Ingleby Cross to Blakey Ridge

---

Another very long day.

Left the Blue Bell Inn after a hearty breakfast at 8.30, with a sign in the pub reminding us that we still had 50.5 miles to go. A big walk today with not only 21 miles (according to the guidebook), but also a combined ascent of over 1,000m with plenty of ups and downs to be expected.

A good start already when the Sherpavan man who takes our luggage told us to take it easy with the running over the moors as there’s plenty of tough tracks going up. Yes - he actually mistook us for Fell Runners (not sure if he was blind or just taking the p***); I, of course assured him that we would not be running a single step of the way!

So, off past a stately home and straight into the first ascent of the day up onto the North York Moors. Going strong on this first stage - so strong that we missed a turning, got lost and ended up adding an extra mile to our journey. A trip to the Ladies Chapel and a few choice words later we had to retrace our steps and eventually found the correct route up next to some telecon towers, that acted as a way finder that let us know we were back on the coast to coast path. We also joined with the Cleveland Path for part of the route today.

The views then took an amazing turn for the better once we got onto the moors for the first time. Fantastic views across the heather filled moors (the North York Moors contains the largest expanse of heather in the UK - a day of purpleness that Prince would be proud of).

So we had a day of the most stunning views, but you had to earn them. Up to the peak of one moor with the reward of the view below, came also with the view of the next peak that had a steep descent and an even steeper ascent. It was during this that I realised Ellis had morphed into a mountain goat! He went up the paths without taking breathe and far ahead of me - he has obviously improved his fitness since the Lakes when I would be out in front (and I’ve obviously gone backwards). He wasn’t even out of breathe at each peak (or at least he had recovered his breathe by the time I got to him).

Lovely lunch stop for our sandwiches (learned from yesterday and booked a packed-lunch for today), with again the most beautiful views. Up and through some strange rock formation that had no clear path through - so a bit of scrambling up and over. Then onto the the flat path to our overnight stay at the Lion Inn, Blakey Ridge.

The good news was that the last 8 miles was going to be nice and flat (a blessing for our feet that were by now screaming at us with quiet a few new blisters). The bad news was that those 8 miles along a disused rail track (originally used for the lead mining in the area) were very very very long and became a new challenge in of itself with progress seemingly very slow.

I have never been so happy to see a pub in my entire life when we eventually got to the Lion Inn; a seat, some dinner and 5 pints of lime and soda then off to bed for a well earned sleep. Over 45 miles during the last two days have really taken it out of us and we’re very happy that tomorrow will be our shortest day at just over 9 miles.

One last inane fact - we are sleeping at the 4th highest Inn in the UK this evening. Hopefully the altitude won’t disrupt us from a nice deep slumber.

Night, night.

---