Day 9 Richmond to Ingleby Cross 23 miles

Up early again today at 6:30am and busy sorting the bags before heading down for breakfast at 7:30 am. It was slightly overcast outside which I was quite pleased about given the length of today’s walk of 23 miles to Ingleby Cross, I didn’t fancy another day of hot sunshine, whilst we both liked the nice weather, none of us were really cut out for sunshine conditions and both sporting sections of sunburn we’d missed with the cream on yesterday walk.

After a nice breakfast at the Old Brewery where we stayed (don’t be fooled, there’s no brewery, or bar for that matter) we said our goodbyes to Sarah’s Mum and Dad, who we wouldn’t see until Robin Hoods Bay now, and also another sad goodbye to Wendy who was taking a rest day in Richmond today, meaning this would be the last time we’d meet on the trail.

We were on the track again for 8am, it’s quite a pleasant walk out of Richmond, down the quaint streets and past the Castle, the first few miles took us along the River Swale through fields and tracks to the Village of Bolton on Swale. I thought this looked like a lovely place to stay, and should we do this walk again at some point “never say ever” I’d certainly consider staying here, given yesterdays walk was too short and today’s too long.

Eventually we joined the flat, but very quiet roads which we would follow for most of the day. It has to be said this is my least favourite day on the C2C, pretty tedious walking for miles and miles on roads, only made more interesting by us walking much of the day with Tony and Paul, who joined up with us to navigate around a tricky section as the route was altered due to some roadwork’s through Catterick, so it was nice to have their company on route today.

By the time we arrived at Danby Whisk the bottom of our feet was aching with the road walking, we stopped for a pot of tea and cake at the White Swan in Danby Whisk, with Tony and Paul caving in and having a Bitter Shandy each.

Tony and Paul set off around 10 minutes before us as we finished our cup of tea and used the toilet, which was the last one until Ingleby Cross.

We set off again on the long tiresome plod, we had at least another 11 miles to cover after lunch which went on forever, it remained dry for the rest of the day at least and after a further 4 hours of walking we decided a break was in order, despite only being 3 miles from the end of the day we stopped for a cup of coffee on the stove and a flapjack perched at the side of the road, we were knackered!.
 After helping an American couple get back on track and calling in to the services on the A19 for some lunch for tomorrow we arrived at the Blue Bell Inn and our room for the night at around 5:30pm, pretty tired with really sore feet from the long walk and huge road sections.

As we walked into the Blue Bell to check in, Astrix and her Dad Martin were sat enjoying lunch, always one step ahead of us it seemed, and after a short chat about the length of today’s walk and the prospect of tomorrows walk we headed to our room and flopped on the bed........After regaining some strength and composure we got showered and changed and headed for our evening meal, the bar was pretty quiet to be honest “the Australian” was there (we never did get his name), and a couple of other walkers we recognised but hadn’t really spoken to, otherwise a pretty quiet bar. Not that we were bothered, we just wanted to eat, drink and bed!  

We both ordered Chicken Parmo, half for Sarah and full for me, some other walkers told me it was a local dish, which is basically chicken breast, battered and covered in melted cheese with chips, probably a worryingly high amount of calories under normal circumstances, however on C2C perfectly adequate given the miles we were burning through.

After a chat with some other walkers and a couple of ales we headed for bed about 9:30pm, tomorrow is my favourite section of the walk (outside Lakeland), although it’s also a very long and tough day again, we had no trouble at all falling asleep almost instantly that night, and it was really nice to take the weight off our feet..