It’s Friday, June 9, and after a great rest day in Richmond, we are back on the trail. Today we walk from Richmond to Danby Wiske. This should be our longest walk of the entire trip, nearly 14 miles, but almost completely flat. The weather is in a warming trend so we get an early start, leaving our BnB at 8:00AM.

While in Richmond, we toured the Richmond castle. Surprisingly, we were welcomed as the Duke and Duchess of Richmond. Well, not quite.

We then decided to travel to Paris for a wonderful dinner. Well, again, not quite. Actually, an English French restaurant. But it was nice.

Walking around Richmond in the evening, I was struck by the interesting chimneys. Look at them all. Can you count them? Can you tell me the Mary Poppins song about chimneys in London? Of course you can!

And now we are on the trail. We start out in some beautiful, deciduous forest. Very peaceful.

Then we walk through field after field of grain. If it had rained recently our pants and shoes would be soaked walking through all these fields, but as it is, we are perfectly dry. We counted a number of different crops, most of which we couldn’t identify.

These are Scottish Highland Cattle. Rick Steves lovingly calls them “wooly coos.” That name has stuck with us.

Sheep of the Day. This is what is known as a sheep blockade. They charge 2 pounds to pass, but only if they wake up. Can you sneak past them?

These fine ladies all came over to greet us on the trail. They were soooo friendly. I just had to pick up some grass and feed them. I have always had the ladies eating out of my hands….well, at least the four legged ones. Janet actually questioned whether they were actually all ladies. Oh well.

This beautiful English country home and garden can be yours. Sorry, we didn’t ask the price. But it was sure pretty.

This is a memorial inside a church in the little town of Bolton-on-Swale. Please read it; you will love it. Dear Henry Jenkins lived to 169 and largely due to temperance. But….do I even want to live to 169????

Our accommodation tonight. It is the “height of luxury!” Oh, that’s bad.

After many miles, we are very pleased to see our destination, the small town of Danby Wiske.

This is the only pub in town, hence it will be where we are having dinner. Even they get into the Coast to Coast thing by posting how far it is to Robin Hood’s Bay. I had a chicken pie which was delicious.

Today’s mileage: 13.63. Total mileage so far: 131.05. Miles remaining: 58.95.

Tomorrow is not too bad a day. About 9 miles with about 1200’ of elevation gain. We can’t believe we’re calling 9 miles an easy day!!! But it’s going to be hot for walking, maybe up to 77. But Sunday promises to be one of our toughest days. We have to go 11.8 miles and with our biggest elevation gain of the entire walk, 3,156’. And at this point the weather looks like it might be 79 degrees. So we might start really early that day.

We are still doing really well physically but beginning to get some achy knees and feet. But let’s get a good night’s sleep (8+ hours) and we will set off again after a wonderful BnB breakfast tomorrow. Yes, we are walking, but it also occurs to us that we are EATING, our way across England.

Love to you all.

Coe & Janet