it felt rather odd today to get up and not put on hiking boots and head East! i still managed to walk 8 miles exploring York but it definitely wasn't a hike! I do want to catch up in the last two days of the Coast to Coast. We left our wonderful farm on Friday morning in the misty rain. We were hopeful that the heavy rain was ending and most of us shed our rain pants in the first hour when we were walking through a beautiful wooded area. This path ended at a lovely waterfall with an outdoor tearoom where we had tea and other goodies. It didn't matter that we had just had a full English breakfast just two hours earlier! Unfortunately, our hopes of improving weather were dashed as we headed into ... read more

For the first time, Internet was so poor last night that I wasn't able to write. We were staying on a farm outside the village of Glaisdale and Internet was only sporadic. We had another relatively short and easy walk across the heather covered moors. We arrived in the small village of Glaisdale too early to go to the farm so we thought we'd walk to the next town and take the bus back. Someone directed us to the path but it turned out to be the wrong direction. We ended up back at the only pub in town when we realized we were headed the wrong way. We saw the guy who sent us and he apologized saying he thought we were doing the coast to coast from East to West. We decided just to ... read more

We were all a bit sad to leave our B&B this morning....while all have been wonderful and each unique in its own way, Park House was extra special. The setting and rooms were beautiful, both the dinner and the breakfast were exceptionally good and we enjoyed talking with the proprietor and the 4 other guests. Today was another great hike. We are now in the North Moors National Park and today's hike was mostly on the same path as the Cleveland Way (Another well-known long distance path in England) We went up and down all day crossing over several high moors, the total ascent today was over 3000 ft.with comparable descent! It was definitely a "roller coaster" hike. The most exciting part of today was seeing all the heather....it is just beginning to turn the hillsides ... read more

We actually managed to find our way out of town today without getting lost! In fact, we didn't get lost at all today which was a good thing since the walk was already 15+ miles. This was the first day where the walk was rather tedious and somewhat boring. It was mostly flat with most of the walking through farmland as well as a number of miles along roads. I have enjoyed the farms and pastures on previous days because I loved seeing the sheep and cows, but today was primarily through fields of grain...wheat, barley, poppy, hay. When I complained at one point about the monotony of the scenery, Pat reminded me that the barley growing was mostly going to the wonderful beer we have been drinking! We did walk through one small hamlet (Bolton ... read more

Our day began as many others have....having difficulty getting on the right trail out of town. Today we lost close to an hour and 11/2 miles at the start of our day's walk. We put part of the blame on our guidebook which said to "cross the bridge" after leaving the path. We did cross the bridge and the subsequent directions and signposts seemed okay for awhile. It turns out we were supposed to cross the bridge when we exited the path but not actually cross the river...just cross the road. Anyway, we are all ready to take a cab to the trail when we leave Richmond! We did end up having another great day walking. The weather looked threatening in the morning but we only had clouds....no rain at all and the sun came out ... read more