Rest day, Richmond, June 15th
Sunday, June 15th, 5:40 am - Richmond
We are in Richmond, a market town with an approximate population of 9000. Today is our first and only rest day, and we needed one. Last night, we had Thai food for dinner, a wonderful break from the pub food we have had in each of the villages over the past ten days. Yup, ten days and 128 miles done, and just six and 77 miles to go. This morning, six days and 77 miles seems beyond my endurance.
I am two days behind with this journal. Yesterday morning was a struggle with getting ready. I had a large splinter in my left index finger that had started to fester, and Therese had to do some minor surgery to get it out. I had started an entry but had to abandon it. Here is what I had started:
Saturday, June 14th, 7:40 am — East Mill House, Grinton
I will admit that my memory of yesterday is a little foggy. It was a beautiful day, bright, sunny and warm. I finished the day with more sunburn despite using SPF-50 sunscreen. We walked just over 12 miles, and I did not drink enough water. I ended up dehydrated - lesson learned. It took a pint of ale and two pints of water before the fog cleared.
On the plus side of the ledger, we had a tailwind for once, and a great deal of the walk was beside the Swale River, which was beautiful and blessedly flat. There were Eurasian Oystercatchers on the river! We had no idea that species could be found this far inland. I did not make a large number of images. My landscape images continue to suffer from my lack of skill and love of the square aspect ratio.
The Norman-era church where we stopped for lunch in the village of Grinton was beautiful, and the stained glass windows provided the best opportunity for making interesting images. You could see that the timbers holding up the roof were hand-hewn. Many of the images I am posting of then were taken with the Hipstamatic app, and the app distorts the colors.
Today, we are headed to Richmond and will take a much-needed rest day there.
Back to today in Richmond—yesterday was 10.5 miles of supposedly moderate walking. It did not feel like a moderate walk, but I put that down to our being so worn out from the walks before. I was so tired and worn out that I did not take many images while walking. We started out walking along the Swale River, but the trail soon headed up, of course! There is an image of a dead tree that a portion of we thought looked like a rabbit's head with a pair of antlers - maybe we were hallucinating? One of the highlights of the walk was watching a man and his daughter, each on ATV’s , and their two Border Collies move a herd of sheep - great fun!
We rested in the village of Marsk, in St. Edmund's Church, which dates back to the 12th century. The church had a small offering of packaged snacks. We took a Flapjack, a packaged bar similar to energy bars in the US. I photographed the stained glass images, and we headed off to Richmond.
We could check into our B&B at 2:30 p.m. instead of the usual 4 p.m., and the B&B offered laundry service—such a luxury! We had been hand-washing items along the way, but as one of the walkers we met said, I stink so bad that I am starting to attract flies. After a shower, we headed off to walk around town. We found the town had a very nice cricket field, and a match was going on, so we had a beer and onion rings while we watched the match. With little knowledge of the game and no interest in the teams, we left and headed off to see the town after a while.
The town has that classic English town/village ambiance. A castle on the edge of town was built in 1071. We will visit that this morning. While walking around the market square, we saw a man painting one of the classic red pay phone booths—someone has to paint them.
It's time to end this and get ready for the day.
Here is a link to the images from the last two days, my apologies, but you will have to copy the link and paste it in your browser address bar:
https://www.reedpikephotography.com/coast-to-coast-photos/days-11-and-12