Day 9 – Ingleby Cross (23 miles)
Well what a day, 23 miles! No real ascents or decents just pretty flat. Sore feet!
So as usual alarm went off at 6:30, down for breakfast at 7:30 (haddock for a change – can have too many full English breakfasts).
Set off at 8:15 and as usual I forgot something, this time is was my walking poles (again!), so started the walk at 5 mins later. Started quickly as I went through some woods and fields passing the catterick garrison and then approx. 4 miles in I heard a shout of “David!”, and I thought who knows me round here? Only for me to see Dek waving at me as he left his B&B.
Dek is quite a fast walker so the pace was kept up. We had to take the diversion around the A1(M) as the road works were not finished (only 3 months late already). The diversion took us south a bit then we crossed right in front of Catterick Racecourse which looked nice and also chatted to some archaeologists digging up the remains of two Roman walls..
We crossed the bridge and followed the river swale for a few miles then turning to walk across fields crossing style after style until we eventually arrived at Danby Wiske,and small village with a nice pub around 14 miles in. So ate my scotch egg with a couple of pints.
Then we started off again for the remaining 9 miles. This was a slog on the feet. Through field after field, fending of the wildlife, a young male horse started to get frisky with my backpack after a few pets and two fields of cows were a challenge, the second one had bulls in the field and it was scary at one point as we walked through the middle of them.
Met a very perculiar farmer driving down the road, gave me his history and family tree details from his great grandfather down to now, including how he became rich and the war horses during the war! 20 mins later we were on our way.
Anyway we finally reached the infamous A19 which requires a run across the dual carriage way to the little village of Ingleby Cross where I am staying. Only a few photos today as all pretty much the same field after field views. Tomorrow looks like being the major challenge when I have 20 miles to go but 5 ascents equalling 1000 metres.
Having dinner around 6 so I can be in bed for 9..
Update watched a couple of overs of the local cricket match played outside my B&B and they were awful.