming.  In the village of Thornton in Craven, where the 5th day of the Way officially ends, there is clearly some kind of gardening mania that extends to people going out and encouraging wildflowers along all the approaches.  I walked through banks of blooms including wild garlic that had striking clusters of white star shaped flowers.  I’m not usually so moved by horticulture, but I was refreshed just to be walking through all of it. 

 

It has to be just some oddity of climate, because I’m going north and the altitudes are just as high. 

 

The last leg of the walk today was along a lovely canal, no longer used for serious cargo but well supplied with long, narrow houseboats.  I had heard before about people holidaying by renting this sort of thing then puttering around various canals.  A few dozen of them are tied up here near East Marton.  I think most of the business in the pub tonight is boat people.  Certainly, people keep arriving in pulses of six to ten.  I keep thinking about stepping up to get another pint and maybe order that cheese plate, but a new pulse comes in just as the last one clears the bar.

 

I’m staying with a nice older couple.  She told me they’re meant to be retired, but that her husband still spends a lot of time out on the farm, so she started the B&B to keep busy and entertain herself with the guests. 

 

Tomorrow starts with a stretch along that same canal and is supposed to be very easy.  When I was working with Alan to plan this trip, I was scornful of the short easy days of which I get two or three, but at this point, I’m all for them.

 

Garmin facts:  14 miles walked in 5:47 walking with 1:15 stopped.  2.4 mph moving average, 2.0 average overall.  720 meters climbed.  Just about my slowest day and distinctly medium on the climbing, so I say again, I clearly need an easy day to rest up.

 

No queue at the bar.  I’m going for that pint.  Cheers.