We woke to beautiful
blue skies and sunshine again and after sorting the bags headed down for
breakfast at about 7:30am, we had planned to eat a little later this morning as
it was quite a short day to Egton Bridge, however I think the warm sunshine and
constant noise from the grouse outside meant we woke fairly early.
I ordered bacon on
toast for a change whilst Sarah stuck to cereal and toast. After breakfast we
packed up and headed downstairs to check out, as we did we met Astrix and
Martin having their breakfast, after briefly chatting to them and saying, (what
we thought) was our goodbyes due to them supposedly not walking as far today we
hit the trial for around 8:30am.
The weather was
perfect as we left the Lion Inn, the sun was shining, sun cream on, lovely warm
conditions, and we felt good as we headed over Blakey moor. Streams of Saturday
traffic was heading past, cyclists, classic cars and bikes, and cars packed
with beach equipment no doubt heading for Whitby we thought, thankfully not
where we were heading.
We soon arrived at the
Fat Betty marker and had a couple of quick photos, as we pressed on we were
walking a little slower than usual, it was an unusual feeling really, with the
North Sea now visible in the distance we were almost ambling along, not
actually wanting this day to end as that would mean the last normal day was
over, with tomorrow being the final stretch in to Robin Hoods bay.
We stopped to take a
few photos again as we passed Great Fry Up Dale, the weather was fantastic, but
also very hot. We stopped on Glaisdale Rigg and fired up the stove for a coffee
and hot chocolate, along with some really nice rice crispy cakes we’d picked up
a couple of days back.
After a nice and
lengthy break we headed along the spine of Glaisdale Rigg towards Glaisdale,
whilst walking along the top another little family of grouse chicks crossed our
path, as well as a small lizard, which was something we’d not seen before and
demonstrated how hot and dry the weather now was.
As we dropped into
Glaisdale we decided we’d look for a pub for an extended lunch, I dug out my
Coast to Coast guide book which indicated the Arncliffe Arms was not far away,
so we headed there. Again it was nice to get out of the hot sun for a while, so
we sat inside and had a bowel of homemade tomato soup with a roll and shared a
huge bowel of chips, chips round this way are really nice incidentally, so any
chance we had we ordered them!
After lunch we had a
really nice walk towards Egton Bridge, ambling along after a picture with Beggars
Bridge in Glaisdale and a pleasant walk through the woods we arrived in Egton
Bridge at around 14:00. With ample time in the bag we enjoyed a nice pint of
Theakstons ale in the bar at the Horseshoe Inn which was our accommodation for
the night. The Horseshoe Inn is a lovely village pub, and clearly an angler’s
pub with fish caught in the river Esk proudly hung on boards from years gone
by, some pretty monstrous examples it has to be said.
After our drink we
headed up to the room to freshen up, I was hoping we’d have a TV so I could watch
some of the FA cup final Arsenal v Hull, which we did. What we didn’t have
however was a bathroom door, very strange....it was a case of “going round the
corner” to use the toilet or shower...
Otherwise a nice
room and place, after getting freshened up I watched most of the final in our
room which was 1-2 to Hull in the 70th minute, by now we were both
hungry so we decided we’d go down for dinner and keep a check on the football
on the internet.
After enjoying our
meal the suspense got the better of me and I and went to the room to watch the
end of the match, which ended with an Arsenal win. After the game we went back
downstairs to for a drink. After a nice
relaxing evening and briefly chatting to a couple of other walkers we’d met
from America that day we headed to our room to watch TV and to turn in for the
night.
As we relaxed
watching TV I was reading my Wainwright book and making some notes (these notes
in fact). I read a passage called “concluding notes” at the back of the book,
if you’ve not read his book it is strongly advised, reading it day by day as
you walk C2C gives the biggest impact. As I read this section which draws the
Coast to Coast to a close I felt a bit emotional that our walk was almost over,
Wainwright has a way with words, and describes the feeling perfectly, that
whilst many long distance walks are finished with relief, the Coast to Coast is
finished with regret and I couldn’t believe how fast the last 11 days had
passed, both of us were feeling a little sad our C2C 2014 was one day away from
completion.......
We already missed
this walk and we still had 16.5 miles to do. Anyway, tomorrow is a great day’s
walk, and we still had that to look forward too!
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