Richmond to Ingleby Cross, 23 miles.
The last few days had felt pretty much like strolls, short country outings that ended at 2-3pm. We'd missed the wild places. The big hike across The Vale of Mowbray wouldn't be wild but I was looking forward to the challenge of the distance.
We left the unmemorable Buck Inn by 8am to get a good start and some road miles under our belt by lunchtime. It was raining hard.
Raining hard to the extent that we were soon beyond caring about the damp. Water proof coats etc. can only do so much yet by midday there were signs of the clouds clearing. It had stopped by 11.30 as we walked into Danby Wiske, the pub was open and serving teas so we popped inside.
An instant warm welcome from some of the friendliest pub proprietors I think I've ever met followed. We sat and had a sandwich, signed the guest book and got going again.
We'd still not really met any regular C2C'ers heading East. We passed a few heading West, there seemed more of them, but no one it seemed was walking parallel with us. That was to change over the last few days.
We worked our way along the fields and lanes over the early afternoon and made Ingleby Cross by about 4pm. We were staying in the Blue Bell Inn only some 'bolt-on' appartments that were round the side of the building. A little spartan but somewhere to crash out and rest.
In the bar later we met Andy, a journalist, one of the fastest walkers I've ever met. He'd been following us through the day so he said, we were always just ahead in the distancee and he'd had trouble catching up. That was some compliment from a man who, as we were going to see, didn't hang about.
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